Lionel Banes

Forename/s: 
Lionel
Family name: 
Banes
Work area/craft/role: 
Industry: 
Interview Number: 
45
Interview Date(s): 
28 Jul 1988
4 Feb 1993
Interviewer/s: 
Production Media: 
Duration (mins): 
185

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Interview
Interview notes

Peter Sargent conducted interview on 28 Jul 1988 (sides 1-2), and Alan Lawson on 4 Feb 1993 (3-4).  Note on 4 Feb 1993 interview indicated the interview discussed working with Gunter Kampf and O.H.O. Miller in the 1930s.

Transcript

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Unknown Speaker  0:04  
The copyright of this recording is vested in the ACTT History Project.

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Lionel Baynes, lighting cameraman, interviewer, Peter Sargent, recorded on the 28th of July, 1988

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side one.

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Well done. I'm going to ask you some questions. First of all, on your early life,

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where and when were you born? I was born in Manchester, 19 104

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and yesterday, had my 84th birthday. Congratulations. Thank you, yes.

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What sort of schooling Did you receive?

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I went to

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I came to London at the age of five, and went to a school in Ilford in Essex.

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About 1917

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we removed to Muswell Hill in North London, and I went to the

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wait.

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It doesn't matter if it's a local Trinity.

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Kind of something like a grammar school. Yes, this is

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because your parents came up to London. That's right, yes. And when you came to Marshall Hill, was it to live in the road you're in now, or different part? No, that was, this is Finchley, yes.

Unknown Speaker  1:41  
That was muscle Hill. Yeah, yeah, when you, before you started work, did you have any specialized training? Because I know that. I think you went in some who do with furs. Yes, my father was in the fur trade. And I naturally, you know,

Unknown Speaker  2:00  
hearing all these conversation and that did acquire a fair knowledge. Fair knowledge, yes.

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Did you enjoy that?

Unknown Speaker  2:14  
Yes, to an extent, because you traveled in Germany, didn't you? I know you could speak German.

Unknown Speaker  2:20  
Well, I I learned, I did learn German. Can never master the grammar, no, very well, no.

Unknown Speaker  2:31  
And then you started in the film industry when,

Unknown Speaker  2:37  
as in 1930 I started at Gainsborough studios in Islam what made you chuck up first and go there? Or I, I absolutely just love photography doing at that time. Stills no but when I was I suppose as young as about 17 or 18, I joined an amateur Film Society. I think it was cool, the amateur Film Society. Then it was quite a big would that have been 16 millimeter or nine players? 1616,

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mil? Yeah. And I then met quite a few.

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Particularly

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I can't just think of his name now, quite a well known

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cine photographer, yes, and he did this just a sort of relaxation, yes, right, yes, yes. And he helped people. And, you know, we worked on an amateur film, yes, together. Yes, yeah, black and white, black and white. Yes, I remember that we using then Cee Lo Oh, yes, the Alfred, Alfred, yes. Was it reversal or no? Negative? Yeah, yes, they had both, but I worked with negative. Yes. What did your parents think when you said, I'm going to give up first? And my father

Unknown Speaker  4:03  
wasn't very pleased. He seemed to infer that the doing anything to do with photographers, as though you were just going to knock on people's doors and ask, can we take your photographs, yeah, which you and I did before the war has quite true. For a period.

Unknown Speaker  4:27  
They didn't have any connections with the industry, though, did not at all, no, so you did have to knock on doors. Then, how did you get into Joe? I wrote many letters to different film studios at that time, yes,

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and

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from

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most of them simply said that they really weren't interested. But when I wrote round about a second time, gainsboroughs at.

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Did reply and said they would give me an interview,

Unknown Speaker  5:04  
and at pool Street in pool street Islington, and after the interview, he said, Yes, we will. Was that Ted black or something? No, he wasn't there. Then, Phil Samuel Oh, Phil Samuels, Phil Samuels, yes, and he,

Unknown Speaker  5:26  
yes.

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He introduced me to the camera man at that time,

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English camera man, a very, very good camera man, but

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he,

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he used to drink no no before the first another Percy, yeah. And

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then I started on a film.

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On the Yes, I started on the day that the film

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commence production.

Unknown Speaker  6:07  
The Hound of the basket. Oh, yes. I mean, what were your duties then?

Unknown Speaker  6:14  
Loading clappers. But for a very short time, because I was able to, because of my knowledge of photography, to pull focus, and that better than the person who was then employed there to do that. What camera were you working? They had two or three cameras. They had one standard Mitchell

Unknown Speaker  6:43  
in a blimp.

Unknown Speaker  6:44  
Yes, they had a homemade blimp that that went in and a bell and howl. Was that in like the telephone booth and that had to go in a telephone booth a bell and howl? Yes,

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used to make a noise as though one was playing a kettle drum. Yes, what

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were you paid?

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30 shillings a week? That was a fortune.

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I was told see the studio manager there

Unknown Speaker  7:18  
was named Harold box all he told me that I'd be paid 30 shilling a week for three months, and that after that, I'd have an increase to three pounds. But I remember having a press very hard about the fourth and fifth month. What about the increase?

Unknown Speaker  7:42  
The thing is that they did have a Trainee Scheme. Didn't they operate? Not there, but that was a that was later. Was it? Yes, but you that was a flat 30 showings a week. Yes, get overtime? No, I used to work from about eight in the morning till 2am

Unknown Speaker  7:58  
the next morning, practically every day, how did you get home? They used to have taxis. Yes, they used to send you home in taxes.

Unknown Speaker  8:09  
And I can remember, if ever I finished work before 10 at night, it feel like today finishing work at about six o'clock in the evening. Yes, that was dizzy, yes. I used to think, Oh, I'll see my parents and relations. They won't be in bed. There's no good having a girlfriend. In those days, you'd never see No. I remember I could never, never date up to go to a dance or do anything, because that particular night you'd work, oh yes. And all day, Saturdays and Sundays. Yes, I know I've done eight weeks without any weekend off at all. What sort of apart from lunch, did you get an evening meal provided if you were after eight o'clock, they used to break for half an hour and give something like fried egg on chips, very greasy on the set. Or did you go? No, you used to go. You went to the canteen? Yes, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  9:12  
Because working under those conditions then, too, it was a lot hotter, wasn't it? Because, well, particularly in Gainsborough, because that had been built by an American company. I'd been told to prove they had to make quota films here then from 1927

Unknown Speaker  9:30  
and they picked on that area because they were told, because there's a canal at the back of the studio, there'd always be a fog, and they wanted to prove that they couldn't make films in England. So when Sir Michael Balkan based, he was not a sir. Then when he bought the studios, he had some plant put in in order to try and do away with this fog. And it was.

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
Horrific heat, terrible heat, because the studios, at one time have been a power station, that's right. And then famous players last key, there's a place

Unknown Speaker  10:10  
that built the for that. It was Gainsborough, Welsh Pearson wasn't with George Pearson, no, he might have taken it over before. This is China before Sir Michael did. But

Unknown Speaker  10:25  
the then a power station, and the tube from the old street ran right underneath a power station. And then the famous Lasky players, they came over from the States, and they had it built

Unknown Speaker  10:41  
to do the quota pictures, because the studios are still there. I believe there's a carpet warehouse or something. Yes, been told, yes. Can you describe your experiences on some of the early films? Particularly, I believe you went on location with the camels are coming to Egypt also. Now, I never went, didn't you? I didn't go

Unknown Speaker  11:05  
at that time, I was working on another film, and I was about to get married. How did you manage that with the long hours to find someone?

Unknown Speaker  11:19  
Well, was she in the film industry? No, well, she had been in Paris, but didn't know there was no connection. No, it's my fiance. Then had been a secretary to a French film sister. Fiance, your present wife, yes, yes. And could she speak English when you made her

Unknown Speaker  11:41  
she was a school in England, very near to our house, learning English. And when I met her, she could already speak English quite well, and she didn't find a thought of never seeing you hardly

Unknown Speaker  11:57  
well. I told her what had happened.

Unknown Speaker  12:02  
And when you

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mentioned the camels are coming, I was working on another film at night, times

Unknown Speaker  12:12  
on the location at night, and I was sleeping during the daytime. As a matter of fact, I remember in the garden because it was beautiful, hot summer, and

Unknown Speaker  12:26  
my mother said, You wanted on the phone. I'm going to the phone. I found it was the studio manager, Edward black, yes, who said, Oh, we want you to come in right away. He said, pack your case, ready to go to Cairo to go on to the camels are coming, because they're not getting on too well. So I said, I can't, because, you know, I'm

Unknown Speaker  12:54  
having my holiday soon and we'll get married. He said, Oh, you put that off. Put it off.

Unknown Speaker  13:01  
Cancel it. I said, I just can't do that. Everything is booked, and the hotel in I get him married in Paris, as you know, and the hotel, you know, with the reception, and everything is booked, and, you know, my French family won't understand. So I just can't do it. I remember he was very annoyed. And

Unknown Speaker  13:28  
as a matter of fact, I know they sent Jack Asher out in instead of me. Was this for focus pulling?

Unknown Speaker  13:35  
They would have been operating. I've been operating. Yes. Then

Unknown Speaker  13:39  
what other films at that time. Can you remember? Did you work on any Sicily court niche? Oh, yes, I worked on all the Sicily coordinates on the ghost Jack. How Bert, yes, the ghost train was the first one.

Unknown Speaker  13:52  
And then there were about three, three others, I think were made there. I don't remember the titles. I do remember one in which Jack Holbert was a sweep

Unknown Speaker  14:07  
you didn't work on. Sunshine. Susie, yes. Sunshine, yes, yes, which was everything at the German of a German film. Renata Muller playing the role, the leading role. I don't remember who the male was. Well, Jack Halbert

Unknown Speaker  14:26  
was in chan chance, that's correct. Flies call up the window,

Unknown Speaker  14:32  
yes, and he did some terrific dancing. That's right, yes, that's right. Did you find that he took a long time to get going? And always Jack Holbert. I mean, he'd read his script, and he'd never really learn it by heart. He'd suddenly say, you know, I think we can improve this. And they break for about an hour or more, in which he tried to rewrite it. I.

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
Or to stay that he ought to, you know, walk round here or jump round there. Well, I remember an occasion with him when he came out with a brilliant idea after about two hours of rehearsing, and the director said, but that's what you've been already doing for two hours. He just didn't seem to remember, no any others you'd like to talk about.

Unknown Speaker  15:22  
I That's I need reminding, in a way, yes, well, it's difficult because I wasn't there then. But by then, had things changed at all were cameras, different films. By then, we'd purchased new cameras. They bought a camera they call the Cinnabon from Prague in Czechoslovakia. Otto canterrick, I believe, now, Otto canterrick, who was a Czechoslovakian cameraman working in London, he'd been the means of going round every studio and trying to sell these cameras and gainsboroughs were the first to to buy them. They, first of all, bought two that were not really silent, but they were somewhat blimp, yes.

Unknown Speaker  16:19  
And after running them for about a week, the gears inside completely snapped.

Unknown Speaker  16:29  
And Roy collino and I, we took both the cameras, got in a taxi and went to see George Hill of Newman and Sinclair on Highgate Hill, and in front of us, he took several sized screwdrivers and undid all the exterior of the camera, putting them all in empty film tins, all the bits and pieces. Showed us the gear wheels and said, All I can make new ones out of, I don't know if it was brass or some other material then. And we phoned back to the studio manager. So he said, Yes, tell him to go ahead. He did that very quickly. And we got those two cameras back working very well. If I remember the motor driving. It hung under the tribe, and

Unknown Speaker  17:25  
a flexible shaft was as the drive. And I used to snap, yes, they could do. And then we bought they made a more modern camera, and the same farm did. It was much better for silence. It was pretty well blimp.

Unknown Speaker  17:45  
And so we bought two of those as well. So Gainsborough had named four senaphones and gomont British.

Unknown Speaker  17:56  
They bought, I think, about four of those, because I remember, and I worked with you as your focus puller at Goon on British later, we used to have either dance to put over. Yes, sounds said they were not and then they tore and the feathers used to come out all over the That's right, yes, yeah. What's the cinephone? Did you look through the base of the film when you were operating? Yes, you look right through the film, yes, very difficult to see through. Yes, COVID, particularly when they bought out, they backed. What did it go? Great back. Yes, yeah, yes. And also, of course, depending on the amount of light, the smaller the aperture, the harder it got. Yes, and you had a black cloth,

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a black cloth,

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and

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yes, you'd go under that black clock before a take started, in order to get your eye accustomed to see if you were on exterior, she really couldn't come out for a cup of tea, because now go back under Ferran once you're in a bright light, you couldn't see again. What was the production like in those early days compared with much later. Did it change much? Not so very much. No, there was still like director, assistant director, and the

Unknown Speaker  19:12  
and sound seemed to cope quite well. Sound used to cope very well, very well, yes. And of course, they couldn't play their rushes back at the stuff back like they can today. No, no, no. They used to cope, apart from the boom. They'd often tie a microphone in a hidden thing on a table and cope with it in Yes, what was the crew then? Did you have a grips as a member of the crew? Was it? Yes,

Unknown Speaker  19:43  
not a not in my first year or two,

Unknown Speaker  19:48  
but after I'd been there about two years, there was always one grip

Unknown Speaker  19:53  
who was on the crew, because you mentioned Roy Cole. Now he subsequently married Pamela Ross.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
Her, he became Pamela Colina, and he was then promoted to lighting. That's right, yes, but didn't you work with a legendary camera man called Percy strong? Yes, I worked on

Unknown Speaker  20:14  
one film we made was

Unknown Speaker  20:17  
soldiers of the king with Sicily cornage in, and he was the lighting camera man on that picture. Didn't you have to lock him in one time, I was the only one who could cope with him. Once he'd have a few drinks,

Unknown Speaker  20:39  
and we were working in a theater, the princes theater,

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near Leicester Square.

