Forgotten Hollywood

Manny P. here…

   Douglas Slocombe was the British cinematographer who filmed the Nazi invasion of Poland as a newsreel camerman (his footage was used in the Herbert Kline documentary, Lights Out in Europe), the Indiana Jones trilogy, and the madcap farce created at Ealing Studios comedies. He shot 80 films, working with directors as varied as George Cukor, John Huston, Norman Jewison, and Roman Polanski.

   The son of journalist George Slocombe, his father was the Paris correspondent for the Daily Herald. Visiting Danzig in 1939, the younger Slocombe photographed the growing anti-Jewish sentiment. He covered a Joseph Goebbels rally and the burning of a synagogue, for which he was briefly arrested.

   He became the house cinematographer for Ealing Studios. His career began with the famed black comedies across the pond of the late 1940s and early 1950s that made Alec Guinness a star, including Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Man in the White Suit, and The Lavender Hill Mob.

      Following Ealing’s demise, Slocombe signed on to a number of CinemaScope releases. His credits were formidable, with productions such as A Lion in Winter, Travels with My Aunt, The Blue Max, Jesus Christ Superstar, Never Say Never Again, Rollerball, The Great Gatsby, Julia, and shot several scenes for Steven Spielberg for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. So impressed, the director enlisted him for Raiders of the Lost Ark, as well as two sequels. His last film was 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

   He was nominated for three Academy Awards, and he won three BAFTA’s. The British Society of Cinematographers gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 New Year Honours.

   Douglas Slocombe (right) was 103.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2016 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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