American Cinematographer - September 2004 - 89

A Man of Many

Hats
and he said, 'All

right, that's fine.
spend too much money, and

any problem - they could come

Don't

go as

and tell

men,

come

when I

me

can see

it.

We'll sell it. Your

job is to make the
films, our job is to sell them.' With
Rank, nobody ever came to see our
rushes."

with the end of the

In 1944,

clearly in sight, Rank sent
Neame to Hollywood. "I was sent
the States

to

to

look

at every¬

thing that was happening in the way
of equipment in Hollywood so that
we could
re-equip in Britain and
catch up," he recalls. "One of the
things I had to do was to see if I
could buy six Mitchell cameras. The
Mitchell

Neame

today.

Rank, the
He

man

with the gong logo.

religious man. His
family was in flour - they were
millers
and he was very wealthy.
was

a

very

-

best

show

them

when

"When I
I

was

came

treated like

to

Hollywood,

lord because I

a

representative of Arthur

so many
American films in Britain. The first

man

he has
minute

show in them

to

now

religious films

-

are

15-

the rest of

the movies had to be from America.

"As
needed

a

result, he felt that he

bit of bargaining power -
the Americans could charge what¬
a

they wanted for their films with
impunity, because he just had to
have them. So Arthur Rank really got
all of us young characters together:
ever

I

met

Fox, who

was sort

the studio. He

ever

was

was

also

a

of like the boss of

camera¬
and the most confident man I

met.

He would

light something

and walk away from it, leave it alone,
whereas a lot of cameramen kept

changing things between takes.
Through Shamroy I met Charles
Rosher [ASC], Joe Ruttenberg
[ASC] and several others. I had

Shamroy and suggested
that maybe we should have an
arrangement: if a permit was issued
allow an American

cameraman

come

to

Pressburger, Walter and
Sidney Gilliat, Laurence Olivier -
the list goes on. Arthur put us
together, and he was absolutely

have

a

marvelous.

lock, because after the

was

a

wonderful

September 2004

a

chat with

to

to

England, we should then
permit allowing British

cameramen to come to

America. We

Brits wanted to try to find some way
to solve what had become a dead¬
war we really
stripes, and we
afraid that things would revert

felt we'd earned
were

our

the way they had been before the
war. With directors, there was never
to

England.
Gradually, the situation eased,
to

later

I

directed
was

was
made here, and my cameraman,
Arthur
Ibbetson,
came
to

Hollywood without
Also, Ossie Morris
with

no

difficulties

any

problems.

came over

to

shoot

a

here

lot of

pictures for John Huston, and Jack
Cardiff [BSC] also came over."
In

very, very power¬

splendid

Emeric

It

Leon

Shamroy [ASC] at 20th Century-

David Lean, me, Michael Powell,

period, because we had no interfer¬
ence of any kind. When we wanted
to make Brief Encounter [1946], for
example, we went to 'Uncle Arthur'

was

an

work in

Hopscotch [1980], part of it
made in England and part of it

further and

theaters, and all

little bit of resentment when

because

ful. He

800

them, I don't know, but for

& Howells and other models.

British theater circuit. Then he went

bought Odeon. So

to

only two; otherwise we used old Bell

cameraman

man owns

motion-

threat

years no British cameraman could
work in the States, and there was a

came

they were very dull and very
boring. He was quite determined to
show his religious films, though, so
he bought the whole Gaumont-

this

"So Leon called a meeting of
leading cameramen of the time.
It was a highly successful meeting
and everybody liked the idea very
much, but apparently the idea had to
be presented to the total [union]
membership - the operators and all
those people - and they turned it
down. Whether they thought it was a

American

Rank, who distributed

because

76

the

was

came as a

wouldn't

couldn't work in

camera in the world at the
time. In all of Britain, there were

minute

theaters

cameramen

picture

He made these small 10- and 15-

religious films, but the

British

the States.
the

war

over

and

they pleased. But for camera¬
it was very tough; for years,

a

sense,

Neame's

1944

Hollywood jaunt was a failure. There
was no
exchange agreement, and
Mitchell wouldn't agree to sell him
the six cameras because the company
wouldn't accept pounds and the
Britons couldn't pay in dollars. But
Neame got

he returned

his sweet revenge when
to England and learned

that Mitchell had

never

taken

out a

patent on its camera in the British
Isles. He found a precision machine

shop called Newall Engineering and
asked if they could duplicate the
Mitchell. They said they could, but
that it wouldn't be worth their while
to

make fewer than 50

-

and Rank

only needed six. However, Rank
agreed to purchase all 50 cameras
and eventually sold the remaining 44
to other British producers.
Although
the Newall

was

the Mitchell,
was

better

not

quite

as

good

as

according to Neame, it
than any other English

bCLNRuoeocarnnamayesldl.
Phootf
American Cinematographer - September 2004

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