American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

Night of Love" — which probably playt i to more business than any other release of its season. But it wasn't just a lucky break that turned failure into success, and tran.-formed a non picture personality into a top-flight star. There was a quiet, unassuming man by the name of Joseph Walker, A.S.C., presiding over the cameras on "One Xight of Love." And it was due in a great measure to his professional hobby that the visual miracle of the picture transpired. For Joe Walker's hobby is collecting lenses. He gathers them from every possible source — fresh and new from the world's greatest lens-makers, old and battered from Los Angeles' pawnshops. And he knows lenses so well that each individual objective's characteristics and performance are at his fingertips. With him, it isn't a case of merely saying "A Cooke will do this, an Astro, that, and this other type, something else." He knows, from exhaustive study and tests, that this particular Cooke will perform this way, while that individual Cooke — apparently of the same design and manufacture— will act differently under suchand-such conditions. He has the industry's largest individually-owned collection of lenses and diffusing media. So it was that when the apparently non-photogenic Miss Moore came to Columbia, Joe Walker analyzed her features, thought a minute, and reached into his lens-case for a combination of lens and diffusion which were just a little bit different from anything previously used in photographing the lady. Add to this the skill Walker and Director Victor Schertzinger have in making a player A BIG part of the fascination of Hollywood is the way in the midst of its traditionally hard-boiled routine, real-life incidents occur in which the story-book happy ending is seen to come true. When these things happen, most of us generally put it down as a "lucky break" for the individual concerned, and forget that there's usually someone doing hard — and unpublicized — work behind the scenes to turn anticipated failure into amazing success. All of which is by way of introducing an unassuming man who played a big part in one of those real-life Alger stories not so long ago. It seems that an internationally famous operatic star signed to make a picture for a relatively small studio which was then struggling on the wrong side of the mythical line of demarcation between minor-league and major-studio status. The industry was politely skeptical, for this star had made several pictures for another, much larger studio, and emerged with the general verdict that even though she could sing well enough for the Metropolitan Opera, she was unfortunately not a "picture personality." It was too bad the little studio was going to be saddled with a Aces of the Camera IV: JOSEPH WALKER, A.S.C. By WALTER BLANCHARD costly flop, but of course it couldn't be anything else. But it was. The picture was a smash hit. Grace Moore, the opera-singer, emerged radiantly as the top picture personality of the year. It brought back musical films with such a bang that for years no studio with any pretense of standing could afford not to have one or two operatic songbirds on its contract roster. And it boosted the Columbia Studio well across the line into definite major-studio classification. That picture that "couldn't be a success" was "One feel at ease, and, well, Horatio Alger might have penned the sequel. If you ask him about it, Walker puts it very logically. "Years ago," he'll say, "I decided that the real foundation of photography was the lens that made the picture. And as photography was my bread-and-butter, I decided I'd 1 know something about lenses. And I've been learning about them ever since." In the process, he has made a number of important contributions to the optical side of cinematography. For example, (Continued on Page 198) ICO April, 111 American Cinematograph er