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And one morning,

Unknown Speaker  20:51  
when we started work at 830 didn't turn up, and somewhere about near 11 o'clock, Roy collino had been lighting in the meantime, about 11 o'clock, who, yes, he was the first operator, but on that morning, as Percy hadn't turned up, he was lighting. And about 11 o'clock, Percy turned up, and well, the worse for drink and he said to me, and I've been arrested.

Unknown Speaker  21:27  
And on querying him that not far from the theater, he crashed at a crossing into another car, and the other driver accused him that it was his fault, so he'd hit the other driver, and the police would come along. And then he

Unknown Speaker  21:51  
he started to light, but he just wasn't, wasn't capable. He was penning the light as people walked so I said, you come along and come and talk to me and have a coffee. I took him down into a dressing room that was also our loading room.

Unknown Speaker  22:14  
And I said, you know, you the man's hit you, you know you're a bit bruised, lie down, and I made him a kind of a bench. I lay him down there, and thought, I hope he goes off to sleep with a drink. And then I left him there. And then suddenly, Jack Asher comes up to me. He said, Come down and deal with Percy. I've got to reload some film. We must have some mags reloaded. And he's banging on the door, shouting that if I open the door, He'll murder me.

Unknown Speaker  22:55  
And so I went down there before opening the door, managed to calm him down. Then I opened the door, and he didn't hit me, as he said he would. And

Unknown Speaker  23:08  
so I had to go then above to the production manager, and he had to be carried into a taxi and send home. Was he English? Yes.

Unknown Speaker  23:21  
Yes,

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because

Unknown Speaker  23:26  
I suppose at that time

Unknown Speaker  23:29  
that's late 40s or 50s, so he must have worked in Charlotte. Oh, yes. He had Yes, yes. When you say his English, I believe he came from the Bristol area. Oh, I'm not certain of that, but I think by conversations I've had, yes,

Unknown Speaker  23:46  
you left gainsboroughs to move to Lion Grove in Well, I was transferred in about 1934

Unknown Speaker  23:56  
I was transferred to Go months. Yes, yes, that's when I met you. That's right. Yes, that's right.

Unknown Speaker  24:05  
Can you remember much about what I suppose working conditions were much the same as No, they were much better at go months. We didn't seem to work late every night, so often as we did at Gainsborough. One of the things, if I remember, most films used to have first and second camera allocated, yes to it, yes. I was Goon months. I was a second second camera operator. Yes, but it didn't seem to speed up things much. Films seem to take a long time to make. Anyway, in spite of the hours, no, no, the speed of production was about the same, yes. I mean, you had to do everything at the tunnel. I remember, yes. Can you remember anything about the films that go

Unknown Speaker  24:50  
months? Well, I remember a funny incident, and if I remember, I think you were with me on the film called the tunnel. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  25:01  
When there were, I think, three cameras side by side,

Unknown Speaker  25:06  
which I was one, and one of the operators who

Unknown Speaker  25:13  
could tell marvelous jokes and that when he wasn't working. But every time he went to to work. He was

Unknown Speaker  25:23  
just lost his mirror, that's right. I didn't know if I should mention the name, and he fixed the flag up. And the end he had to pan and panned into the flag. And this he saw it in his finder or looking through the camera, he suddenly got from behind the camera banging to dash it out the way

Unknown Speaker  25:52  
Richard Dix was in that film.

Unknown Speaker  25:55  
Yes. I mean, he came out from Hollywood, because that's right. Goons tried to bring American stars, that's right,

Unknown Speaker  26:03  
yes.

Unknown Speaker  26:05  
What about any other films go months

Unknown Speaker  26:11  
you worked with me on a film called ohms. Do you remember that? Yes, yes. I remember that very well. Wallace Ford, John Wallace Ford

Unknown Speaker  26:22  
and

Unknown Speaker  26:25  
yes, at effect, I think on that, who directed

Unknown Speaker  26:31  
Raoul Walsh, an American Yes, Raoul Walsh. And I think I was first camera No.

Unknown Speaker  26:40  
Was first clues, Dudley love Oh yeah, focus, yes, that's right, yeah. And I know we were on location at Amesbury and all the shot, that's right. And that, I believe,

Unknown Speaker  26:54  
was almost one of the last films that was made at that go month Yes, before they closed down, did you work with Jesse Matthews at all? Yes, I worked, first of all at the first film I made with Jesse Matthews was at becksfield Studios.

Unknown Speaker  27:15  
They sent me over there from Gainsborough, as while I was still at Gainsborough,

Unknown Speaker  27:21  
that was due to

Unknown Speaker  27:23  
nuts,

Unknown Speaker  27:27  
green down.

Unknown Speaker  27:41  
Much Greenbaum was a camera man, and we became Max green. Yes, when the war broke out, he changed him anglicized his name to max green. But we'd been working from gainsboroughs on a location in welling Garden City,

Unknown Speaker  28:02  
and there were some great plate glass windows there, and in a rag that took place,

Unknown Speaker  28:10  
particularly much Greenbaum, they'd all been throwing things at these great plate glass windows and smashed them all to smithereens. They all went straight home from the location, but I had to take the cameras, go back with the cameras to gainsboroughs and Ted Black was there saying, what's this about? You smashing all the plate glass windows. You know, there were 1000s of pounds you'll have to pay for them. Was this on a set the windows, an exterior set? Yes, an exterior set. And I

Unknown Speaker  28:53  
said, Well,

Unknown Speaker  28:58  
quite a number of people were all throwing things at the windows. And when I got home, my phone notes and told him, I said, Now you better prepare your defense. So he said, Well, I'm going to beckons field. And he said, I'll want you to come with me. Said, I'll fix it tonight. You come straight to beckons field tomorrow. So that's how I got on that picture with Jesse. Matthew wasn't

Unknown Speaker  29:32  
a midship made no, I think I'm not certain it was called almost a bride.

Unknown Speaker  29:39  
Get over who else was in theirs was a great actor of of his day. Yes. Owen, theirs, yes. Did you work with Alfred Hitchcock? Yes, at Gainsborough, at Goon, no go month. Erwin Lee, were you on the 39 steps? On the 39 steps?

Unknown Speaker  30:00  
And then also go months

Unknown Speaker  30:05  
I,

Unknown Speaker  30:07  
I was put they had Leslie rouston doing models in a factory on Western Avenue. And I went there, and he,

Unknown Speaker  30:21  
if you can remember he went asleep, yes, when he should have been working, and I lit them and shot it. And every day, when the rushes arrived, Lesley, when he shot them, had to go to go months and show them to Hitchcock. But when my day's work came, he said, Well, I never shot them. You go with them yourself. So I went there, and I remember that in the theater, Hitchcock saying to me, Well, you have to sit on my left. Sit on my left. So I sat on his on his left. We saw the rushes, and it was a railway coach with passengers at the tables, and a great crash

Unknown Speaker  31:14  
had occurred, and all these bodies and, you know, got thrown up, and the ceiling forward, backward and that. And I thought, you know, I made a jolly good job. You know, I'm very pleased. The lights came up, and hitch looked at me, you know, and his eyes used to sometimes really glare at you. And I thought, What's he going to say? So he said, he said, You're a very good camera man. He said, That's photographically Very good. He said, But you're a bad director.

Unknown Speaker  31:51  
So I said, Director, you know, they're all little wooden figures. So he said, wooden or whatever they are, he said, You've directed them very badly.

Unknown Speaker  32:05  
He said, Now you go back, you'll do it again. He said, and they wouldn't all leave their seats at the same time, he said, and so many would hit this ceiling, and so many and go to the right, so many to the left. They'd all do different things. So he said, you direct them this time and do that. So I went back, and if you remember, the model man was Guido Guido bordi, the Italian. And so he sat down for a bit and contemplated, and I said to him, Well, could we stick plastic seed on the seats and sides and backs of the figures, and that would, you know, give a split second before? So he said, Yes, we'll try that. And I shot it again. And the following day, when I went back to hitch, he was quite, quite pleased with me. That was for a film called sabotage.

Unknown Speaker  33:08  
Was that what it was? Yes. And in fact, he went out on television about two months ago. I'm sorry I didn't see it. And what you were doing the model work for was for back projection played

Unknown Speaker  33:19  
because they had in the foreground of your shot, a life size train interior,

Unknown Speaker  33:26  
yeah, oh, we also did, apart from that coach, I did many other model shots of the train coming along a railway line, and even an airplane flying above and bombing me. Yeah, that's right, yes, I did a lot for that. I also did

Unknown Speaker  33:45  
models for another of Hitchcock picture. I can't remember much about No, because Hitchcock made

Unknown Speaker  33:53  
little friend. Man, you knew too much. Secret Agent, 39 steps and sabotage, not in that order. I think I did something for secret agent. Yes, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  34:05  
Did you do much location work in those days? Well, any film I was on that would have to go on location, I'd have gone away with that film because, in my opinion, they tried to steer clear of working outside, if they could build a set, if they could, yes, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  34:27  
Did you go overseas at all?

Unknown Speaker  34:34  
Gains booth,

Unknown Speaker  34:36  
no,

Unknown Speaker  34:39  
I don't think you did at Goon, I don't think I did at go months, no, no.

Unknown Speaker  34:45  
What was the equipment like when we've been internet when you started? But by now, has it changed at all? Well, at go months, they'd bought two debris cameras the French harbor two.

Unknown Speaker  35:00  
Parvo. And I remember operating for gun, for cramp,

Unknown Speaker  35:05  
also a German camera man, and he'd only let me use that super par though, and

Unknown Speaker  35:13  
they used to going for a lot of Gaussian,

Unknown Speaker  35:16  
oh, clamp put diffusing lenses on that he told me had made in Budapest, and so I'd nicknamed them the Hungarian Rhapsody.

Unknown Speaker  35:29  
But also, they used Astro lenses a lot on the

Unknown Speaker  35:35  
on the cinephone cameras that came from Czechoslovakia. They all Astro lenses, and they were all on the soft, soft side, because as a focus puller, before you operated, it was a far harder job than, I think nowadays, because when I was worked, you worked at full open aperture,

Unknown Speaker  35:55  
and directors often used fairly long focus lenses. That's quite right, the three inch lens. Very, very often, yes, yes, yes. I remember doing the dancing thing with somebody with a 75 mil.

Unknown Speaker  36:10  
Did you use cranes, back projection, all that sort of thing. Match

Unknown Speaker  36:15  
back projection,

Unknown Speaker  36:19  
trying to think Friday the 13th.

Unknown Speaker  36:23  
Picture made at Gainsborough and

Unknown Speaker  36:27  
Jesse Matthews, no, no, I don't think so.

Unknown Speaker  36:34  
Friday the 13th. He's a bus conductor, yes. Well, a Sonny Hale, that's right. Well, I think she was in Friday the 13th, too. I don't remember her because that went out the other afternoon on television. Oh,

Unknown Speaker  36:48  
I say, Well, you jog my memory up.

Unknown Speaker  36:52  
Well, I can remember the was an American Camera Man,

Unknown Speaker  37:00  
Charlie van anger. Charlie van anger. He was the camera man on that and he,

Unknown Speaker  37:09  
to my amazement,

Unknown Speaker  37:12  
lit with flood did all the filling in on the bat projection with flood lights that were going all over the screen,

Unknown Speaker  37:23  
because it was a problem in those days to get enough light onto the screen anyway, wasn't yes at that time, because the film wasn't very fast and the projector didn't have a very powerful Arc Light, and then you had the problem of lack of depth of field between your artists and the screen. Yes, Frank, he was near the screen as possible with the artist and I believe again, Lime Grove go months Jack Whitehead did a lot of back projection

Unknown Speaker  37:53  
at

Unknown Speaker  37:55  
go months Jack Whitehead tried to specialize in shooting the plates and being present when they were being filmed, because they made a great mystery of back projection. Didn't they tried to Yes, yes. Did you ever work on the shift and process? Oh yes, very often, particularly when I was

Unknown Speaker  38:18  
an operator to gun for cramp, because he used it whenever he could to aid his

Unknown Speaker  38:27  
shift and in Berlin. And

Unknown Speaker  38:32  
yes, I remember then that that's

Unknown Speaker  38:35  
one day when he was discussing with one of the shift and technicians what they do on that I heard him saying, well, we'll take the magazine off and develop a test and see. And I started taking the magazine off. They were talking in German, and gunford turned around. He said, Do you know what we're talking about? So I said, Yes, I do, I can follow.

Unknown Speaker  39:02  
So from that days, he said to me, well, you'll come over to go months and be my operator. The did we're using rituals for the shift to Noel.

Unknown Speaker  39:17  
I think we often did because of steadiness. Yes, yes. I think we often did. I mean, it was very good process, but it was limiting. Well, really, when I think back, you could do just as well with a glass shot, and I've done it much quicker. Yes, yes, it's true. Yes, did you ever work on the Dunning process? Yes, what act gains at gainsboroughs? I used to hate the thought of going on it, because you used to work for hours and hours. It was slow because you had two magazines, really, that you put on the camera. One, there was a plate and.

Unknown Speaker  40:00  
That had been shot first as a BP plate would be and that was had special processing in Hollywood. They used to process it. I know that they started there in 1927

Unknown Speaker  40:15  
with it. Two brothers named the Dunning brothers, started that. But then Humphreys in Whitfield street, they got the agency to do it, and they could

Unknown Speaker  40:30  
make a correct plate, as done in Hollywood.

