John Alton (Janos or Jacob Altman),

b. Sopron, Hungary, 1901 In the early 1990s, nothing had been reported to say that John Alton was dead, but no one seemed to know where he was. And so his strange and often unaccountable career became the more mysterious and romantic. How easy it was to suppose that one of the great creators of shadow had simply opted for some rare obscurity. It was nearly thirty years since Alton had worked: he was the initial cin-t’lnatographer on Birdmait of Alcatraz (62), but he and director Charles Crichton were replaced by John Frankenheimer and Burnett Guffey. After that. . , ?
Was Alton disgusted or disappointed? Did he feel there was no more point in wasting his time on Hollywood? Or did he reckon that being sixty was enough? Did he resume some Hungarian name or identity—for surely he was not born “John Alton”? If this was hard enough to explain, there was a greater enigma. For years, Alton worked on the lowliest of movies, B pictures and quickies. Then in the space of a few years he helped create the look of film noir. And then … he went under contract to MGM, where he photographed a mixed bag of pictures hut never really went back to noir.
Then movie buffs “rediscovered” Alton. Of course, he had known where he was all along—and he had been in Los Angeles much of the time, the most obvious place and for that very reason, perhaps, the best hiding place. And so the legend gave way to some verifiable facts.
Alton had come to America from Hungary in 1919-20. He had worked in the labs for MGM and then he had become an assistant to Glyde De Vinna and Woody Van Dyke. As John Alton 12
such, he worked on Spoilers af the Went (28, Van Dyke) and Wyoming (28, Van Dyke), David Sel/nick’s first efforts at Metro. Alton was also traveling, and lit: did some location shooting in Germany for The Student Prince (27, Ernst Lubitsch). He did some shooting in Paris on Song At that point, Alton chose !o go to Argentina to help develop that country’s film Industry, He shot over twenty films, and even directed: El Hijo de Papa (32, Alton); Los Tres Berretines (32, Enrique T. Suslni); Lti Vidti Bohemia (38, Joseph Berne); and Puerto Ce-rrada (39, Luis Saslavsky).
His American credits begin in 1940 on films that are hard to see, and which in some cases are likely lost: The Courageous Dr. Christian (40, Bernhard Vorhaus); The Refugee (40, Vorhaus); Three Faces West (40, Vorhaus); Forced Landing (41, Gordon Wiles); Ttie Devil Puys Off(4\, John H. Auer); Mr District Attorney in the Carter Case (42, Vorhaus); Moonlight Masquerade (42, Auer); Ttie Button’s Daughter (43, Arthur Dreifuss); Atlantic City (44, Ray McCarey); Lake Placid Serenade (44, Steve Sekely); Girts of the Big House (45, George Archainbaud); A Guy Could Change (45, William K. Howard); Affairs of Ceraldine (46, George Blair); The Madonna’s Secret {46, William Thiel); and The Ghost Goes Wild (47, Blair).
Driftwood (41, Allan Dwan) was a step up, and it has some fine, atmospheric coverage of the young Natalie Wood. But the films Alton would be known for lay just ahead (and they were all small films in their day): He Walked by Night (48, Alfred L. Werker—and with some uncredited work by Anthony Mann); ttatv Dial (48, Mann); Hollow Triumph (48, Sekely); 1-Afcn (48, Mann); Reign of Terror (49, Mann); Border Incident (49, Mann); and Devil’s Doorway (49. Maun).
Alton’s vision was ideally suited to low-budget work-, he used tew lamps, and he abandoned standard setups; he was also ready to anger union electrician* by bypassing their preferred procedures. He was as much at ease in the French Revolution setting of Reign of Terror as in the modern, urban uoir of T-Men. This was very arty lighting, despite its harsh mood; in 1945, Alton published a book called Painting With Light, which helped draw attention to bis very mannered photography and to the influence of Rembrandt.
