Quotes

A cameraman is often the savior of a film. His lighting can be the main factor in its success.

[on how he got into the film business] I got a job as a painter's assistant in the paint department at the old Thomas H. Ince Studios. Henry Hathaway and I were property boys together, at Inceville, where Sunset Boulevard comes into the ocean. The New York Motion Picture Company had leased this land and put Tom Ince in charge of it.

[about Crime Without Passion (1934)] I directed about 60-70 per cent of the picture; we'd start at 9:00 a.m. and some days Hecht [Ben Hecht] was there, some days MacArthur [Charles MacArthur]; they'd start working on the picture at eleven a.m.! So they relied on me. They set the style of how they wanted the dialogue done, and I would direct the whole physical side of it.

[interviewed in 1967]: I'm very sympathetic with all the cinematic changes that have taken place in Europe over the last ten years or so. We try to be too perfectionist here, and that makes everything look too manufactured.

[on working with Ben Hecht and Charles Macarthur on their own films]: Financially, the association with them hurt me; professionally, it helped me.