Unknown Speaker  40:35  
And it was a Amber print so thin that you could hardly see a picture on it,

Unknown Speaker  40:44  
and that was put on the top part of the magazine and threaded through the camera in front of your raw, unexposed film. And they went through the camera together. The

Unknown Speaker  41:00  
foreground subject was lit with yellow light, both a set and artist lit with yellow light, and there was a big background lit by blue light. And how the process worked, the yellow light came through the yellow Amber film as though it wasn't there and exposed itself correctly, and the blue light it filtered

Unknown Speaker  41:27  
just got through the amber and like printed, printed the picture that was on the amber color film. And it was like having a mat traveling in the camera, traveling in the camera, you have any problems using double thickness of film the cameras, no, no. And the next morning, he saw the rushes, and it used to come out very well. Why I say I hated the thought of doing it as you can only have 400 feet of

Unknown Speaker  42:01  
plate in the camera should an art well, because you had to put on your camera, as I say, two magazines that have been warded into one. And so if an artist fluffed and they shouted, cut, you had to take the magazine back and rewind the plates and reload again with negative. So used to go on all night. Yes,

Unknown Speaker  42:33  
at that time, it was all shock Academy. Wasn't it all Academy? Yes, yes,

Unknown Speaker  42:39  
if I remember in your earlier days at Lion Grove, you and I met up with a wonderful old character called Joe Rosenthal, yes, whose father had literally done the usual coverage of the Boer War. Yes. And lots of people don't believe it, but Joe was experimenting then with his own two color process. Yeah, yes. And we were using a German camera with a big motor that stuck out the back, that you used to get a shock off every time your ear touch. Wasn't it a French or was it French? A French camera? Yes, ah, I've forgotten the name. And it had two sets of lenses, cook and Astro, and you could shoot sound on it, because it was designed for, that's right, I knew Israel, yes, yeah, and it weighed a ton, yes, but I think Joe was using that yes, but I don't think he ever got anywhere. I never saw any No, no. He never know, because I afterwards even knew the lab he used to send it to the chap running a small lab somewhere in Barnes, yes, and that had been a silent film studio before, and he took me there and showed me where they were reprinting all his fathers negative proved the Boer War automatic bones. That's the name of the lab. I think yes, was known as acrobatic.

Unknown Speaker  43:57  
But Joe, at the time, was getting frantic to get results, because it was coming up to the coronation of King George the six, that's right. Hoped to use his team color, yes, because they wouldn't allow any extra light. Well, I did a test of that. Actually in Westminster Abbey,

Unknown Speaker  44:15  
Joe had got at the back of him

Unknown Speaker  44:19  
a lord

Unknown Speaker  44:21  
can't remember his name, and he was back in Joe, yes, and so they said we could do a test in Westminster Abbey, because one morning, Technicolor with Jack Cardiff were going to do a test, and they said we could shoot one at the same time. This was a three strip.

Unknown Speaker  44:45  
Oh, the Technicolor was, but I did the test in the two, two color for Joe, and of course, against Technicolor, it was turned down. Yeah, I'm going to turn over.

Speaker 1  0:00  
That's a side two. Right. Go ahead. We've been talking about Dunning and shifting and so on, but the BP screens were used then, what were they made of?

Speaker 2  0:14  
Well, I don't know if it was a seller, lawyers or a paper. The earliest time I seem to take an interest was when they were being manufactured in in borehamwood, in the old film studio near the station. And I think by then they were making encelad,

Speaker 1  0:39  
yes, yes. I believe one of the big problems then too, was getting rid of the hot spot from the projector in the center of this yes, that

Speaker 2  0:47  
that occurred for quite a long while, and we found the best way of doing that was by cutting a piece of filter, usually a yellow one, cutting it in star shape and putting that in front of the projection lens, some about half a yard in front of the lens. Yes, and that you could cut the hot spot down, I believe during

Speaker 1  1:14  
your period at nine Grove, you were loaned to evening studios. Yes, I

Speaker 2  1:23  
I was 1934 1934 they were about to start a picture at evening studios with no, I can't remember. And the camera man was a German, a marvelous camera man of France, planner, who, afterwards went to Hollywood and changed his name to Frank. Frank planner, I think,

Unknown Speaker  2:00  
what's the director? Victor shovel, not

Speaker 2  2:02  
at first they had an American camera man. No, no, sorry, no, I shouldn't say camera man, a director. The first director was an American. They brought over from Hollywood. His name has just come to me, Al Santell. And he was very slow and worked in a very old fashioned way during a long shot, a mid shot and then close ups. The producer was an Italian named toblets to prints productions, and he lost his temper one morning with the director and screamed at him, not shouted. He screamed. And the director walked off, and we never saw him again. And Victor Saville came on. Carolyn, yes, she was Madden and Carol Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 1  3:11  
Because, as a result of you going there, when line Grove shut down in 1936 they asked you to go back there. But they were wanting a focus puller, and as you were an operator, you

Unknown Speaker  3:24  
suggested, that's right, yes, they're

Speaker 1  3:27  
there instead, yes, because can you remember the shutdown at line Grove, how it suddenly happened? Yes,

Speaker 2  3:33  
I can remember that about 19th, end of 1936, one, one day, I think it was shortly after lunch, somebody came to me and said, Would you go down and see Victor Pierce, who was the production chief, production manager over the whole studio. So I went down into his office, and on saying the he didn't talk to me. He said, sit down before I talk to you. So I thought, Well, that can't be very good news. And then he said, we're going to close these studios down. He said, It's very sad that something's happened that we can't go on any longer. We've got to close down. And he said, I going to give you a letter with a very good reference, and saying that I'm very sorry to part with you, and if ever we start up again, you'll be one of the first people will send for again. And he was very nice, very kind, and and, of course, one after the other, everybody went on was told the same, because

Speaker 1  4:55  
there was a focus puller. Then they're called Ted Lloyd, that's right. Remember Ted? Yes. And he came back, and I said, You look unhappy, Ted, what's happened? And he said, I've got the sack, and I stole Lord. And he said, Well, don't worry, so have you. And we all got him. Yes.

Speaker 2  5:12  
The only thing I can remember there I was under a contract, a two months contract, and when everybody else left already, I was there for two months, and I remember doing some models during that.

Speaker 1  5:30  
Why were you under contract? Different? I don't know, no, just perhaps you were better than any of us. Luck, I suppose. Yeah. What did you do then, because you free launched. Well,

Speaker 2  5:43  
as I say, I had two months, and I remember doing models for a picture there, and that was for a Jesse Matthews picture that was then being made at Pinewood. And I did the models in the old goont Studios. And after that, I freelance when, when I could, there was very, very little work at that time because a government to knew there was a war impeding. And

Unknown Speaker  6:24  
but did you work on any quota quickies in that time?

Unknown Speaker  6:29  
Well, I don't just remember,

Speaker 1  6:31  
because you and I, yeah, we're very much together, and we used to go door knocking together extraordinary things, because you may not remember we went to see an odd man. He was Chinese, and he was going to open up a small studio at maids, yes, and you and I, and I remember you saying to me when we came out, it doesn't look too good. I reckon we're going to have to sweep the studio floor as well. But it never did,

Speaker 2  6:57  
of course, now I can't, but that was somebody yet at go months told me to go and see that man, whatever his name was. And

Speaker 1  7:08  
we also went out to what people call the Anglo amalgamated Studios, which became MGM. MGM, yes, Alfred. Alfred, L Street, yes, yeah. After that. I mean, we both free dance. We took stills together and so on. Then the war broke out. So what happened then?

Speaker 2  7:31  
Well, the first film I went on after the outbreak of the war, I think, was I know I had registered to under something called the officers emergency reserve. And I did get called up by the wall office and was interviewed by a general I remember with a big red band round his hat, and he said, We want a he said we're looking for and by his description, it didn't, I wasn't sure whether he wanted a projectionist or a camera man. You think he knew the difference? I don't think he did, but I told him. So he said, Yes, we it is a camera man. So I was interviewed about three times by him, and then he said to me, you yes. He said, we're going to accept you. He said you'll be a lieutenant or second lieutenant. And he said, These papers will tell you the rate of pay. And he said, you'll go out to France. And then on my very final interview, he said, always said, you go and wait in some room, and you'll be called to go in front of a committee. Said it isn't anything. They just want to see that you look all right in an officer's uniform. And I sat there for the whole morning and nothing happened. There was a phone in there, and I picked the phone up and got on to him and said, you know, have I been forgotten? And a civilian came to see me in the end, and he apologized, saying that the the head of that committee was a general, and he had had a relation who was a production manager named Tennyson, not Penta No, Tennyson, Dean court, that's right. Dane. Caught pen at Tennyson, I think he said, he said he's a relation. And he'd already told us that if anyone's going to get called up for this position, that it was to be his relation. And he said he's he's one.

Unknown Speaker  10:18  
It still happens today. Yeah. So

Speaker 2  10:20  
I said, right, you know, thank you very much. I don't, I don't go in a voluntary anymore, until I'm

Unknown Speaker  10:30  
going back. Can you think of any cameramen that really helped you to get on to the

Speaker 2  10:40  
well, I learned a lot from Gunther craft, particularly on close ups of women, from Gunther craft. And I'd learnt a great deal from much Greenbaum. I consider much Greenbaum one of the greatest cinematographers, because he could cope with anything from a low key to a in a Sahara Desert. Do

Speaker 1  11:13  
you remember if they used exposure meters always? I can't remember seeing them on the first

Speaker 2  11:18  
exposure meter ever used was by Bernie Knowles. Bernie Knowles in it was still in Gainsborough. I think I was a spy. Was it? No, I didn't work on that. It was at Gainsborough as yet. He bought one, and it was a foot candle meter. And I used to think how silly he was. He didn't measure it himself, but he gave it to me, and I had to go into this key light with it and ask for the key light to be flooded or spotted until it was the amount of foot candles he wanted, f2 three, usually, yes, there's only hardly, hardly down from f2 and I remember he left all that to me. And I thought, you know, I would never do that under and I never did afterwards.

Unknown Speaker  12:19  
Did you work with game Mac William, very little because he was a very great Yes,

Speaker 2  12:25  
American camera, yeah, now I only did a few odd shots with him.

Speaker 1  12:32  
What about directors? Did you ever work with you? Did you work with Victor Savile? Oh, on many films, because he was quite a frightening character. Yes, yes. I mean, he was the gains for his basil Dean, really the equivalent, that's

Unknown Speaker  12:46  
right, yes, yes.

Speaker 1  12:51  
Which director would you say made the most impression on you? Hitchcock, Yes. Were you conscious when you're working with Hitchcock, what a good director he was. I

Speaker 2  13:04  
knew he was a good director, but it was quite some years afterwards before I really realized what a master he

Speaker 1  13:14  
was. Yeah, because some people think that some of his earlier films made in this country were better than a lot of his American

Speaker 2  13:21  
Well, I'd somewhat agree with that from Yeah,

Speaker 1  13:25  
yeah, but now going ahead again, having been lost out with the army, what did you do?

Speaker 2  13:34  
Well, as I say, I went to Denham and worked on a film called

Speaker 2  13:46  
her kind of famous film Bernie Knowles was the camera man directed it. Yes, he died a couple of years ago. An English wasn't Mickey Powell, no, very tall, very tall. No. He had for some years of latter years until he died, he was at the University in Kensington teaching film. Sorry, no, just a blank. He not Carol Reed, no, then, and at the end of that film, that was quite a long film, I was approached by

Unknown Speaker  14:46  
documentary company, really,

Speaker 1  14:52  
my mind's Desmond blank, yeah, but a long time ago, basic or data or anything basic, Noel.

Speaker 2  15:00  
It one of those kind, but you haven't got the they were right on the corner of

Speaker 1  15:12  
wasn't anywhere near cage labs in French. Oh, no, no, it was in the west end of case, West End labs Soho square. No, not

Speaker 2  15:20  
very far, but near Leicester Square. Can't think of a road. Tell me, no,

Unknown Speaker  15:34  
but that would that was to do a documentary.

Speaker 2  15:36  
No, they, they were doing wartime. One of those things that they were doing so many, one a week, propaganda things, yes, propaganda and I went to, I worked for them for, I suppose, a few months when I was approached by healing that they were going to start the film for the war office called next of kin, and Ernie Palmer was going to be the camera man. And I was asked, Would I come to Ealing and go on that? What did you do? And I operated on for first with what was all on location in Cornwall, working with the first commando troops. They were doing an invasion of France, and, you know, landed from flat bottom. Boats ran across the beach, and then were climbing up the I should think about 300 foot high cliffs there. And they asked me, Can I try and with a Newman Sinclair to shoot some of the stuff they're climbing up. And I remember climbing up and suddenly finding I looked down and my knees were knocking and I couldn't

Speaker 1  17:07  
get up or down. And the Newman the spring always ran down. Just yeah, yes.

Speaker 2  17:14  
So I worked on that film, and then we had to do a very big battle scene on board. Men more. They all went. We all went back to the studio to do interiors. And it was arranged we go back to do the this big battle. And for some reason, Ernie couldn't go. And he said, Let Lionel do it. So I went back and did the whole of the day

Unknown Speaker  17:48  
exterior all night. Day

Speaker 2  17:52  
lit at night. No, you couldn't go, although I did during the war work. I remember being borrowed from Erin, via the Czech the Czech Air Force. They wanted to make a re raid that they made somewhere, I think, on Hamburg. They wanted to re photograph that and somebody from the Czech Film Unit who was there, an English person, asked Michael bulkin If I could go and do it. And I did. And I worked at night on a great big air fill that was near the New Forest then during the war. Because I remember the version was it, yes, that's right. And they had a member, terrific mess of a Czech kitchen, American and English. And when I used to go in to get my dinner in in the middle of the night that the wife used to serve the same soup to everyone, and she used to tip me off, which was the best meal, saying, if she wants wanted lights to check, she'd give me my suit and say Check or American. And I had lights on at night. Then to do that, yes, and the planes, course, we never went out, but I had to simulate as though there was search lights coming up from the ground, and he blind in the pilot and that.

