Harry Stradling - Writer

Cinematographer. Nationality: American. Born: England (some sources give Nesen, Germany, or Newark, New Jersey), 1901. Family: Son: the photographer Harry Stradling, Jr. Career: In the United States by his teens; 1921—first film as cinematographer, Jim the Penman ; worked in France and England in the 1930s, then returned to Hollywood. Awards: Academy Awards for The Picture of Dorian Gray , 1945; My Fair Lady , 1964. Died: In February 1970.

Films as Cinematographer:

1921

Jim the Penman (Blackwell); The Devil's Garden (Blackwell); The Great Adventure (Blackwell)

1922

His Wife's Husband (Webb); Fair Lady (Webb); How Women Love (Webb); Secrets of Paris (Webb)

1925

The Substitute Wife (May); Wandering Fires (Campbell)

1927

Burnt Fingers (Campbell); The Nest (Nigh)

1929

Mother's Boy (Parker) (co); Lucky in Love (Webb) (co)

1930

Le Réquisitoire (Buchowetski—French version of Manslaughter )

Harry Stradling

1931

Die Männer um Lucie (A. Korda—and French version, Rive Gauche ); Il est charmant (Mercanton); Mistigri (Lachman)

1933

Rund um eine Million (Neufeld); Le Maíître des forges (Rivers)

1934

Le Grand Jeu (Feyder); Compartiment de dames seules (Christian-Jaque); Le Bonheur (L'Herbier); Jeanne (Tourjansky); Nous ne sommes plus des enfants (Genina); Jeunesse (Lacombe); La Dame aux camélias (Gance); Poliche (Gance); La Porteuse de pain (Sti)

1935

Quelle drôle de gosse! (Joannon); Arènes joyeuses (Anton); La Kermesse héro ( Carnival in Flanders ) (Feyder); Episode (Reisch)

1936

Ungekusst soll man nicht schlaten geh'n (Emo); Le Grand Refrain (Mirande)

1937

Knight without Armour (Feyder); Action for Slander (Whelan)

1938

The Divorce of Lady X (Whelan); The Citadel (K. Vidor); South Riding (Savil le); Pygmalion (Asquith and Howard)

1939

Over the Moon (Freeland); Jamaica Inn (Hitchcock); Q Planes ( Clouds over Europe ) (Whelan); The Lion Has Wings (Hurst)

1940

My Son, My Son (C. Vidor)

1941

They Knew What They Wanted (Kanin); Suspicion (Hitchcock); Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Hitchcock); The Devil and Miss Jones (Wood); The Men in Her Life (Ratoff); Mr. and Mrs. North (Sinclair); The Corsican Brothers (Ratoff)

1942

Fingers at the Window (Lederer) (co); Nazi Agent (Dassin); Her Cardboard Lover (Cukor) (co); Maisie Gets Her Man (Del Ruth); White Cargo (Thorpe)

1943

The Human Comedy (Brown); Swing Shift Maisie (McLeod)

1944

Song of Russia (Ratoff); Bathing Beauty (Sidney)

1945

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Lewin); Thrill of a Romance (Thorpe); Her Highness and the Bellboy (Thorpe)

1946

Holiday in Mexico (Sidney); Easy to Wed (Buzzell); Till the Clouds Roll By (Whorf) (co)

1947

Song of Love (Brown); Sea of Grass (Kazan)

1948

The Pirate (Minnelli); Easter Parade (Walters); Words and Music (Taurog) (co)

1949

In the Good Old Summertime (Leonard); The Barkleys of Broadway (Walters); Tension (Berry)

1950

The Edge of Doom (Robson); The Yellow Cab Man (Donohue)

1951

Valentino (Allen); A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan); A Millionaire for Christy (Marshall); I Want You (Robson)

1952

My Son John (McCarey); Androcles and the Lion (Erskine); Hans Christian Andersen (C. Vidor)

1953

Angel Face (Preminger); A Lion Is in the Streets (Walsh); Forever Female (Rapper)

1954

Johnny Guitar (Ray)

1955

Guys and Dolls (Mankiewicz); Helen of Troy (Wise)

1956

The Eddie Duchin Story (Sidney)

