Best of James Wong Howe: He Ran All the Way (1951)

Video by Mark Laurila
"With all our modern technology, there is no one who can match James Wong Howe's ability to control light in the service of story." Roger Deakins, Cinematographer
James Wong Howe was a legendary Hollywood cameraman who remains too little known today, despite having been nominated ten times for Academy Awards (and winning twice). This video presents the highlights of Wong Howe's cinematography in the 1951 crime melodrama Film Noir "He Ran All the Way," which contains the final on-screen performance by John Garfield.
By the time the film was released, Garfield had been called before HUAC, the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and been blacklisted from ever working in the movie industry. Garfield died shortly afterwards of a heart attack at the age of 39. The script was mostly written by Dalton Trumbo, but because of his blacklisting and impending prison sentence, his name was removed from the credits. The film's director, John Berry, was also blacklisted, and he left the U.S. in order to continue working in Europe.
As the film's Director of Photography, James Wong Howe, a master of black and white, brought his characteristic, nuanced control of darkness and light to the cinematography. This video demonstrates Wong Howe's brilliance in several modes: Introducing a Character (which involves a fast pan, a startling push in, and reframing to emphasize a gun), Darkness and Light (showcasing Wong Howe's mastery of Film Noir style), Camera Placement in Pool (in which Wong Howe put on swim trunks and lowered his camera into Long Beach's Plunge to get the play of light off the water and onto the actors' faces), All in a Single Shot (virtuosic, and always helpful on a low budget movie), High-Angle Vulnerability (nearly a God's Eye View looking down on human weakness), Trapped Inside Frames (fitting for a hostage story), and John Garfield's Final Scene on Film (a collaboration with an actor that Wong Howe had loved and worked with since the 1930s).
Music
"All in Your Eyes" by Nocturnal Spirits
Licensed through Epidemic Sound www.epidemicsound.com/