Speaker 1  19:37  
But also generators in those days were nothing like the ones today, when, well,

Speaker 2  19:44  
terribly noisy is to smell too of all

Speaker 1  19:48  
the because some of the generators on films you and I worked on were first world war search lights,

Speaker 2  19:54  
search lights generators during the war in Germany at the end of the war in. Right at the end, I went out to Germany for Ealing and the prisoner of war camps, and I used those search lights to for lighting.

Speaker 1  20:12  
But in those earlier days, on night exteriors, what was the biggest single light source you could have? I think the 150 amp, because a group nothing like that had come in, had they

Speaker 2  20:24  
no roots, never came in till in England, about 1940, 48 I think, and I was working for Erwin at cool on a great location at Pimlico. Passport to passport to Pimlico. I was working on a terrific bomb site there, and we had a summer I've been working for just like this year, I remember wearing an overcoat, and they called me back to the studio and said, You were very behind schedule because of the bad weather. Is there anything you could do to manage to shoot? And I knew that Jack Cardiff, who I'd spoken to at a BSc meeting, he got some brutes over from Hollywood. And I phoned him and said, you know, is there any possibility of borrowing any so he said, I've got four. He said, I'll lend you one. And one came over and, oh, it was marvelous. I could get, like, weak sunlight on the full length figures without the background being black,

Speaker 1  21:48  
yes, yeah, that was film passport would be when 1940 Wow,

Speaker 2  21:56  
40, oh, it's about 48 I was about 48 about 48

Speaker 1  22:04  
on, yeah, because you were at healing, you also did a lot of model work. I believe, yes,

Speaker 2  22:09  
I did not. Was doing model work all the while, and was taken off to go on to a film.

Speaker 1  22:18  
Because in the earlier days of healing, when I was so before the war, with you in the central Logan room was a person called Paul Beeson. Do you remember? Yes, very well, yes, yes. And he subsequently, I believe, operated for you on against the wind. Was, that's right, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 3  22:36  
Can we? Can you talk about the healing comedy name? Because, you know, this isn't very important period, really? Yeah,

Speaker 2  22:45  
well, I will say healing. Their scripts on the whole, were of a particular kind that made very good comedies, and they weren't of a childish, silly type. Who wrote them? Do you remember the best ones? I'd say were written by TB Clark, who we called Tibby, because he's TB Tibby Clark, passport to Pender CO was written by him, yes. And quite a number, Lavender Hill Mob. Was Lavender Hill Mob, I think that was written by him. Yes,

Speaker 1  23:29  
while these films were being made, did Ealing rent out any of the stages to no rent, because they did before the

Speaker 2  23:36  
war. But yes, they didn't, from a from the time of and

Speaker 1  23:41  
I was there, and there were some very, very good operators. Do you remember,

Speaker 2  23:45  
yes, Jeff, see home. Jeff, see home, Gordon dines, yes, and Gordon dines. And afterwards, Chick Waterson became a very good operator, but when the first picture I that he was my operator on, he had no confidence in himself. At the end of a take and the director would say, Well, can we print it? Poor chick used to say, Well, I'm a that I knew him, and I'd be watching him all the while he was operating and saw all his camera movements. And I often used to shout out, it's all right, chick, you can print it

Speaker 1  24:38  
because in those days, you're using the Mitchells in the blimps, with the outside, fine outside, the problems of parallax, parallax and everything else. Yes, really was murder, wasn't it? Well, you just got used to it. Yes, yeah, but you were so dependent on artists holding their position, yeah. At the end, while you got the blimp,

Speaker 2  24:54  
I must say I preferred using that type of camera. On the outside finder than the debris on that which I had to work on with gun for client.

Speaker 1  25:08  
Tripods in those days, they were friction heads most of the time. Yes, weren't they? Yes? When did the Moy head and that type come in with you?

Speaker 2  25:21  
I suppose somewhere in just before the war, you

Speaker 1  25:24  
have any difficulty with the handles, or did you have to practice for a long time?

Speaker 2  25:28  
Well, I had to practice a little, yes, yeah, everybody, yes,

Speaker 1  25:35  
yeah. When did you join the act?

Speaker 2  25:39  
One of the first, one of the first members. Yes, 158, I can remember the very day we were all told that a captain cope would be coming round to the studios that's at gainsboroughs to enroll us all, and the morning had progressed on. We hadn't heard from him, when suddenly somebody came to Roy collino and I and said, Oh, Captain cokes in the pub is in the tiger. I don't know if you remember down the road in the corner, there was a pub. And so soon as we broke, we ran, ran in the pub, and, you know, looked round and because we didn't know him, but seated at a table with, I should think about 15 empty Scotch glasses, there was a person, and I went up and said, Are you Captain cope when he kind of raised and I remember we each paid five shillings, and he wrote our name down.

Speaker 1  26:50  
What was the weekly subscription? Do you remember them? Very little, and I joined. It was sixpence, I think, a week,

Speaker 2  26:57  
yes, no more than perhaps about a shilling, if that

Unknown Speaker  27:01  
yes, yes, yes. What do you think of acts standing up until the war?

Speaker 2  27:12  
Well, I always think back, particularly today, everybody knocks unions, but I remember how I used to work till two every morning. Saturdays and Sundays never get paid for it. So when a union came along, I thought, well, it'll be a miracle. We'll get treated like human beings. So in that way, you know, I thought a great deal of because

Speaker 1  27:40  
you couldn't really have worked in the way you had to in those days if you didn't love the job,

Speaker 2  27:45  
it was only the fact that you loved, I mean, I love photography, that one could do that otherwise you could never have worked those hours,

Speaker 1  27:56  
did you because then Ealing folded and sold to the BBC, and then I believe you went on to Pinewood on TV series.

Speaker 2  28:14  
Well, when Ealing were first packing up, I've been tipped off they were going to and Robert Hamer, a director who'd been at healing. He'd also been a couple loader. He had in that when he started, he was one of the five shilling winners at Goon. Well, he was a marvelous director, and he was directing the film at Pinewood. Uh, wood, a French Resistance story. Can't remember the title, and Harry Waxman was the camera man, and he went down with chicken pox. So Robert Hamer phoned me and said, Are you free to come and take over? And I did. I went down right away and thoroughly enjoyed my when

Speaker 1  29:11  
you took over, Lionel, did you have to look at Harry's rushes? Yes,

Speaker 2  29:15  
I was shown Harry's rushes, particularly as he was right in the middle of a sequence which is even a semi low key time.

Speaker 1  29:25  
I mean, could you sort of comment as to you as whether you felt if you been doing it from the start you would have done it differently, or did you feel the way he did? It was exactly

Speaker 2  29:33  
No, no that on that particular set what he was doing. I'd have done the same. I can remember my wife, Simon, when I got home that night, asking me, would I have done and I said, I'd have put a little more finish in touches, a few little spots of things,

Unknown Speaker  29:55  
yes. But

Speaker 2  29:58  
other than that, I. I just copied what he did unfinished that particular sequence. This was all black and white. Was it Yes? I should think it was yes. It possibly was, I don't really remember.

Speaker 1  30:14  
Sorry, not all. Right, then I believe you got very tied up with TV series which were then because of commercial television, yes,

Speaker 2  30:25  
yes. Then I was asked to go to, they call themselves the National Film Studios at El Street that used to be rock, the old gerund rock.

Speaker 1  30:39  
It was first No, first national was national? Yes,

Speaker 2  30:43  
I was asked to go down there, and some producer I'd heard of had never seen, said, would I take on a whole series of

Unknown Speaker  31:01  
wasn't a saint, was it? No? Avengers, no

Speaker 2  31:05  
the French, the French Revolution, the English. I know who you mean, the English man who? Yes, the Scarlet pimper. Now I

Speaker 1  31:13  
think Lionel, I may be wrong, but you did a lot of those. Alfred, the old de Havilland, engine testing shed studios, because you were doing them when I went out to see you once the dans occurs, dancing was the Danica brothers was dancing because,

Speaker 2  31:37  
no, not, not The Scarlet Pimpernel. Was at national. Oh, sorry, yes, Scarlet Pimpernel was at national. And I, I suppose, I worked there for a very long while, and from that they started some other company started up doing another TV and I, I went on that, what was that?

Unknown Speaker  32:08  
I know you worked on the Avengers, I think Noel,

Speaker 2  32:12  
yes, I did, but that that was all at national. I did a second lot at national. And then what happened? And then, yes, Monty Berman and see Baker Berman and Baker, they were going to do the saint that they couldn't get the they couldn't get the chap who's written the to give them permission to, yes, Leslie charter us. They couldn't get permission to to start the things. But with the help of a very nice, charming chat. Who was a director, a short little, yes, you know him.

Speaker 2  33:16  
Very clever chap. He could even jump paddy cast, yes, through the help of John paddy caste is who knew Leslie Tartarus. He got them the and John thought that he through doing that, would be allowed to direct ever so many of them. But they didn't keep their word. And I went on that and stayed on that for three and a quarter years.

Speaker 1  33:46  
Was this with Roger Moore, Ron Yes, with Roger Moore all the time, yes, yeah. And these were made where acts

Speaker 2  33:55  
at VIP, old VIP, yes, yes,

Speaker 1  34:00  
but you did do one TV series of Pinewood?

Speaker 2  34:06  
I thought, Yes, I have now during a break in the a break in the Saint some American company got in touch with me. There's in New York every Sunday night there was a big variety TV show. Do you remember the head of that? It was a very well known and that company got in touch with me that they going to make a series in in England, and would I do the pilot? So I could do the pilot, because there was a break in the saint and I did that pilot, and there was a lot of trick work in it. Oh yes, they got over from a. From Italy, from Rome, a woman who had a big TV there live. She had little dummies. They showed a little on TV here. Georgio, a little, really, I'd class it to some extent, like a very high grade for children, sort of puppet Punch and Judy show, where they had this puppet. And he used to dance, talk and do everything. And they had a man who could take all his voices off, and she I did a pilot for them, and it was if it would have taken was going to be done for for America. And they sent all the crew over, with exception of camera crew from America. I did the pilot. They even took the editor back to America with them, in case it had to be altered. But it didn't take. And I know the reason they had a young artist in it who had to sing, and he had no voice at all. He sang in a flat in an uninteresting way, and that's why I'm certain it never took.

Unknown Speaker  36:35  
Did you work on any commercials for TV?

Speaker 2  36:38  
Oh yes, I used to do a lot of commercials in between. Did you like dinner? Yes, yes. I used to often do something that they thought and it couldn't be done. I remember for Pearl and Dean, they had one of those gas geezers, which, when the water came on, a big light came up. And they, you know, they, nobody could get a light to come up, but I put a small lamp in there and a dimmer and got the effect of the light. Yes, I'd done a lot of commercials. You did

Speaker 1  37:18  
a lot with front projection too. Yes,

Speaker 2  37:21  
for now, I used to go down a long way out near slough to where that company were doing the

Unknown Speaker  37:34  
that sort of spaceship, yes,

Speaker 2  37:37  
where they were doing that. And I do it on a Sunday. Do the commercials when they weren't working on a Sunday for studios. No,

Speaker 1  37:47  
no, it was in Slough. In Slough, yeah, that they were doing. Yes, yes, when you were working, when did you start using an exposure meter as soon as you were lighting or

Speaker 2  38:02  
no, because my first lighting was all models. And looking back, I suppose one should have used an exposure meter more on that than you did for ordinary work. But I just used my eye on Yeah,

Speaker 1  38:19  
if you when you when you did start using what was your sort of favorite type of exposure meter for interiors? Did you work on foot candles? Foot

Speaker 2  38:27  
Candles only, I use the kind of I bought from America. The it's now called a seconic, and it's made by the Japs, but then it was made by in America. Can't think of what they called it. I managed to buy two of those by people coming back from America and bringing me, yeah, but

Speaker 1  38:53  
you would have been more than capable. Should your meter have packed up of carrying on?

Speaker 2  38:56  
Oh yes, yes. I've always even on location if I take a reading before I'd take one, I'd give a guess. Yes, and I can remember we wasn't a guess, it was absolutely right. Yes, I can remember too working with famous aerial cameraman, Elmer Dyer, that was just before the war. I worked for over three months with him. Here. I'd come from MGM to make a film that was going to be called the shadow of the wing with Myrna Loy and what was the artist with a little Clark Gable, Clark Gable, Clark Gable, and Myrna Loy, and we were going to do all the aerial stuff in England, because the RAF could do better than the American Air Force.

Speaker 1  39:51  
And you used, I believe, the last Henton air display, that's right, that was ever shown that wonderful camera man said, bonnet on. Leave Sid bonnet

Speaker 2  40:00  
could have done, really, as well as the as El Madaya, but I remember el mad we went out to Cambridge one Saturday to shoot, and we'd finished shooting all we had to do. And he said, All right, pack up, send the boys back. So they went off, and he suddenly said, Lionel, we must shoot a plate here. We've got to shoot a plate for, you know, same number sound, so I've forgotten. He said, Is there a camera still here? I said, Yes, I still got one Mitchell camera, and I set that up and loaded it to and then he said, Where's my meter? He'd never shoot without taking two readings from a Western and from a German meter. And I said, well, that has gone back. That's in an accessory box. And he just stood there. He didn't know what to do. And I said, Well, if I might suggest Elmer, I you know, F sound so and he had to listen to me.

