Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1945)

Remembering Joe O'Brien, Builder of Newspictures Joseph O'Brien by TERRY RAMSAYE THIS is about a certain, very certain, Mr. Joseph O'Brien, the film editor of Universal News, who last week on the day of Passover went across the end title of his reel of life. This is the first time in the thirty years of knowing him that I have called him Mister. That is because this man, so young to me, was always Joe. Joe was a blackhaired husky boy just out of knee pants when he got a job with the old Biograph plant up in 176th street juggling racks in the print room. Then he was for a while under the bitterly efficient Charles De Moos over at Fort Lee at the Brulatour Paragon Laboratory. Joe learned to look through a four hundred-foot rack of wet film and know when the density was right. He could time a negative through sixteen light changes and produce a "one-light dupe." No matter if you do not know what that means, it was precision. He could guess at how much caustic soda to speed it up and how much bromide to slow it down. He was no chemist, just a guy named Joe, tending to his business, interested in it. When Joe came to Kinograms in 1919 he was a skilled negative developer, entrusted, one may remember, that fevered night when we had the famous trans-Atlantic flight pictures of the NC planes, to develop. The pictures were the special interest of Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, and his assistant, one Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as our first big warplane gesture before the world. The editor of Kinograms had borrowed a destroyer from them to bring the negatives back to New York from Ponta Delgada in the Azores. Joe sat up that night to see the negative cut and the first print made and he went uptown to see its first run at the Palace on Broadway. There was a spirit about newsreels then that ran clear through the laboratory. A Cameraman of High Skill So it came that Joe, who has come up from the hypo tanks, became in time a cameraman of high skill and assignments to far places, became a film cutter — rather an inadequate title for the man who tears apart and assembles newspictures at breakneck speed to the whim of editors at midnight. At Pathe News in the late 1920's he had a hand in the screen delivery of the performances of such swashbucklers of the camera as Harry Hardy and David Oliver and Bob Donahue, those temperamental knights of the tripod, who made so much film and newsreel history with it. It was that Joe who criticized the errant veterans and encouraged the striving cubs. He had a deal to do with the making of two promising office boys, Larry O'Riley and Willie Deek, into the able cameramen they became. One may remember with tenderness now that night when the new editor-in-chief, sitting over the minutiae of the newsreel's problems came upon a blatantly corrupt expense account, and remarked upon it. "Yes," said Joe. "Sure it's a gyp. But you know that fellow's got a kid in the hospital and the bills are hell. Talk to him about it when the kid's got well." The account was Ok'd. Joe was there on Pathe News when sound came in, enjoying the adventures and travails of those months of ordeal when the pictures were learning to talk. He was, incidentally, a braw mixture of Irish and German, which meant that he was always torn between the dull hard facts and the titilating whimsies. "Cleaned His Hat Swell" There came that time when the first experimental RCA sound news camion, an amazingly intricate device, was delivered and taken out on a test. When the film came out to the projection room there was an array of executives waiting about for report. The machinery had been, that day, a lot of trouble. Joe, in sheer invention, but substantial truth, emerged saying: "You can tell Mr. Sarnoff that Ramsaye says the damned thing won't make pictures, but it cleaned his hat swell." That did neither of the persons named much good. Sound and its problems gave to Joe the interesting and difficult assignment of taking equipment and a crew to France to introduce the new art to the somewhat allied Pathe-Natan concern, continental correspondents for Pathe News. The impact of his direct methods upon the volatile and suspicious Frenchmen was terrific. They did not learn so much about sound pictures, but they got an education in cameraman's English that was altogether remarkable. A Taste for Knicknacks Somewhere, perhaps in his many assignments in the silent camera days with the U. S. Navy, he acquired a taste for knicknacks and objets d'art. He came back from France with enough cloisonne to stock a Madison avenue art shop. From Pathe Joe went for a while into the