Oscar Profile #345: Joseph LaShelle

Born July 9, 1900 in Los Angeles, California, Joseph LaShelle was trained as an electrical engineer, but went to work at Paramount as a lab technician in order earn money for tuition at Stanford University. Promoted to superintendent of the printing room within three years, he decided to forego his college education and stay on at Paramount.

Mentored by cinematographer Charles G. Clarke, he became his assistant cameraman in 1925. He later worked for Arthur C. Miller and followed him to Twentieth Century-Fox where he assisted Miller on How Green Was My Valley and The Song of Bernadette among other films. Shortly thereafter he became a credited cinematographer with 1943’s The Happy Land. With 1944’s Laura he earned his first of nine Oscar nominations and the only one that would result in a win.

Among the 1940s films that LaShelle put his stamp on were A Bell for Adano, Cluny Brown, The Late George Apley, The Foxes of Harrow, Captain from Castile, The Luck of the Irish and Come to the Stable for which he earned his second Oscar nomination. His 1950s films for Fox included Under the Skin, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Mister 880, The 13th Letter, Les Misérables and My Cousin Rachel for which he earned his third Oscar nomination.

Freelancing now, LaShelle earned his fourth Oscar nomination for 1955’s Marty, following it with The Bachelor Party, No Down Payment, The Long, Hot Summer, The Naked and the Dead and Career, for which he earned his fifth Oscar nomination. He also worked on two episodes of TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1957 and one of The Twilight Zone in 1959.

LaShelle began the 1960s on a high note, earning his sixth Oscar nomination for The Apartment. He was also director of photography on All in a Night’s Work, The Honeymoon Machine, The Outsider, How the West Was Won (his seventh Oscar nomination shared with William Daniels, Milton Krasner and Charles Lang ), A Child Is Waiting, Irma La Douce (his eighth Oscar nomination), 7 Women, The Chase and The Fortune Cookie for which he earned his ninth and final Oscar nomination.

LaShelle’s last film of note was 1967’s Barefoot in the Park, after which he worked on Kona Coast, 80 Steps to Jonah and one episode of TV’s Medical Center.

Joseph LaShelle retired in 1969. He died of natural causes twenty years later in 1989 at the age of 89.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

LAURA (1944), directed by Otto Preminger

Although the film is set mostly in the interiors of New York City apartments, LaShelle’s cinematography conveys a sense of elegance that betrays the limited space his cameras are given to work in. Whether we’re in Gene Tierney’s apartment, Clifton Webb’s or Judith Anderson’s, we get a sense of life beyond that confined space. This is partly due to the screenplay, to Preminger’s superb direction and the acting, but it’s mostly done through LaShelle’s Oscar-winning cinematography. The film’s most haunting scene is that of detective Dana Andrews staring at Tierney’s portrait when the narrative changes with a jolt.

MARTY (1955), directed by Martin Ritt

Once again working within strict confines, this was after all the film version of a live TV play, LaShelle conveys an entire world while working with just a few locations. We get the sense of Ernest Borgnine’s life as a lonely middle-aged Bronx butcher as we see him at work in his shop, at home with his well-meaning mother (Esther Minciotti) and at the dance with the equally lonely, albeit somewhat younger Brooklyn schoolteacher (Betsy Blair). LaShelle’s cinematography earned one of the film’s eight Oscar nominations, but not one of its four wins, losing to James Wong Howe’s atmospheric cinematography on The Rose Tattoo.

THE APARTMENT (1960), directed by Billy Wilder

With only a few days’ location work in New York City, most of The Apartment was filmed on a soundstage in Los Angeles, but LaShelle’s cinematography effortlessly blends the two into one cohesive whole. Is Jack Lemmon walking down the street in Manhattan or is he walking outside a backdrop in the studio? Sometimes it’s both in one scene. Nominated for ten Academy Awards, the film won five including three for Billy Wilder as writer, producer and director. LaShelle was nominated but lost to Freddie Francis for his exquisite lensing of Sons and Lovers.

7 WOMEN (1966), directed by John Ford

The same year he earned his ninth and final Oscar nomination for Wilder’s The Fortune Cookie, LaShelle was also director of photography on John Ford’s last film, the under-rated 7 Women, which features stunning cinematography by LaShelle in another film in which he had to work in close quarters. In this case, a mission run by seven women trying to protect themselves against the advances of a Mongolian warlord in 1935 China. Enter Anne Bancroft as the atheistic doctor who clashes with head missionary Margaret Leighton for the soul of young Sue Lyon. The final scene is a thing of rare beauty.

BAREFOOT IN THE PARK (1967), directed by Gene Saks

Not his last film, but his last of consequence, LaShelle yet again works cinematic miracles within the confines of a small set, in this case, a tiny fifth floor walk-up Manhattan apartment occupied by newlyweds Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. Despite the title, we don’t see much of the park, but we do get an extended scene in a nightclub to relieve the monotony of the tiny apartment. It’s a Neil Simon comedy, so the concentration is on the laughs provided by Charles Boyer as Fonda and Redford’s neighbor and especially Mildred Natwick in her only Oscar nominated performance as Fonda’s mother. LaShelle photographs all four stars beautifully.