Speaker 1  41:14  
I believe elm is assistant lost all the rushes one night when you went back to the labs in a taxi and left them in the taxi. I believe he

Speaker 2  41:21  
might have done now from that particular assistant. That assistant was his operator in the States, and he'd promised him, when he got the job to come here, that he could come with him, but the act barred him, although he came over here on his own, and Harold Boxall at MGM Britain gave him a job here, and that's how he he lost the rushes, and then it would be, oh, I suppose, about 12 or 13 years ago, one night I got a phone call, and it was that assistant. He said, I'm in London. I'm on my way to Germany to shoot something. He said, can I see you? And I couldn't, as a matter of fact, that night, go to his hotel. And he told me that Elmer Dyer, who was then about 90, he had a terrific library, everything he'd ever shot, he used to keep a print of and he used to hire all that out. And he said he's got a lot of stuff still earning money, hiring out all his prints, and he says he's even got stuff that I've shot, and you know, he's never paid me for,

Speaker 1  42:51  
if you I mean, we're going to start all over again, leaving the fur business as if, where would You still go into films?

Speaker 2  42:59  
I'd still go into photography Yes, with the first Sydney, yes,

Speaker 1  43:05  
yes. And do you feel that it's the same today as Do you think it's the same spirit amongst the crew in the studios as we handle?

Speaker 2  43:14  
Oh no, no. Now, I'm afraid, nothing like it in those days, as you said yourself, everyone who went in there loved making films and sing to the photography of it. Now they go in solely to how much money can they earn and how little work can they do.

Speaker 1  43:39  
That's partly due to brought the state of the industry to where it is in this Yes,

Speaker 2  43:43  
but the industry, I mean, is in a terrible state. Is

Unknown Speaker  43:47  
there anything else you'd like to say?

Speaker 2  43:50  
I don't think so. It's chiefly through you in reminding me that I've been able to

Speaker 1  43:56  
but finishing one thing I would like to say, as I do know your wife pretty well, having known her since you were married, that she's given you tremendous support and understanding, oh, great, without which few people could survive in

Speaker 2  44:09  
the history. That's quite true. Yes, yes. I mean, when you go around location and leave her for three months or only come home at two every morning. One

Speaker 1  44:21  
thing I will say too that we were all mystified how you'd managed to find such a beautiful French woman

Speaker 2  44:27  
to marry. Well, I think you remember. You were my 80th. No, our golden wedding. That's golden wedding. Our golden wedding about three years, four years ago, and you asked me that then, and I said that we lived in Muswell Hill, where the Odeon Cinema is today. My parents had a big house there, and about five houses further away. It was a private school where foreign girls

Speaker 1  45:04  
used to go outside the school. No

Speaker 2  45:10  
and quite a number of French girls, or even German girls, went there to learn English. And my mother was very friendly with the headmistress, and one day, my mother and the headmistress met up and she said, Oh, I've got a German girl here. And she said, I, or any of my staff, don't speak any any German, and I have to wait till my husband or something comes home at night. He he.

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
The copyright of this recording is vested in the BECTU history project Lalanne Bain's additional material, talking in particular about Gunter cramp and other Austrian technicians recorded on the fourth of February, 1993

Unknown Speaker  0:25  
interviewer, Alan Lawson,

Unknown Speaker  0:28  
side three,

Unknown Speaker  0:32  
when? When did you first meet gun to craft? Can you remember

Unknown Speaker  0:37  
Gainsborough studios? Islington? Islington?

Unknown Speaker  0:42  
Yeah, 19 early, 1930s

Unknown Speaker  0:50  
Did you immediately work with him?

Unknown Speaker  0:54  
No,

Unknown Speaker  0:56  
on the film.

Unknown Speaker  1:01  
I can't remember the title of the film,

Unknown Speaker  1:06  
and

Unknown Speaker  1:08  
he,

Unknown Speaker  1:13  
we were sent. I really was working at Shepherd Bucha, and so was he, and we were sent over to B, i, p, oh yeah,

Unknown Speaker  1:27  
to work on a film called The amateur gentleman. Oh yes, that's Douglas Fairbanks junior, and an actress who

Unknown Speaker  1:39  
I can't remember her name,

Unknown Speaker  1:43  
what what was, what was your first impression of gun degrad?

Unknown Speaker  1:49  
Well, he was a man of medium, build both about the same height as you and I.

Unknown Speaker  2:02  
Yeah, yes, and I remember he developed a crop of hair, thick crop of hair at the back, like in those days the musicians

Unknown Speaker  2:13  
would have.

Unknown Speaker  2:16  
And he was very proud of that, because later in the production,

Unknown Speaker  2:22  
the

Unknown Speaker  2:24  
production department kidded the hairdresser on the set to cut his hair and do away with it. And he did do that. And I remember poor Gunther was very upset. He was very near tears at the loss of this crop.

Unknown Speaker  2:48  
But what was he like to work with?

Unknown Speaker  2:52  
Very much German in character.

Unknown Speaker  2:59  
The rest of the crew, he looked down on as lower,

Unknown Speaker  3:07  
some lower, lower forms of animal life. Yes, yes.

Unknown Speaker  3:13  
Was it? How did he behave to you? St, much the same. No.

Unknown Speaker  3:20  
He was rather cold than first,

Unknown Speaker  3:24  
and then gradually thawed towards me, and I suppose behave very correctly.

Unknown Speaker  3:38  
Did he? Did he bring any particular style to photography,

Unknown Speaker  3:44  
not really, I must say, he was a very good cameraman,

Unknown Speaker  3:50  
and His Excellency was in

Unknown Speaker  3:54  
a portraiture of women.

Unknown Speaker  3:58  
Now,

Unknown Speaker  4:01  
can can you describe his technique then?

Unknown Speaker  4:06  
Well, he had two,

Unknown Speaker  4:12  
two diffusers that he told me it had made him Budapest in Hungary, and he gave them to me.

Unknown Speaker  4:24  
Was very frightened that the rest of the crew might touch them,

Unknown Speaker  4:30  
and

Unknown Speaker  4:33  
he

Unknown Speaker  4:35  
told me that I was to put them on when he did big heads, and that to create diffusion. Were the glass ever made out of glass and nothing like a shabby No, not at all. They were had workings in the glass. What? Diamonds

Unknown Speaker  4:59  
or something.

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Light something like that.

Unknown Speaker  5:07  
Yeah, can you, can you describe his technique of lighting at all?

Unknown Speaker  5:11  
Well, it was,

Unknown Speaker  5:14  
I'd say, very, very correct and very good on his close ups. He'd,

Unknown Speaker  5:22  
his key light would be in the perfect angle and position

Unknown Speaker  5:30  
and

Unknown Speaker  5:33  
use filler light, back light, which was normal, but his thing is, His perfection of the key light.

Unknown Speaker  5:46  
I've told you this story that Bill girdles, Bill girdles

Unknown Speaker  5:52  
over lit, somewhat correct, so yet he over lit and under the over lit, and the film was under development to go to softness, and he'd have a

Unknown Speaker  6:04  
magazine that we would keep

Unknown Speaker  6:08  
to do close ups on, and that roll of film would be the

Unknown Speaker  6:16  
underdeveloped one I see. So he, he lit normally, then for for long shots or, or over lit on long shots too, yes, I'd say over lit generally, generally as his style.

Unknown Speaker  6:35  
Because I was, you know, I was, I was interested when Bill talked about, yes,

Unknown Speaker  6:43  
what was his? Well, you've said that he'd rather look down on the the rest of the floor crew. How did they react to him? Can you remember

Unknown Speaker  6:54  
treated him, I suppose, rather coolly.

Unknown Speaker  7:01  
I do remember

Unknown Speaker  7:04  
he hated

Unknown Speaker  7:07  
the sound crew anything to do with sound,

Unknown Speaker  7:12  
and when he spoke to me, as he became more friendly, he told me they'd ruin the film business from the lighting point of view,

Unknown Speaker  7:23  
you can no longer light and put your lights just where you wanted, because you'd get the shadows of the microphone.

Unknown Speaker  7:35  
Well, that was a that was a complaint from most cameramen, yes, but he hit him harder than any other camera man I worked with.

Unknown Speaker  7:48  
And also, if he'd seen me chatting to the sound recordist or becoming friendly

Unknown Speaker  7:56  
with them, he'd even,

Unknown Speaker  8:01  
I can't say, tell me off, but

Unknown Speaker  8:05  
say, you know, there's a sound crew. How can you

Unknown Speaker  8:10  
be friendly towards them?

Unknown Speaker  8:13  
What was his relationship with the his gaffer on the floor?

Unknown Speaker  8:19  
It's quite good. Quite good.

Unknown Speaker  8:23  
And what was the gaps relationship with Him?

Unknown Speaker  8:28  
Treated him rather,

Unknown Speaker  8:31  
I think, as a joke, in a way, because of his very Germanic manner, he

Unknown Speaker  8:41  
was so precise and that and you know, the gaffer was

Unknown Speaker  8:48  
not quite

Unknown Speaker  8:51  
that

Unknown Speaker  8:53  
character and his manner of work. Did he always have the same gaffer?

Unknown Speaker  8:59  
Well, I'm speaking chiefly of the the film that we all went to the games was our VIP. Oh, he wouldn't have his own gaffer anyway.

Unknown Speaker  9:16  
Another thing I've been told by the gaffer, it didn't happen at all while I was there, but on a set, he worked on on another picture,

Unknown Speaker  9:29  
apart from having the

Unknown Speaker  9:32  
the

Unknown Speaker  9:35  
lighting, the gantry gantries around the walls of the set,

Unknown Speaker  9:42  
he had a gantry put right across the middle,

Unknown Speaker  9:47  
as before they started,

Unknown Speaker  9:50  
and then when they went to work, the they pushed the the.

Unknown Speaker  10:01  
What was doing on the scaffold? Was it then

Unknown Speaker  10:05  
the gantry, the middle gantry? No, it was up in the I see, up in, up in the eaves, yes, on the girders, well, not as high as that, on the same height as the state I see, yes, and they couldn't push the

Unknown Speaker  10:21  
dolly. The sound

Unknown Speaker  10:24  
boom. Man, they couldn't push the boom in, swing it around or move it, and so they pointed it out to him and said, Could he please take this gantry down? And he said, Oh no, I'm

Unknown Speaker  10:41  
so light. And it appears he held up the production. So I was told for

Unknown Speaker  10:50  
nearly an hour, and they called in the production manager, and then afterwards the producer, and they caused quite a, quite a stir.

Unknown Speaker  11:05  
And he

Unknown Speaker  11:09  
and the end, he had to take it down.

Unknown Speaker  11:13  
But, you know, he was very reluctant, and it caused a great deal of a great deal of trouble. Well, yes,

Unknown Speaker  11:21  
when you worked with him, he worked with him as his operator.

Unknown Speaker  11:26  
Did he give you kind of the freedom that most cameramen give their operators, or was he rather strict

Unknown Speaker  11:35  
about what you could do? Well, considering

Unknown Speaker  11:40  
his German thing. I suppose he was very good, really, and allowed me to

Unknown Speaker  11:47  
for composition and working out the camera movement and that, you know, he allowed me to

Unknown Speaker  11:56  
do that. Were you? Did he let you work closely with the director, or did he want to do that?

Unknown Speaker  12:05  
He did that.

Unknown Speaker  12:08  
He did that. In other words, really, he chose the shot. Did he

Unknown Speaker  12:14  
Yes, but working with me, yes. I must say

Unknown Speaker  12:18  
another thing. I remember

Unknown Speaker  12:22  
the star of the picture.

Unknown Speaker  12:26  
He didn't get on well with her at all. He'd heard her grumbling that she wanted the American camera man who'd last film her in the States. She'd come from a picture of her. She'd worked in the States, and he resented her making comments,

Unknown Speaker  12:50  
and he wouldn't talk to her,

Unknown Speaker  12:53  
and so I had to act as a go between, between her. I'm sorry. I can't remember her name. Well, I've got it actually, when we start very good actress

Unknown Speaker  13:08  
and quite nice appearance.

Unknown Speaker  13:11  
And he and if he wanted her to

Unknown Speaker  13:16  
walk in a certain way or turn her body around, I had to be the the interpreter. Yes, yes. Well,

Unknown Speaker  13:26  
I think one reason I got on fairly well with him.

Unknown Speaker  13:32  
I speak a little German,

Unknown Speaker  13:37  
and we were working with a shift in people, oh yeah, and with them, he was speaking in German all the time to them, and then when they decided they would do something, he didn't have to tell me what they'd said. And I think he he appreciated that.

Unknown Speaker  14:02  
Can you remember?

Unknown Speaker  14:04  
Presumably, there was shift in himself. Was there, and there was another man. Can you remember the other man? No shift and at that time, wasn't in England. Oh, he wasn't. No, he had two technicians

Unknown Speaker  14:19  
whose names I don't remember. I got on very well with them.

Unknown Speaker  14:24  
And one was

Unknown Speaker  14:28  
quite easy to work with.

Unknown Speaker  14:32  
He understood English ways,

Unknown Speaker  14:36  
while the second one was also a very German.

Unknown Speaker  14:46  
And he,

Unknown Speaker  14:49  
I think he looked down a bit on all the English

Unknown Speaker  14:55  
on the English cabinet people,

Unknown Speaker  14:59  
I do.

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
Member when the war broke out

Unknown Speaker  15:03  
that the

Unknown Speaker  15:07  
the kindly technician he

Unknown Speaker  15:12  
he got arrested, and in turned, while the one who was not so nice to work with. I was told that he quickly

Unknown Speaker  15:27  
got to harridge and got on a boat that went to Holland and he got back to Germany.