By 1950, he had been signed up by Metro, and he was at work on Father of the Bride (Vincente Minnelli)! A year later he shared an Oscar for color cinematography on An American in Paris (,51, Minnelli)—his first ever color film. This was more prestigious work, and it paid better. For ten years, Alton was a studio cameraman, though Allan Dwan observed that be fought the unions with increasing zeal; Grounds jar Marriage (50, Robert Z. Leonard); Mystery Street (50, John Sturges); Father’s Little Dividend (51, Min-nelli); The People Against O’liara (52, Don Siey;el); Battle Circus (52, Richard Brooks); Count the Hours (52, Don Siegel); 1, the]unj (53, Henry Essex); Take the High Ground (53, Brooks); Cattle Queen of Montana (54, Dwan); Passion (54, Dwan); Silver Lode (54, Dwan); The Big Combo (55, Joseph H. Lewis)—perhaps the best noir he worked on; Escape to Burma (55, Dwan); Pearl of the South Pacific (55, Dwan); Tennessee’s Partner (55, Dwan); The Catered Affair (56, Brooks); Slightly Scarlet (56, Dwan)—magnificent late Technicolor; Tea and Sympathy (56, Minnelli)—dismal early Metrocolor; The Teahouse of the August Moon (56, Daniel Mann); Designing Wonmrt (57, Mmnelli); The Broth-en Karamazov (58, Brooks); Ijinelyheartt; (58, Vincent J, Donahue); Twelve to the Moon (00, David Bradley); and Elmer Gantry (60, Brooks).
Don Amethe (Dominic Felix Amici) (J90«-]993),b. Kenoshu, Wisconsin Born in the birthplace of Orson Welles, but seven years ahead of George Orson, Ameche had two distinct movie careers. For something over ten years, he was a Fox stalwart, refusing to notice the secret rhyme of his mustache and the bowtie he wore so often in romances and musicals. Then he faded away in his forties, came back for a while in his fifties, but waited until he was past severity for an unequivocal return that brought him a supporting actor Oscar and public affection.
He was in Ladies in Love (36, Edward Griffith); One in a Million (36, Sidney Lanfield); with Loretta Young in Ramona (36, Henry King); Love Is News (37, Tay Garnett); fifty Roads to Town (37, Norman Taurog); with Alice Faye, a frequent screen partner, in You Can’t Have Evert/thing (37, Taurog); Love Under fire (37, George Marshall); In Old Chicago (38, King); Happy Landing (38, Roy del Ruth); jnsette (38, Allan Dwan); Alexander’s Ragtime Band (38, King); as D’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (39, Dwan); excellent in Midnight (39, Mitchell Leisen) as a Hungarian count and cabbie; inventing like crazy in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (39, Irving Cummings) and forever associated with the telephone; as Stephen Foster in nee River (39, Unfold); Lillian Russell (40, Cuminings)- Four Sons (40, Archie Mayo); as an Argentinian with Betty Grable in Down Argentine Way (40, Cummings); That Night in Rio (41, Cummings); Moon Over Miami (41, Walter Lang); Kins the Boys Goodbye (41, Victor Schertzinger); The Feminine Touch (41, W. S. Van Dyke II); Confirm or Deny (41, Mayo); The Magnificent Dope (42, Lang); Girl Trouble (42, Harold Schuster); Heaven Can Wait (43, Ernst Lubitsch); Happy Land (43, Irving Pichel); Something to Shout About (43, Gregory Ratoff); in the war film Wing and a Prayer (44, Henry Hathaway); Greenwich Village (44, Lang); It’s in the Rag (45, Richard Wallace); Guest Wife (45, Sam Wood); So Goes My Love (46, Frank Ryan); as the villainous husband in Sleep My Love (48, Douglas Sirk); and Slightly French (49, Sirk).
In the 1950s, Ameche did a good deal of television, with just a few movie roles after 1960: A Fibrin the Blood (61, Vincent Sherman); Picture Mommy Dead (66, Bert I. Gordon); Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? (70, Hy Averback); Ginger Gets Married (72, E. W. Swackhamer); and Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (76, Michael Winner).
But the real comeback waited for the eighties: Trading Places (83, John Landis); winning his Oscar in Cocoon (85, Ron Howard); A Masterpiece of Murder [86, Charles S. Dubin) and Pals (87, Lou Antonio), both for TV; Hurry and the Hendersons (87, William Dear); Cocoon: The Return (88, Daniel Petrie); Things Change (88, David Matnet); Oscar (91, Landis); and Folks! (92, Ted Kotcheff).