American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1926)

Record Details:

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October. 1926 A M ERICA N C I N RM ATOGR APHER Nine Cinematographer Is Hero in Florida Storm Ralph Earle, of Pathe News, By Paul Thompson Using Aeroplane, Automobile Braves Storm and Falling (Reprinted by special and Trains, Personally Takes Buildings to Get Pictures. ^XTr" News!'" Film North to New York. "Ralph Earle is as anxious to see Mr. Thompson as Mr. Thompson can possibly be to see him." This was the re-assuring telephone message relayed to me in his office by Emanuel Cohen, editor of Pathe News. It was through him I was trying to make an appointment at the hospital with the cameraman who had photographed the Miami disaster and then by train and plane come north to deliver in person his news-reels. This cordiality on the part of the man who had done a really exceptional bit of work to receive me in the guise of an interviewer was flatteringly based on his acquaintanceship with my own many years' work as one of the country's news photographers. His being in the hospital was due to what he had gone through during the period of taking for his company the photographs of the Florida hurricane and its work of devastation, and the mad dash north with the results. Curiously, my apprenticeship for interviewing plucky Earle was served just prior to the interview by witnessing for review purposes a Pathe comedy. This was based on the idea of a copy boy in a newspaper office with ambitions to become a first-string reporter and the realization of these self-same ambitions. What better way to learn the reportorial art? "Can't Put Excuses on Screen" "You can't put excuses on the screen to explain the absence of news-reel pictures; so whatever else you do, keep that camera dry." In that statement made to his garage-employee helper in carrying the tripod and camera to take scenes of the disaster is the summing up of the character of Ralph Earle, Pathe cameraman. Knowing that he was in Miami, Manager Cohen had no doubts about the quality of the pictures which his organization would get to send out. It was merely a question of what would be the earliest possible moment that they would reach Jersey City for copies to be made to rush to the theatres of the country supplied by his company. With the destruction of the Sikorsky plane whichFonck was to drive to Paris in the first non-stop flight, a news -story which was carefully and painstak ingly to be covered by Pathe, the news-reel department on Forty-fifth Street had cause enough for worry without devoting too much thought to Florida and Earle. The faith was justified. The pictures came through hugged more or less closely to the chest of the man who had taken them, even though the cameraman's next stop was a private hospital on Fortieth Street. Here he was to have bruises and abrasions cared for, his shoes and stockings cut off and the lower parts of his body bathed and tenderly swathed in bandages. Complete rest and sufficient and the right kind of food were also prescribed with a few incidental shots of anti-toxin to make certain there would be no disastrous after effects from his Florida experience. And twenty-four hours after his admission to the hospital the news-reel man was begging the doctor to re-assure the boss that he was sufficiently recovered and healthy to justify his going to Philadelphia on Thursday for the Dempsey-Tunney fight. Granted the boon, he promised to return to the hospital on Friday for a longer stay. Of such stuff are the right sort of news-cameramen made, men with a reportorial sense and a knowledge of how and when to turn the crank and — most important— possessors of that inelegant but eloquent word called "guts." There was, according to Earle, prescience of the storm that was to come as early as Friday afternoon in Miami. Editors Leyshone and Irwin, of the Daily News, had published in that afternoon's last edition a notice to the effect that they would print extras that night of the progress of the storm when it arrived. It was in their office, where they were lingering long after their paper had gone to press, that Earle got his first advance dope on the coming cyclone or hurricane. The weather report, on the other hand, distinctly said : "Pay no attention to any pessimistic prophecies of a storm; there is nothing to it. It is merely newspaper publicity," but failed to explain just wherein any newspaper could profit by such dire forebodings. Incidentally, the Daily News did get out their extras, even though as late as four P. M. on Sunday the floor of the (Continued on Page 20)