Unknown Speaker  15:37  
Did you when he went and worked at some of the other studios. Did you go with him? No, you didn't know that was the only one outside Gaines prison and Goon I see yes, because he worked for other companies later. Didn't he? Yes, he did.

Unknown Speaker  15:58  
Do you know any any more.

Unknown Speaker  16:02  
Did you ever see him after the war at all? Did you meet him again? Yes, once award for now? Yes,

Unknown Speaker  16:10  
he came to eating that I was

Unknown Speaker  16:16  
you've never worked with him again.

Unknown Speaker  16:19  
Noel, no, because you were lighting yourself by then. Matthew, yes, yes, because he seems to have disappeared from about 1956

Unknown Speaker  16:32  
I know

Unknown Speaker  16:34  
from talking evening that he

Unknown Speaker  16:40  
he had a difficult time once the war broke

Unknown Speaker  16:43  
down, and the only place that seemed to employ him was B, i, p,

Unknown Speaker  16:52  
and I had heard that they

Unknown Speaker  16:55  
only employed him because

Unknown Speaker  16:58  
they cut his salary. He couldn't get work, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  17:03  
well, that figures.

Unknown Speaker  17:09  
Let's pause a second.

Unknown Speaker  17:13  
Let's talk about some of the some of the films he made. Well, the first one I've got down

Unknown Speaker  17:21  
is Rome Express. Rome Express? Is it all right for this? Yes, he

Unknown Speaker  17:29  
made that a go mark, yes,

Unknown Speaker  17:34  
the studio had hardly been completed.

Unknown Speaker  17:39  
Oh, that's right, because it become the building, yes, lot, and that's right. And

Unknown Speaker  17:49  
yes, he

Unknown Speaker  17:52  
I wasn't on the Oh, you weren't on that. I was not on the film,

Unknown Speaker  17:57  
but I saw him on the set, and

Unknown Speaker  18:02  
he was managing quite well with his gaff Warner.

Unknown Speaker  18:09  
Then, then after that comes lucky number. Can you remember that was at Goon? That was at Gainsborough, gains but I'm wondering that's 10 years with Yes, that's the film that I first

Unknown Speaker  18:23  
operated on Poland. Can

Unknown Speaker  18:26  
you remember anything about it? Only there was a football story, and they were on location in Highbury. Oh, yes, Arsenal on occasion, and when we broke for lunch the first day,

Unknown Speaker  18:48  
he took a lunch box that was handed out to everyone and walked away from us and sat down on a camera box. And

Unknown Speaker  18:58  
so I thought, That's not very nice. I mean, I'll be friendly towards him. And I went to him and said,

Unknown Speaker  19:08  
Wouldn't you like to sit with the crew? And so he said something to me in broken English, the officers do not,

Unknown Speaker  19:20  
do not eat the men, something like that. His English wasn't very good. Then not it was good. He could

Unknown Speaker  19:29  
express himself well on the other hand. And now he put the meat in with how did he get on with Tony? As with quite well. Yes, well, he's a lovely person to work with. Oh yes, he was, I mean, he'd understand, yes, his attitude, yes, they got home very well that then, then the the next one I've got here is the ghoul with, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
Yes, I hate Hunter.

Unknown Speaker  20:03  
Hayes T Hunter, yes, well, he was a silent man. Yes. He was a

Unknown Speaker  20:11  
really

Unknown Speaker  20:13  
a comedy of in because he was still in our silent days and he couldn't keep quiet,

Unknown Speaker  20:23  
and he annoyed the sound. He was, you know, trying to bring the artists on.

Unknown Speaker  20:32  
I remember on one picture, there was an artist named Renee Plummer,

Unknown Speaker  20:38  
Rene, yes, she was. She was something to do with the ostrich. Yes, to do with the ostrich. And he when he wanted her to react, give it my brain, a brain a lover.

Unknown Speaker  20:53  
And the sound was tapping him on the shoulder and shaking her head. But, you know, you couldn't help it all these years.

Unknown Speaker  21:06  
I wasn't on the go, so I don't know.

Unknown Speaker  21:11  
And then, then after that, his little friend there, sorry. Man told the Yes, I remember that Ben film wrote, I've also had nothing. Oh, you didn't have anything.

Unknown Speaker  21:26  
The tunnel.

Unknown Speaker  21:30  
That was a Goon. The

Unknown Speaker  21:33  
funniest thing I remember, there was

Unknown Speaker  21:37  
operating on a big set,

Unknown Speaker  21:41  
and we had three cameras,

Unknown Speaker  21:46  
and I remember the one of the other operators was Alan.

Unknown Speaker  21:56  
Can't remember his surname.

Unknown Speaker  22:00  
Was a marvelous chat to be with when you weren't actually filming. But when it comes to filming, he was became terribly nervous,

Unknown Speaker  22:12  
and

Unknown Speaker  22:15  
he we had three, three cameras side by side, and I can remember I was a very

Unknown Speaker  22:24  
left hand one, if you were looking at us from the rear,

Unknown Speaker  22:30  
and

Unknown Speaker  22:33  
Alan, he'd put a flag up to prevent some light. Bill, Allen bill, Allen Bill Allen Yes. Bill Allen. Bill Allen, yes. His first name wasn't Allen, yes. Bill Allen, he put a flag up to prevent some light hitting his lens, and when it came to the shot, he had to pen more than he'd expected, and he went

Unknown Speaker  23:02  
pending. Excuse me, panned into the flag. I

Unknown Speaker  23:10  
saw it in

Unknown Speaker  23:12  
his finder, and left the back of the camera and went forward. And then I could see him hitting the flag and trying to bang it out

Unknown Speaker  23:25  
which

Unknown Speaker  23:27  
nail to the floor,

Unknown Speaker  23:30  
causing quite a stir.

Unknown Speaker  23:36  
You weren't in booze. Then No, you'd come out of boots. Yes. Come out of booths, yes.

Unknown Speaker  23:44  
Then, then the next one I've got down is, everything is thunder.

Unknown Speaker  23:51  
That's Milton rosmer. Yes, I remember him, but I don't, I wasn't. He didn't work on it. Didn't work, didn't work on that one.

Unknown Speaker  24:01  
Then His Lordship,

Unknown Speaker  24:05  
that's Herbert Mason. Did you work on that one? No.

Unknown Speaker  24:13  
Then, I mean, the the ones that were away there was or the amateur gentleman you talked about marigold. Did you work on that? No, no, that was made at Denham.

Unknown Speaker  24:25  
No, dead men's shoes. That was Elstree.

Unknown Speaker  24:30  
No,

Unknown Speaker  24:32  
I see. So that was, that was really, that was really the, the the end of

Unknown Speaker  24:38  
your, your spell with Gunter.

Unknown Speaker  24:45  
Can we move on?

Unknown Speaker  24:49  
Did you work with Kurt Courant at all?

Unknown Speaker  24:53  
No,

Unknown Speaker  24:55  
I think one shot. I.

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
One shot, and I don't even remember the name of the

Unknown Speaker  25:03  
picture.

Unknown Speaker  25:07  
What did you work with

Unknown Speaker  25:10  
canterac at all? No, not or Otto Heller, yes, I did. Otto. Heller, like to talk about Otto. Otto.

Unknown Speaker  25:21  
He was a nice,

Unknown Speaker  25:24  
joeville

Unknown Speaker  25:26  
type of person, quite pleasant to work with.

Unknown Speaker  25:31  
Would allow, allow me to freedom, to do the whole shot and really proudly always agree with I mean, in fact, you were the contact with the director.

Unknown Speaker  25:45  
Yes, yes.

Unknown Speaker  25:48  
What was his relationship with the crew?

Unknown Speaker  25:52  
Quite good. Yes, he didn't have any airs on graces.

Unknown Speaker  26:02  
Now the film, what was it? Madam, Mademoiselle, doctor,

Unknown Speaker  26:08  
don't remember. Made it. They made it. Islington, I wasn't on that. Oh, you weren't what was the money on? Then can

Unknown Speaker  26:17  
you remember? I

Unknown Speaker  26:27  
I can't say that. I do really, because the only ones I've got down is the amazing quest of Ernest bliss, which was made for the United Artists. I'm not sure where that was made, then there's dreams come true. Denim, you wouldn't, you wouldn't,

Unknown Speaker  26:47  
made for healing, though, yes, High Command, did you work on high command? No, that was healing. Not well. I remember it by name, but

Unknown Speaker  26:58  
it was an alien or secret lives. Was it that was healing? Yes, it was a healing that I worked with him.

Unknown Speaker  27:07  
First of all, I have to say it was

Unknown Speaker  27:10  
that's 1937

Unknown Speaker  27:13  
just before the war. Yeah, yes. It could have been Yes.

Unknown Speaker  27:19  
So we Kurt Courant, you haven't worked with Otto now. What about Otto? Canter? EC, did you have that?

Unknown Speaker  27:30  
Now, I did ask you,

Unknown Speaker  27:33  
who introduced the cinephon. Do you remember I think that was

Unknown Speaker  27:40  
cataract.

Unknown Speaker  27:42  
No, I don't think so. I think it was

Unknown Speaker  27:47  
chap. We were just talking Otto Heller. Otto Heller, yes, Otto Heller, he came, he'd been abroad, and came back to Erin and managed to make the company that was mainly

Unknown Speaker  28:07  
black,

Unknown Speaker  28:11  
Edward black. Edward black and black. Yes, who they made a kind of production manager there.

Unknown Speaker  28:20  
Think that he could get these cameras very cheaply through him. And they were made by a firm in Prague.

Unknown Speaker  28:32  
And he managed to make Edward black, I think, by two.

Unknown Speaker  28:40  
And he also got Edward black to

Unknown Speaker  28:45  
say they'd help him sell them to Goon.

Unknown Speaker  28:50  
I think they, afterwards, bought four.

Unknown Speaker  28:54  
Now, when we received these cameras and started to run them, I remember Roy collino, yes,

Unknown Speaker  29:04  
was the operator with me, and

Unknown Speaker  29:08  
we could tell that they

Unknown Speaker  29:11  
they now and again, start making a noise that wasn't

Unknown Speaker  29:16  
correct,

Unknown Speaker  29:19  
And then one of the gear wheels ground right up,

Unknown Speaker  29:25  
and Roy, Roy said, but the best place we can take this to is

Unknown Speaker  29:35  
High gates,

Unknown Speaker  29:38  
Newman Sinclair, and you see George Hill,

Unknown Speaker  29:44  
because we both thought very much of George Hill. He was a great camera mechanic. So we

Unknown Speaker  29:53  
got in a taxi and went the high gate, and George took the outer case off and.

Unknown Speaker  30:00  
Looked at it,

Unknown Speaker  30:02  
and then said, fancy making gears out of this fiber, or whatever it was. It's rubbish.

Unknown Speaker  30:09  
And he then took a film tin and a few screwdrivers

Unknown Speaker  30:16  
and put everything that he undid with his screwdrivers in this film tin. And I thought, Michael, well, how will he know where to know it goes?

Unknown Speaker  30:27  
And I mentioned this to Roy, and Roy said,

Unknown Speaker  30:33  
you know, don't worry about George.

Unknown Speaker  30:36  
And he took the whole thing to pieces. And then said, Well, it's I can make something of it, but I've got to cut new gears. And I'd cut them. And he mentioned what he'd make them out of.

Unknown Speaker  30:52  
So we got on the phone having

Unknown Speaker  30:58  
we got some idea, you know what the cost would be. We phone gains for us, and

Unknown Speaker  31:07  
I agreed that George could do that.

Unknown Speaker  31:13  
And

Unknown Speaker  31:15  
yes, he completely rebuilt the inside of a camera.

Unknown Speaker  31:21  
What what lenses did that that the have Astros, which I believe, were German, yes, yes, and slightly soft. They were soft. Everyone was as good as cooks, no. What was what kind of movement did it have that sinister? Well,

Unknown Speaker  31:42  
it was something completely different to any other camera.

Unknown Speaker  31:49  
There was a handle on the top, at the back, you could

Unknown Speaker  31:55  
swivel it,

Unknown Speaker  31:57  
and you then put a ground glass in position so through the lens and the ground glass you could see through.

Unknown Speaker  32:06  
And when we pushed it the other way, the ground last out the way, it became suitable to run the film in the gate,

Unknown Speaker  32:17  
really the kind of a swing over, rather like on the old debris, debris Anyway, yes,

Unknown Speaker  32:26  
an exterior, exterior viewfinder or an exterior view finder. Oh, you could look through the very finder the film. It's very difficult to say through the film, yeah, well, great back, wouldn't it? Yes, it's very difficult. But

Unknown Speaker  32:42  
with

Unknown Speaker  32:44  
going back with gun for crap, he only wanted to use the debris,

Unknown Speaker  32:51  
and I remember then the difficulty of seeing through film, but he did demand that you use the debris.

Unknown Speaker  33:01  
I wonder what the reason was. He seemed to think that it

Unknown Speaker  33:06  
gave him better results. I mean, I can't see

Unknown Speaker  33:11  
what reason because,

Unknown Speaker  33:15  
see on the debris, there was a cook lens, I believe, yes.

Unknown Speaker  33:20  
So you had the best lens, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  33:26  
What was it? What? Once you got the the teething out and the teething troubles over the city farm, were they reasonable to use?

Unknown Speaker  33:35  
Yes, yes, but they didn't. They didn't last. No, no, they were too poor,

Unknown Speaker  33:44  
too poor, and not every respect really, despite George Hill rebuilding them, what was registration like? Was it reasonable or not? Yes, it was reasonable.

Unknown Speaker  34:00  
Let's pause a second. Well, let's continue now. We'll still keep on to the the Austrians. Did you work with trans planner? Now you it was, it was called the love affair of the dictator. But eventually it was called the dictator dealing, wasn't it? That's right.