1957

A Face in the Crowd (Kazan); The Pajama Game (Abbott and Donen)

1958

Marjorie Morningstar (Rapper); Auntie Mame (Da Costa)

1959

The Young Philadelphians (V. Sherman); A Summer Place (Daves)

1960

Who Was That Lady? (Sidney); The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (Delbert Mann); The Crowded Sky (Pevney)

1961

Parrish (Daves); On the Double (Shavelson)

1962

A Majority of One (LeRoy); Five Finger Exercise (Daniel Mann); Gypsy (LeRoy)

1963

Island of Love (Da Costa); Mary, Mary (LeRoy)

1964

My Fair Lady (Cukor)

1965

How to Murder Your Wife (Quine); Synanon (Quine)

1966

Moment to Moment (LeRoy); Walk, Don't Run (Walters); Penelope (Hille); Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Nichols)

1968

Funny Girl (Wyler); With Six You Get Eggroll (Morris)

1969

Hello, Dolly! (Kelly); The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (Kennedy)

1970

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Minnelli); The Owl and the Pussycat (co)

Publications

By STRADLING: article—

On Walk, Don't Run in American Cinematographer (Hollywood), October 1957.

On STRADLING: articles—

Lightman, Herb A., in American Cinematographer (Hollywood), October 1951.

Lightman, Herb A., on Parrish in American Cinematographer (Hollywood), May 1961.

Lawton, Ralph, in American Cinematographer (Hollywood), July 1962.

Gavin, Arthur, on My Fair Lady in American Cinematographer (Hollywood), November 1964.

Film Comment (New York), Summer 1972.

Focus on Film (London), no. 13, 1973.

* * *

The veteran cinematographer Harry Stradling was one of the great camera talents in the history of Hollywood. He worked in every film genre and for many good and bad directors. His peers recognized his abilities and nominated him for 13 Oscars. His career represents a scope and quality matched by few cameramen.

Like many of his contemporaries who entered the American film industry during the 1920s, Stradling spent more than a decade learning his craft filming minor works. His uncle, Walter Stradling, who for many years was Mary Pickford's cameraman, got him his initial job. (His son, Harry Stradling, Jr., continues the family tradition behind the camera.) During his on-the-job training Stradling spent the 1920s on unimportant films, even working on shorts for the minor studio Pathé. At this point his career took an uncommon turn. Stradling journeyed to Europe to establish his reputation. Thus he worked on a fine 1930s French film, Carnival in Flanders . In this film Stradling and director Jacques Fedyer successfully captured the image of Flemish paintings, and offered up a distinctive, highly successful art film of its day.

For this effort Alexander Korda hired Stradling to photograph the fine British film Knight without Armour , starring Marlene Dietrich and Robert Donat. Besides the low-key impressionistic backgrounds representing Moscow, the film placed Stradling in a line of famous cameramen who boosted the career of Dietrich. This led to a series of major assignments in the United Kingdom ( Pygmalion , The Citadel , and Jamaica Inn ). From these successes Stradling was able to make his way back to Hollywood to work with Hitchcock on Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Suspicion . He soon moved to the top rung of Hollywood cinematographers.

Possibly because of his experience in Europe, Stradling was willing to experiment. This was extremely rare in conservative Hollywood of the 1940s. A famous film for its special effects was The Corsican Brothers , in which Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., played twin brothers. Critics praised the scenes in which the two brothers appeared as amazingly real.

Like most ace cinematographers of his day, Stradling never stuck to one genre, but he did build up a reputation for a style which emphasized glamour and Technicolor. For example, Stradling was the man behind the camera for such MGM musicals as Till the Clouds Roll By and The Barkleys of Broadway . Later he would work on Guys and Dolls , Auntie Mame , and Gypsy . All these films earned him nominations for Academy Awards.

The final flare of Harry Stradling's long, distinguished career came with Funny Girl . Barbra Streisand thanked "dear Harry Stradling" in her acceptance speech for her Oscar. They later worked together on On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and Hello, Dolly! , and he died while working on yet another Streisand vehicle, The Owl and the Pussycat . Ironically he passed away the very day after he had been nominated for his final Academy Award, for Hello, Dolly!

—Douglas Gomery