Truman Tally organization in the service of the Fox newsreel and thence to the post of assistant to Allyn Butterfield, then editor of Universal Newsreel, into whose position he succeeded, in association with Tom Mead. For the first time, belligerent Joe could work in double harness. Joe O'Brien was always the editor who could make the most out of the picture after the cameraman had done with it. He was smart enough never to forget what simple people liked. He was lucky. His days ended among friends. Joseph O'Brien, 45, editor of Universal Newsreel, died last Friday, March 30, at the Harkness Pavilion, New York, after a long illness. As editor, Mr. O'Brien also produced the short subject series, "Person-Oddities" and "Variety Views," as well as special features. Funeral services were held Monday at the Walter B. Cooke Funeral Home, Bronx, New York. A requiem mass was said at St. Ann's Church, Bronx, with burial in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York. Surviving are his widow, Helen; a brother, Charles, and three sisters, Mildred, Alice and Frances. Harry Server Leon Harry Server Leon, 48, head of the Leon circuit, consisting of 14 theatres in the Dallas territory, died March 30 after an illness of several months. His brother, C. D. Leon, succeeds him. H. W. Forster, Western Electri Advertising Manager, 47 Herbert W. Forster, 47, advertising manage Western Electric Company, died suddenly M; 30 at the Roosevelt Hospital, New York, r heart attack. Mr. Forster began his Bell Sys association in the personnel department of Wes Electric in 1924. He shortly became editor of of the company's employee papers and servec associate editor of Western Electric News. 1930 he became the company's press representai and in 1940, advertising manager. In his c munity, Rockville Center, Long Island, he was tive for many years in social and civic organ tions. His widow, the former Greta Voelcker, two children, Virginia, 23, and Claire Ann, Alice M. McFaul, Wife of Buffalo Theatres Head Funeral services for Mrs. Alice M. McFaul, were held last Saturday at St. Joseph's J Cathedral, Buffalo. She was the wife of Vin<| R. McFaul, president of Buffalo Theatres, 1| operating the Shea theatres in Buffalo. Reco j ing from an operation, she died suddenly M; 28 after a relapse. Max Hoffman, Jr. Max Hoffman, Jr., 43, stage and screen corned found unconscious in his New York apartment Saturday by his wife, Luana Walters, an actr died two hours later, apparently of an overdose sleeping tablets taken accidentally. Mr. Hoffi started in the theatre as a dancer at 18. eventually moved on to roles as a comedian, recent years he appeared in films. Surviving, sides his wife, is his mother, Gertrude Hoffn and his father, Max, Sr., composer and orche: conductor. His former wife was Helen K; singer and actress. Edmund Kelleher Edmund F. Kelleher, 73, for 15 years associs with his brother Martin in the management of Princess theatre, Hartford, Conn., died of a h( attack at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford Ma 24. He had been ill for three years. Funi services were held at Mount St. Benedict's Cei tery in Hartford. Besides his brother, he leave; son, Edmund J. Kelleher of Newington, Cq William F. Gossner Funeral services were held Tuesday for Will: F. Gossner, 52, at the Church of Assumpt: Peekskill, N. Y. Burial was at the Gates of Hea Cemetery, Woodlawn, N. Y. Mr. Gossner, for past eight years associated with MGM's explo tion and royalty departments, died of a he attack March 30 at his home in Putnam Val N. Y. Survivors are his wife, Helen and a brotl Valentine. May Beatty May Beatty, 64, former stage and screen actn died in a sanitarium in Covina, Cal., Sund following a long illness. Born in Christchurch, N Zealand, she became a musical comedy and dran:; player in England and subsequently appeared numerous films in this country, including "Pr and Prejudice." She was the widow of Willi Lauri, actor. Surviving is a daughter, Mrs. Gunt Fritsch of North Hollywood. Sergeant Walter Lobel Sergeant Walter T. Lobel, 26, formerly of ( lumbia Pictures exploitation staff, was killed action in the South Pacific. Pie was a tail gun in the Army Air Forces. Before joining Colt' bia, he was associated with Hal Roach, Repul and Consolidated Films companies. J. Clarence Sullivan J. Clarence Sullivan, 67, former press repres tative for the Lee F. Boda Theatres, in Tole Columbus, Dayton, Springfield, Ohio, and Indi apolis, died suddenly at his home in Columl March 27. With his wife, he established the En Sullivan Studios in Columbus, specializing in th trical costumes, and operated the business until i posing of it last November. 32 MOTION PICTURE HERALD, APRIL 7, ll