Unknown Speaker  34:21  
Well, I mainly went on that because I could

Unknown Speaker  34:26  
speak German.

Unknown Speaker  34:30  
He couldn't speak any English, really. Yes,

Unknown Speaker  34:37  
he was a very, very good lighting camera man, excellent. Did he have a particular technique at all? Do you remember difficult this long distance? Well,

Unknown Speaker  34:51  
I can only recall how good he was. Results, yes, yes, yes. Incidentally, were you.

Unknown Speaker  35:00  
Was he using Kodak? Was he using agphor? Do you remember Kodak

Unknown Speaker  35:07  
and toplets was? It was a top lips film. Toplets was the producer, producer, and I remember he was not like a typical

Unknown Speaker  35:20  
that you would expect him an Italian at all. He was about six foot three,

Unknown Speaker  35:28  
big burly,

Unknown Speaker  35:31  
and

Unknown Speaker  35:33  
he spoke very good English, really, and a booming voice.

Unknown Speaker  35:39  
But whoever he spoke to he

Unknown Speaker  35:43  
he was

Unknown Speaker  35:44  
spoke in a very curt and bad mannered manner, too,

Unknown Speaker  35:53  
and the director who started the picture was very, very slow,

Unknown Speaker  36:00  
and one morning,

Unknown Speaker  36:02  
soon after we started, toplets came on the floor and screamed at him.

Unknown Speaker  36:10  
Something

Unknown Speaker  36:12  
stopped. All going I've had enough of you in front of the whole floor was

Unknown Speaker  36:21  
the biggest row I've ever seen

Unknown Speaker  36:24  
take place on a studio floor, because this was Santel. Santel an American, and he took it very well and said, Right? Is that what you think? You know, I'll go and Victor Saville came on and Victor Saville was brought over.

Unknown Speaker  36:44  
Now, how did they, how did plan to get on with Victor Saville? Quite well. Did did several speak German at all?

Unknown Speaker  36:53  
No, not.

Unknown Speaker  36:55  
So you, you again in a very fortunate position, yes,

Unknown Speaker  37:01  
and I must I did enjoy working with Francis planner, but he told the crew off if they did anything or if he thought

Unknown Speaker  37:14  
focus. He used to call use the German word shaft, yes, and,

Unknown Speaker  37:22  
he told the assistant,

Unknown Speaker  37:24  
the focus puller, that he hadn't got a shaft and Francis planner, he had bad eyesight,

Unknown Speaker  37:36  
and if They weren't running the brushes in perfect focus. He'd say it's

Unknown Speaker  37:44  
the camera

Unknown Speaker  37:46  
when it wouldn't

Unknown Speaker  37:49  
be Yeah. That makes life very difficult, doesn't the house? Yes, yes, yes. Well, now,

Unknown Speaker  37:56  
can you remember anything more about him? I

Unknown Speaker  38:04  
Not really, and

Unknown Speaker  38:07  
I say it was quite pleasant, nice to work with.

Unknown Speaker  38:11  
But right now, let's, let's go on to Alexandra vinsky,

Unknown Speaker  38:17  
fetch Alex Yes.

Unknown Speaker  38:22  
Oh, hey. He

Unknown Speaker  38:24  
seemed, I don't know why, to work a lot with Victor saddle. Yes,

Unknown Speaker  38:29  
and Victor saddle is to

Unknown Speaker  38:32  
treat him rather as the poor relation, I would say,

Unknown Speaker  38:39  
tell him off in front of

Unknown Speaker  38:43  
the floor

Unknown Speaker  38:46  
because he was a he was a pear shaped man, wasn't he? Yes, very tall, pear shaped Yes. The last time I saw that, I went to a dinner at the

Unknown Speaker  39:01  
Veterans. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  39:03  
And he was at my table, and suddenly I could see wasn't well. He wasn't feeling well. And,

Unknown Speaker  39:14  
you know, I said it was the matter that you don't look

Unknown Speaker  39:19  
so he said, No, it's I'm not feeling very good. I'll get out. And his wife was with him, and they got up together. And

Unknown Speaker  39:30  
I think I called a waiter over who took them out through the back,

Unknown Speaker  39:37  
the back way, and that's the last I ever saw of him. He him.

Unknown Speaker  39:43  
What? What about Marcel Varnell? Oh, yes, Marcel Barnell, he was very pleasant, very nice. And

Unknown Speaker  39:57  
yes one I can remember a funny incident.

Unknown Speaker  40:00  
And with him coming back one night from Ealing, going down the North Circular Road, he said, oh, we'll pick up somebody to give them a lift. The air raids had started.

Unknown Speaker  40:15  
And so he said, Pick somebody who you know, it's going a long way. You know, won't say they're getting out soon after we start. So we stopped at some traffic lights, and I lowered the window and shouted out, you know, anybody going to Finchley and pick somebody up? And you

Unknown Speaker  40:44  
hour, Noel could listen to the conversation between myself and this person seated in the back, and the person was saying that he'd just got married, and it was his first night

Unknown Speaker  41:01  
at home,

Unknown Speaker  41:03  
and

Unknown Speaker  41:15  
explosion

Unknown Speaker  41:18  
shot him and his wife after bed,

Unknown Speaker  41:30  
I could see Brian Now,

Unknown Speaker  41:35  
and when we got to the pub

Unknown Speaker  41:40  
roundabout,

Unknown Speaker  41:42  
what's the name of that pub? Well, it's changed. It's changed its name now I know what you mean, on the corner of reasons Park Road. And yes, yeah, no,

Unknown Speaker  41:54  
I said, Oh. He said, I'm thirsty. We'll stop here for a drink. But I thought this amazing, because he was frightened as could be at the air raid now was, and he wanted to leave healing and get to his house. And he had an air raid shelter, which he lived in.

Unknown Speaker  42:13  
So I thought, fancy him stopping, you know, going in the south of all right. So we went in there and ordered drinks, and

Unknown Speaker  42:26  
Varnel stood right in front of this passenger, asking him questions.

Unknown Speaker  42:33  
So afterwards, we got rid of the passenger and went to barnell's house. So I said, Well, I'm surprised that you stopping. And he wanted to get back quickly

Unknown Speaker  42:46  
the air raid started. So he said, You English, you will not understand. He said, I heard that a man's in bed the first night with his Powell.

Unknown Speaker  43:01  
Once,

Unknown Speaker  43:03  
how he reacted.

Unknown Speaker  43:06  
You said, you English would not understand.

Unknown Speaker  43:12  
So from that, you know, I became quite a friend

Unknown Speaker  43:17  
over that. Yes, carry carry on, because he was saying that he used to when he put he passed the House, he taught you for it, yes, off your lift, pick me out. That was when you were where were you working, then healing, that he was directing, and then

Unknown Speaker  43:35  
to turn over. I.

Alan Lawson  0:00  
Lionel Baines signed for what was he? What was he like to work with on the floor?

Speaker 1  0:10  
Very easy, very easy, not difficult. And had a jocular man

Alan Lawson  0:24  
who was who was lighting that the film of that one, do you remember?

Unknown Speaker  0:36  
I do. His father had been a camera man,

Alan Lawson  0:45  
not Cooper, not Wilkie, Lucky

Cooper. Now I know you work with much green Baum. Can you remember that the the ones I've got written down from what's his pretender of Billings gate? Did you work on that? No, not. Constant nymph. No faithful heart that was made at Islington.

Unknown Speaker  1:27  
Yes.

Alan Lawson  1:29  
Can you remember about that at all,

Unknown Speaker  1:33  
no long while ago,

Alan Lawson  1:36  
what was much like to work within that was his early days, then, wouldn't

Speaker 1  1:42  
it very good? I regard mutts as the best camera man I've ever worked really, yes, he was very good at high key photography for a comedy or if you were working in a hut with a candle in it, he could do both excellent, if it's very good to work with us.

Alan Lawson  2:17  
To his crew was he was good to his particular crew, good to his crew, and what was, what was his relationship with you? Did he just let you

Speaker 1  2:28  
get on with it? Yes, yes, very, very good,

Alan Lawson  2:31  
like in like we do these days. Yes, really. Now, how is it? How did, did he always get on with the his directors.

Speaker 1  2:44  
Far as I remember, I'd say, yes. I seem to have been on at least two London, Victor Sabbath,

Alan Lawson  2:55  
yes, got home very well. Well, there was evergreen, yes, faithful heart. That was faithful heart, Kindle wakes.

Unknown Speaker  3:07  
No, I wasn't on

Alan Lawson  3:09  
love on wheels. Yes, that was, but there's some of that said Elstree, some

Speaker 1  3:14  
of that was an Elstree on the lot and in Selfridges, oh, yes, yes. At that time, Selfridges, all of West End firms closed at one o'clock on Saturday, and we used to go in from one o'clock Saturday, most of Saturday night and all day, Sunday and yes, much did very well in there, very clever in the way he is yes,

Alan Lawson  3:49  
because working on location, interior locations in those days wasn't easy,

Speaker 1  3:54  
no, and he's had lights specially prepared for that kind of work. It's very good.

Alan Lawson  4:06  
And now let's see what other ones we've got here. Did you you didn't go down and work with him on the stars? Looked down at denim or savills stony teacup that was also denim. No, I didn't sunshine. Susie, yes, you worked on sunshine. Well, that's he's one of his very early ones. Yes, 31

Unknown Speaker  4:32  
that's a German girl. Was it Renata Muller?

Alan Lawson  4:40  
I think, no, it was Renata Muller. I think it went well, let's have a quick look.

Sunshine, Susie, Angus, MacPhail, Renata Muller, Jack Halbert, now. In there.

Unknown Speaker  5:10  
Has that worked very well?

Alan Lawson  5:16  
Did you can you remember any of the other ones. Did you work on Tudor rose with Stevenson? Yes, that was Islington, wasn't it?

Speaker 1  5:28  
That's Islington as well, talking of Stevenson, yeah. He did a film, his first film, I worked on was in Switzerland, on location in Switzerland, Jack Halbert and Sicily COVID. Yes, yes, thank you, yes. And when I joined him in the hotel in St Moritz, I remember saying to him, all the artists and got to speak in German, how, what is your German light? Oh, he said, I couldn't make a mistake. He'd he'd got from Oxford. I've forgotten what he I mean us take it. You know that the German grammar is very difficult. It is ever so difficult even a German Mike, and he says, I couldn't, but he spoke with a terrible English accent. The Germans couldn't even understand him. And I remember we were doing one of the very first shots, and it was of an old man driving round a corner from the distance on a stage. G and I walked up to come towards the camera, and so I shouted, you know, action and that and the old boy you know, played with the reins, and the horse moved a little and just about came round the corner, then stopped Dead. So Stevenson was shouting to him in German, reverse, get round the corner again, start again. And he did no clue what he was saying. And as he shouted it about three times, and he did nothing, I stepped forward, and in my broken German, I put my hands together so that it hit and then shouted as loud as I could, go go back around the corner, I said in German. And immediately the old boy got off his seat, got the horse and started pushing it back, and I remember Stevenson looked round at me as much as fancy he'd understand You. And

Alan Lawson  8:34  
yes, can

you remember any more about what's at all?

Speaker 1  8:50  
As I say, he was always very good camera man and very pleasant to to work with.

Alan Lawson  9:02  
You didn't work with Charlie van Enger. Yes, you did. Ah, oh, yes, good, yes,

Unknown Speaker  9:06  
I go down very well with Charlie.

Alan Lawson  9:11  
Now let's have a quick look see what we have here. I was a spy, really, one that, no, not Aunt Sally, that was at Islington, wasn't That's right? Aunt Sally with Tim Whelan, yes. Can you remember about that at all?

Speaker 1  9:30  
Well, I remember Tim Wheelan. I wouldn't say he was a very great director at all. I think he'd had something to do with the art department by his manner. He was not a good director, but

Alan Lawson  9:48  
let's talk about Charlie van Enger.

Speaker 1  9:50  
Charlie van Enger, he was a rough type of American who'd started. Know, I don't know how he become a camera man at all. He had a fair knowledge of photography, but not, not of a nice finish, or what

Alan Lawson  10:16  
was his style. Then, if he had one,

Speaker 1  10:20  
well, he put an awful lot of light on, particularly a lot of front light. He thought, you know, it's safe, flatten it out. What

Alan Lawson  10:31  
was he What was he like, actually, to work with you, as far as you would consider, as far as

Speaker 1  10:36  
I was concerned, very good. He liked me,

Alan Lawson  10:39  
yeah. Was he good to his crew?

Unknown Speaker  10:43  
Yes, yes.

Alan Lawson  10:47  
Did you? Did you work on boys will be boys. That's

Speaker 1  10:49  
from Bill Bodine. Bill Bodine, he was a marvelous director, really, yes, I remember about the only time that happened in my filming that the crew was so pleased with him, thought so well of him, that we donated some money to buy him a gift.

Alan Lawson  11:15  
I say that, yes, that's quite something. What was so special about Bill Bodine and

Speaker 1  11:26  
what he was, first of all, a gentleman, and he knew exactly what he wanted, what should be seen on the screen. So

Alan Lawson  11:43  
now, then another one forbidden territory that was Phil Rosen, did you work on that for the bush? Friday the 13th. Islington, Victor Savill,

Unknown Speaker  11:55  
Friday the 13th. Trying to think, I nearly think I lit, I think Douglas slogan was lighting it and he became ill. Think that was Friday the 13,

Alan Lawson  12:21  
not, not according to, not according to Rachel low, but let Rachel though is not 100% correct, always Friday The 13th, always better if I spell it right. Do

Unknown Speaker  12:50  
well, never mind. Maybe I'm Noel.

