Oscar Profile #325: Guy Green

Born November 5, 1913 in Somerset, England, Guy Green was a true renaissance man of the movies. His love for movies began at an early age, leading to his first job a projectionist aboard the ocean liner The Majestic, which brought him to America for the first time in 1929. He worked in London as a portrait photographer and as an assistant cameraman for an advertising agency. He began his screen career as a clapper boy in the camera department at Shepperton Studios in 1933. By 1935 he had become a camera operator, eventually working for the likes of Powell and Pressburger on One of Our Aircraft Is Missing and David Lean on In Which We Serve.

Green became a D.P. (director of photography aka cinematographer) in 1943. By 1944 his cinematography on Carol Reed’s The Way Ahead make critics sit up and take notice. Two years later, he won an Oscar for his black-and-white cinematography on Lean’s Great Expectations. He met his wife Josephine while working on Lean’s Oliver Twist in 1948. In 1949, he co-founded the British Society of Cinematographers with Freddie Young and Jack Cardiff.

Turning to direction in 1954, Green went out in style as a D.P. on 1955’s I Am a Camera. His 1960 film, The Angry Silence earned him BAFTA nominations for Best British Film and Best Film from any Source. 1961’s The Mark earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Stuart Whitman. Moving to the U.S. in 1962, his two films that year, Light in the Piazza and Diamond Head were major commercial hits, as was 1963’s 55 Days at Peking which was credited to original director Nicholas Ray.

Green was proudest of his direction of 1965’s A Patch of Blue which he also co-produced and wrote the screenplay for. He was nominated for Golden Globes for both his writing and direction. The film earned Elizabeth Hartman an Oscar nomination and Shelley Winters her second Oscar in support.

The director’s subsequent films include 1967’s Pretty Polly, 1968’s The Magus, 1970’s A Walk in the Spring Rain, 1974’s Luther and 1975’s Once Is Not Enough which earned an Oscar nomination for Brenda Vaccaro. His last theatrical film was 1977’s The Devil’s Advocate.

In 1979, Green directed his first TV movie, the acclaimed Appalachian drama, The Incredible Journey of Dr. Meg Laurel. He would direct five more over the next seven years, ending with 1986’s Strong Medicine, an exposé of the pharmaceutical industry.

Green was given the prestigious President’s Award of the American Society of Cinematographers in 2000. He was given a BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002. He was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s 2004 New Year’s Honors. Guy Green died of heart and kidney failure on September 15, 2005. He was 91.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

GREAT EXPECTATIONS, directed by David Lean (1946)

Green and his contemporary and friend, Jack Cardiff, simultaneously became the first British cinematographers to win Oscars in their craft, Cardiff for his breathtaking color cinematography on Black Narcissus and Green for his equally breathtaking black-and-white cinematography on this film. Lean was a perfectionist, and so was Green with his meticulous camera movements from Pip’s meeting with the escaped convict through his encounters with Miss Havisham and beyond. Two years later Lean and Green would reunite the equally impressive Oliver Twist.

I AM A CAMERA, directed by Henry Cornelius (1955)

Moving to direction, Green ended his career as a cinematographer on another high with this film version of John Van Druten’s play, itself based on Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories. Although this version of Isherwood’s work would be eclipsed by both the stage and screen versions of Cabaret, the story line of this version, rather than the book of Broadway’s Cabaret, adheres closer to the scenario used in the 1972 film version of the musical. It starred Julie Harris, Laurence Harvey and Shelley Winters, who a decade later Green would direct to an Oscar.

LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, directed by Guy Green (1962)

Another film that became a successful Broadway musical, albeit one that has yet to be filmed, this one’s a real charmer about a middle-aged mother (Olivia de Havilland) traveling in Italy with her beautiful, but childlike, twenty-six-year-old daughter (Yvette Mimieux) who attracts the attention of a wealthy young Italian (George Hamilton) while his father (Rossano Brazzi) becomes attracted to the mother. This was one of de Havilland’s last films as a leading lady, and one of her best. Conversely, it was one of the first for emerging star Hamilton, who was nominated for a BAFTA award for Best Foreign Actor.

A PATCH OF BLUE, directed by Guy Green (1965)

In addition to directing, Green wrote the screenplay from Elizabeth Kata’s novel, Be Ready With Bells and Drums, earning Golden Globe nominations in both disciplines. He also co-produced the film which focused on a blind, uneducated white girl who is befriended by a black man to the horror of her bigoted, abusive mother. Elizabeth Hartman and Sidney Poitier were nominated for Globes for their performances, while Hartman and Shelley Winters were nominated for Oscars, with Winters winning. All three, as well as veteran Wallace Ford as the alcoholic grandfather were nominated for Laurel awards.

THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY OF DR. MEG LAUREL, directed by Guy Green (1979)

Two years after directing his last theatrical film, Green directed this, the first of six highly regarded TV movies made over a span of eight years. In this one, Lindsay Wagner plays a doctor returning to her home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia in the 1930s to bring medical care to the town’s impoverished and ill-educated residents. Things do not go smoothly for her as she runs up against an elderly local medicine woman, superbly played by Jane Wyman. The supporting cast also includes Andrew Duggan, Gary Lockwood, Brock Peters, James Woods and all too briefly, Dorothy McGuire.