Oscar Profile #311: Joseph F. Biroc

Born February 12, 1903 in New York, New York, Joseph Francis (Joe) Biroc started his career in 1918 at the age of 15 as a lab assistant at Paragon Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, then America’s film capital. Later a camera assistant at Paramount Studios in Long Island, he moved to Hollywood in the mid-1920s where he worked as an assistant cameraman on such films as the 1931 Oscar winner, Cimarron. He did not become a full-fledged cameraman until 1940, his career interrupted by World War II. As a member of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. he filmed the acclaimed 1944 documentary, Liberation of Paris. He received his first credit as a cinematographer on the 1946 classic, It’s a Wonderful Life along with veteran Joseph Walker.

Biroc’s late 1940s films included Magic Town, On Our Merry Way, My Dear Secretary, Johnny Allegro and Mrs. Mike. In 1950 he directed five episodes of the TV series Dick Tracy and advanced his reputation as one of the screen’s most versatile cinematographers with the films noir The Killer That Stalked New York and 1951’s Cry Danger. His reputation was further advanced by his lensing of the first 3D movie, 1952’s Bwana Devil.

Alternating between TV and movies throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Biroc was the cinematographer on 26 episodes of TV’s Adventures of Superman as well as the big screen’s Home Before Dark, The Bat, The FBI Story, Ice Palace, 13 Ghosts, The Devil at 4 O’Clock, Bye Bye Birdie, Toys in the Attic, Under the Yum Yum Tree, Viva Las Vegas and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte for which he received his first Oscar nomination at the age 62.

Post-Oscar, Biroc’s films included such major works as The Flight of the Phoenix, The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!, Fitzwilly, The Detective, The Legend of Lylah Clare, The Killing of Sister George and Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice?. He would receive a second Oscar nomination and a win for 1974’s The Towering Inferno at the age of 72. Later films included 1980’sAirplane! and his last, 1982’s Airplane II: The Sequel

Biroc received his first Emmy nomination and win for 1971’s Brian’s Song. He would later be nominated for 1976’s Arthur Haley’s The Moneychangers, 1977’s Washington: Behind Closed Doors, 1978’s A Family Upside Down and Little Women, 1980’s Kenny Rogers as The Gambler, 1983’s The Master Builder’s Woman from the Casablanca series for which he won his second Emmy and 1985’s A Death in California. His last TV movie was 1987’s Time Out for Dad when he was 85.

Joe Biroc died at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland, California at the age of 93.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, directed by Frank Capra (1946)

Biroc had been in the film business nearly thirty years when he finally received his first on-screen credit as cinematographer, sharing that credit with four-time Oscar nominated Joseph Walker. It’s difficult to know what Biroc’s contribution to the film might have been vis-à-vis Walker’s, but given that Walker’s career had been spent photographing mostly comedies, it might be that Biroc’s contributions were for some of the holiday’s classic’s darker scenes. In any event the combination of Capra’s favorite cinematographer (Walker) and Robert Aldrich’s future one (Biroc) proved a happy one.

CRY DANGER, directed by Robert Parrish (1951)

Biroc’s celebrated cinematography gets into the nooks and crannies of the seedy side of Los Angeles in this long admired film noir featuring Dick Powell as an ex-con on the hunt for the real culprit who committed the crime he was framed for. Powell is joined by a superb supporting cast that includes Rhonda Fleming as the wife of a friend, Richard Erdman as the guy who supplies Powell with a latent alibi, Regis Toomey as the cop who still thinks he is guilty, Jay Adler as Powell’s wisecracking buddy, Jean Porter as the bimbo who dates Adler and William Conrad in typical sleazy gangster mode.

HUSH…HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE, directed by Robert Aldrich (1964)

Biroc’s shimmering use of light and shadow is what earned him his first Oscar nomination for Best Black-and-White Cinematography at the age of 62. It was a nomination long in the making, one of seven the film received overall. It had also been nominated for Best Black-and-White Art Direction, Best Black-and-White Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score and Best Song, the title song by Frank de Vol and Mack David, sung in the film by Al Martino and not star Bette Davis despite her insistence that should do it. The film co-starred Olivia de Havilland in the role intended for Joan Crawford.

THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX, directed by Robert Aldrich (1965)

Biroc was reunited with Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte director Aldrich for whom he supplied the striking color cinematography for this plane crash in the Sahara epic. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor Ian Bannen and Best Editing. It had also been nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for Hardy Kruger who refused the nomination. The film starred James Stewart in his last major role, supported by Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Ernest Borgnine, Dan Duryea, George Kennedy and many others in addition to Kruger and Bannen.

THE TOWERING INFERNO, directed by John Guillermin (1974)

Biroc was 72 years old when he finally won an Oscar, shared with Fred Koenekamp for their cinematography for this box office blockbuster starring Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakley, Richard Chamberlain, Jennifer Jones, Robert Vaughn and Robert Wagner. The younger Koenekamp had been nominated four years earlier for Patton and would again be nominated for 1977’s Islands in the Stream, topping Biroc’s career total by one. The film also won Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Song (“We May Never Love Like This Again”).