Alan Lawson  12:52  
I think you are. Yeah, because it's, you know, it's down for Charlie van Enger. Now, then let's have another look. Here. Is LinkedIn, where there's a will, there's a way. Again, that's Bill Bodine, did you work on that? Noel, well, I think we've that's, that's got rid of Charlie van Inga. Now, then. Glenn McWilliams, did you work with him? Not really.

Speaker 1  13:28  
I did a few shots in a picture. I describe him as a good camera man. He lit a picture in Hollywood before he came here that won an Oscar, I think for photography, he was somewhere on the nervy, really type as I remember him. You know, after he licked something, he wasn't sure if he shouldn't still alter it a bit

Alan Lawson  14:10  
fine tuning all the time. Yes, yes. Now that then Carl Freund, no, but you knew did know

Unknown Speaker  14:26  
him, though, did you Yes? I met him? Yes.

Alan Lawson  14:30  
When was that?

Unknown Speaker  14:35  
Now? Wonderful? Don an

Alan Lawson  14:38  
because his last credits over here and 1930 Oh

Speaker 1  14:42  
no, no, no, I'm so sorry now I'm muddling up no carb floor, and I only met and knew when he was retired and old he was then we invited him to a dinner of the BSC. Know, and for some reason He came and sat next to me and was chatting quite a lot. Yes, I remember he must have had a good sense of humor, because opposite us there was Codex representative, and he said to me, and Karl Floyd said, and are you very pleased with your work on the American film? Not Kodak Dupont, Du Pont saying we played that together. We were using DuPont and Kodak was lifting up, getting quite worried. And I thought, for anybody who told me then he was 83 or so, he was doing very well. Well,

Alan Lawson  16:00  
you're not doing so bad. Now the filter neuro,

Speaker 1  16:12  
yes, I've done only odd shots for him, and I didn't think much of his work.

Alan Lawson  16:18  
Where was that?

Speaker 1  16:21  
Also? It was just a lot of front lights without any modeling.

Alan Lawson  16:30  
You told you, told me a little story about

Speaker 1  16:33  
his advertiser, his advert in the American cinematographer,

Alan Lawson  16:37  
yeah. Tell us. Tell us about that.

Speaker 1  16:43  
As it was shown. After he finished in England, he went back to America, and he couldn't get a job very easily, so he put a full page advertisement in the American photographer of himself a full length figure, standing in front of the stumps, holding a bat with a cap with a long pink on, and the wording was finished batting for Britain now, now ready for American something to that effect, yeah,

Alan Lawson  17:27  
because he went back at the beginning of the war, didn't he? Or was he here during the war? Do you remember?

Unknown Speaker  17:34  
No, he wasn't.

Alan Lawson  17:36  
He went back. He went back. He went in. The let's, let's hang on a second. Now, in in your career, you know, on the camera department, obviously, when you felt when you first started, it was always Codex, wasn't it? Yes, and codec type two, wasn't it? Pen type two, pen two, pen two, when you first started, and that always came from Rochester,

Unknown Speaker  18:11  
yes, I think so. Yes.

Alan Lawson  18:14  
Did you ever? Were you ever in a position where you were when I say main to use egg for at all. No, not no, because I know that a lot of the quote a quick is, you know, where they were short of money. I bought ag for, yeah, bought egg for in Penny numbers, so consistency wasn't good and gave out at all.

Unknown Speaker  18:40  
Now I only tested it for myself,

Alan Lawson  18:45  
but you did say you you had worked with DuPont.

Speaker 1  18:52  
Yes, I don't remember on what film. I think it was gains press found a very good, very good quality, and you could rely on it. Yes,

Alan Lawson  19:13  
you've got sparkling quality out of that. Remember, yes, and the base wasn't as dense as the as the gray back pain, yes, then, then during, did you ever use HP three at all after the

Speaker 1  19:33  
war? Yes, I first used it because of its extra speed. Yeah, I had to film inside a store, and wanted, you know, to get the fastest film I could. And I used that and found it very good.

Alan Lawson  19:55  
Do you ever use HB four?

Unknown Speaker  19:59  
Not really. Only No, no, because

Alan Lawson  20:00  
by that time color had arrived, yes, yes.

Speaker 1  20:06  
Another film I used to do night try and get night exteriors within daylight was,

Speaker 1  20:21  
call right? A lot of American films when they were doing night exteriors, infrared

Speaker 1  20:32  
stuff, infrared, yes, yes, I couldn't get it easily in England, and the best I had was some scent from some manufacturer in see what's the big town in in America, 1000 miles from New York, San Francisco, no, no, only 1000 miles.

Speaker 1  21:11  
Anyway, yes, there was a manufacturer there, and I believe they'd originally come from Belgium. A Belgium, well, they made some. I used that and found it very good. And then I approached Codex here. I said, you've got here in Rochester. Can't you let me have some? So they said, well, it's no good you ordering like 1000 feet, because it wouldn't pay us. But if you, I think they said I had to have 10,000 feet a batch, in other words, yes. And so I approached the company, and they said, All right, and that's how I started with Kodak. And the next time I wanted it, Kodak said, well, we can't just let you have 10,000 you know, you've got to have so much more. So I approached Dougie Slocum and showed him what I'd done with it. And he said, Alright, he used it on his film, on his Day for Night Sequence. And he the company he was working with, took, took it. Then in the end, Kodak think that, I think they said I'd have to have order at least 30,000 so that was the end. But I found the excellent for the purpose. Yes,

Alan Lawson  22:53  
it's always a blooming nuisance, though, Day for Night, isn't it?

Speaker 1  22:56  
Yes, but you could get, I don't know if you ever saw a film, it started in London at the outbreak of the war. Shot in on alulu, or one of the islands, and they had shots of the natives eating at dusk, with the white waves of the ocean standing out really white, and the fire having real heat in it. I can't remember the name of it, and through that, I thought, well, you can't beat that day for night with infrared. And I even to gain some experience with it. I bought still material and took stills with it. I

Alan Lawson  24:05  
now, when you were at the bush, you had that wonderful little laboratory down below with Bill godelston. Did you know? Did the cameraman find that really valuable?

Speaker 1  24:18  
Oh, yes, I can remember. We'd say all you know, when we finish the role, or take it straight down to Bill, yes.

Alan Lawson  24:29  
And Bill's relationship with the cameraman, very good. Oh, very good. Because I can remember him coming up on the floor at times. Yes, he did it then, too, yes.

Speaker 1  24:41  
And I was thinking, even since he Pat, he retired, he'd come to Yes, see

Alan Lawson  24:52  
us by that now, when I was there, it was all being done on on frames. Was it still on frames? Do you remember the

Unknown Speaker  25:04  
I'd say it was because

Alan Lawson  25:06  
for long, for big takes, he had those Dreadnought frames, double frames. Can you remember any of the other crew that was with him? I tried. I can't remember their

Speaker 1  25:17  
names. He had one young man who was his first who was very good, like he knew along too. I can't remember this

Alan Lawson  25:30  
is. This is the man. I'm trying to remember his name, Michael, yes, yes, yes, because I can. I can remember taking my first camera sheets down to him and being told off because they weren't properly clear. Did you ever get told off by Bill? No, well, I was only the boy.

Can you think of anything else that we should talk about?

Speaker 1  26:07  
Think with the only thing this morning I hadn't spoken about, there's an American cameraman on the Dyer. Oh

Alan Lawson  26:15  
yes, yes, yes, do, because he had the 80s, didn't he? He had an eight three.

Speaker 1  26:25  
He came over with an eight three, which no one knew about. And I had to load the film and and he told me how to undo the magazine and put the film in. And I thought, That can't be right. It'd be facing the wrong way. And he did that deliberately, really, yes, he had an operator that he promised to come to England with him, so he wanted the company to employ this operator that was really dirty, whose name I don't remember, and he did get on the payroll. But although he came to work for El Madar. Afterwards, el madar had taken to me a plan, put it that way, so much that he didn't want him

Alan Lawson  27:29  
proud. Was it? No, not Bob,

Speaker 1  27:36  
no. Kim, Max. Not so long ago, some years ago, all of a sudden, I received a phone call one night here. That's a good few years ago and and it was him, Elmer,

Alan Lawson  27:49  
No, the other assistant cameras,

Speaker 1  27:53  
and he was staying the one night in England. And said, you know, could he see me so I couldn't leave a house at that time to go and meet him, and he was leaving early the next morning to go to Germany. That's the last I heard of

Alan Lawson  28:19  
him talk about the eightling, because nobody's talked about the eight lean, really?

Speaker 1  28:24  
Oh yes. Now it was a camera that was used in America, practically only for news real world. It had two lenses on it. One was the Finder lens, and the other the shooting lens. And they were on a panel, always in twos. What I can remember about that was that when we prepared the camera for Elmo to go up and we'd say, what filter Do you want? Because it was very difficult to put a filter in an eighthly camera. It had a gelatine filter and a little wire frame, and it went at the back of the lens. I thought he couldn't, couldn't do that up in the air, because he went up in a an orange box, practically,

Alan Lawson  29:19  
yes, he was a bite they used to film from bike lanes, didn't they? Yes, I'm trying

Unknown Speaker  29:24  
to think of the name of the plane,

Speaker 1  29:32  
well known plane at the time, and so he'd So, I guess put in a narrow tube. So they put in an aerobic tube. And when we saw the Russia the next day, I thought they couldn't have been shot with an arrow too. It's impossible that you. White clouds that have stand out as though they were not real. Clouds were so marvelous. So I thought I've got to find out how to what he uses. I thought it's at least a 23 A. So in those days when the plane landed 2am and always ran out right away to the plane and want to get each side of the wings, yes, the wings, and guide it in. I thought, well, I'll run out with them. But he was a real you never knew what Elmore endeavor I'd heard, you know, he was a real fighter. So I ran out to the aircraft, and as soon as I got at the side, I put my feet in those steps, got out, and I got hold on the lens and pulled it right up, and there I saw a 23 A, or an a, an Elmer. He kind of looked at me. His head went back. I thought, you know, what am I going to get now? And to my amazement, he never pronounced my name as Lionel. What was Lionel? LIONEL, you're the only person here who isn't frightened of me. So I said, Well, I said, I've got nothing to be frightened of you home. I want to learn from you. And because I found out afterwards, and then I flew with him, and I used to go up in three years. And when the winds and this open planes was terrific, I thought he can't take the lens off. I don't know how he'd ever changed the filter. And while I was flying alongside him, he went to show me how he could do him, and we couldn't talk to one another, but he signaled to me, and then he got out of his seat, and he got hold of the lens and pulled it out. And if I'd have done that, he would have gone miles, but he held it and showed me he could hold it. He was a stronger. He was like iron, and he held it. And then even to show me he could do better, he put it out over the side of the plane, and his arm was going like that, but he, you know, he could do it, and I could see, could change the filter.

Alan Lawson  33:11  
Did he do? Indeed, he do interiors at all par. Was he was an exterior man only? Wasn't

Speaker 1  33:16  
only exterior? Yes, yes, yes. Didn't know anything about lighting. And then he told me something about his life, how he become a camera man. He said he'd never worn a pair of shoes. He was born in Oklahoma, and he lived in a wild way. Never worn shoes till he was 15. It's the first time he'd put a pair of shoes on, and when he was 19, he'd had a row for some other man and hit him, and he thought he'd killed him. Everyone said, you know, you've killed him. So he thought, well, before the police catch me, I'll go. So he just went. And he walked West, until he eventually reached Los Angeles, and he went into the film studio and thought, well, you know, I'm strong. I could carry furniture when they said, you know, he'd like a job. He got into the props through that, and he said, I kept my eyes and ears open all the time. And he said I heard one day that they'd sent a photographer up with a graphics camera quarter plate to film, to take a still or something, and when he put the camera out the side of the plane and blown away. So I listened to that and thought, Well, I'm strong. I'm sure. He'd be able to hold a camera. And he went and found out what the graphics was, how heavy it was, what it was, and then he told the head of the stills that he think he could hold that out of the plane if he could teach him how to set the camera, stop it down, and whatever he had to do. So he went up in that and he got the stills, and from that, he got into doing cine work, and that's how he became the greatest on the aerial aerial photography,

Alan Lawson  35:43  
because I can always remember the picture of him on the top of a plane, flying on the top of a plane with the triad strap down and goggles.

Speaker 1  35:56  
He always wore a leather jacket with the name of every picture that he'd worked on, written in white, white paint on and he told me he wouldn't go up without that. It was superstitious.

Alan Lawson  36:11  
Most cameramen, I think, were superstitious, weren't they? Possibly, yes, always had something in their pockets.

Speaker 1  36:18  
And yes, he had no time in the end for his own operator to read, really, yeah.

 

Biographical

Born Lionel Lawrence Banes in 1904 in Manchester, he started his career at Gainsborough Studios in Islington in 1930, after being drawn into the film industry by his love of photography. His first film was The Hound of the Baskervilles (d. Gareth V. Gundreth, 1931) as an assistant to the camera department, loading film, pulling focus and other general duties. Progressing to camera operator, he worked on all the Cecily Courtneidge/Jack Hulbert films at Gainsborough, starting with The Ghost Train (d. Walter Forde, 1931).

During the 1940s, Banes was employed at Ealing Studios as a cinematographer on key films such as Passport to Pimlico (d. Henry Cornelius, 1949), Pool of London (d. Basil Dearden, 1949) and The Man in the White Suit (d. Alexander Mackendrick, 1951).

After EalingBanes went into commercial television, specialising in glossy filmed series for the likes of Harry Alan Towers and ITC, including The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel (ITV, 1955-1956), The Avengers (ITV, 1961-69), The Saint (ITV, 1962-66) and Man in a Suitcase (ITV, 1967-68).

Ann Ogidi