Oscar Profile #205: James Wong Howe

Born Wong Tung Jim in Canton, China on August 28, 1899, master cinematographer James Wong Howe emigrated to America at the age of five to join his father who had emigrated to the state of Washington the year of young Jimmie’s birth. He purchased his first camera from a drugstore at the age of 12. Interested in becoming a prizefighter, he moved to Oregon as a teenager, but his interest soon waned and he moved to Los Angeles where he found work in the photography department of the Jesse Lasky Studios.

Howe found a way of photographing Mary Miles Minter against a dark background that brought out her blue eyes in black-and-white photographs that so impressed the actress that she insisted on his being her cinematographer on her next film, 1923’s Drums of Fate. It would be the first of more than two dozen silent films he would shoot including 1927’s Sorrell and Son and Laugh, Clown, Laugh.

An acknowledged master in the use of shadow, Howe was one of the first to use deep-focus cinematography in which both foreground and distant places remain in focus.

Among the legendary films Wong photographed before his first Oscar nomination for 1938’s Algiers, were The Criminal Code; Transatlantic; The Power and the Glory; Viva Villa!; Manhattan Melodrama; The Thin Man; Mark of the Vampire; Fire Over England; and The Prisoner of Zenda. He married Oklahoma born novelist Sanora Babb in Paris in 1937, but their marriage was not recognized in California due to the state’s anti-miscegenation law. They were forced to live separately until the law was revoked in 1948 and they could re-marry.

Howe received Oscar nominations in quick succession for Algiers; Abe Lincoln in Illinois; Kings Row; Air Force and The North Star but not for his equally superb work on City for Conquest; The Strawberry Blonde; Yankee Doodle Dandy; Hangmen Also Die and Body and Soul.

The master cinematographer received his first Oscar for 1955’s The Rose Tattoo but his work on the same year’s Picnic was even more appreciated. Later works included Sweet Smell of Success; The Old Man and the Sea which brought him his first nomination for color cinematography and Hud for which he received his second Oscar. He received yet another Oscar nod, his ninth, for 1966’s Seconds and won kudos for 1968’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

Howe turned down an offer to shoot 1972’s The Godfather due to ill health. He was well enough to shoot his final film, 1975’s Funny Lady, for which he would receive his tenth and final Oscar nomination.

James Wong Howe died July 12, 1976 at the age of 76. His cousin was legendary actress Anna May Wong (1905-1961). His widow, Sanora Babb, died in 2005 at the age of 98.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE THIN MAN. (1934), directed by W.S. Van Dyke

Howe had been one of the silent screen’s most revered cinematographers but he was missing in action at the dawn of the talkie era. He had returned to China in 1928 to shoot scenes for a film he intended to direct but upon his return to Hollywood could not find backing. Some of the footage he shot ended up in 1932’s Shanghai Express.

Given his first chance at a major sound film by Howard Hawks with whom he had worked in silent, Howe’s work on The Criminal Code and later Transatlantic re-established him as one of the best in the business. His astute use of light and shadow enhances the unique murder mystery-comedy of The Thin Man such that you never tire of watching the William Powell-Myrna Loy classic no matter how many times you’ve seen it.

YANKEE DOODLE DANDY. (1993), directed by Michael Curtiz

Due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902, Howe was prohibited from becoming a U.S. citizen until 1943 when the Act was repealed. Ironically, the man who could not become a citizen was responsible for lovingly photographing what was perhaps the single most patriotic pro-American film ever made, the splendid biography of showman and composer George M. Cohan played by James Cagney in his beloved Oscar winning role.

The film was nominated for a total of seven Oscars and won three. Oddly, Howe was not among the nominees but he was nominated that year for Kings Row which had also been splendidly photographed. He would earn competing nominations for two films in shot the following year, Air Force and The North Star.

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1955), directed by Alexander Mackendrick

Howe, during his long career, could and did photograph films about anything in any genre. One thing he was hitherto not known for was location filming in the heart of New York City. His capture of the Times Square milieu for this stark, absorbing film about a loathsome Broadway columnist (Burt Lancaster) and the unscrupulous publicist (Tony Curtis) he coerces into breaking up his sister’s romance took an oft photographed environment and made it seem like something completely new.

Howe, at this time, was enjoying one of his most prolific periods, having recently been the cinematographer of such 50s hits as Come Back, Little Sheba; The Rose Tattoo (his first Oscar win) and Picnic. He would soon start work on The Old Man and the Sea which would bring him his first nomination for a color film..

HUD (1963), directed by Martin Ritt

Hud was not Howe’s first western, but his unerring eye brought a new look to the modern west in Ritt’s film of Larry McMurtry’s novel.

Howe vividly captures the dusty land as well as the time-worn face of rancher Melvyn Douglas; the malcontent look of his ruthless son, Paul Newman; the starry-eyed look of his grandson, Brandon de Wilde and the sad-eyed look of housekeeper Patricia Neal. One of his finest works, he was rewarded with his second Oscar, one of the film’s three, the others having been awarded for Best Actress (Neal) and Best Supporting Actor (Douglas).

The film had also been nominated for Best Actor (Newman) and director (Ritt), but was oddly left out of the Best Picture race.

SECONDS (1966), directed by John Frankenheimer

Howe earned this harrowing film’s sole Oscar nomination for the unforgettable imagery he photographed here – from the slow paranoia building in protagonist John Randolf cum Rock Hudson to the grape stomping to the operations that end first a way of life, then a life.

Howe was still at the peak of prowess in his late sixties and early seventies, having gone from this to the Paul Newman-Fredric March western, Hombre to the Alan Arkin-Sondra Locke filming of Carson McCullers’ The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter to the Sean Connery-Richard Harris coal mining drama, The Molly Maguires as well as several other films in the next few years. He collapsed on the set of his last film, 1975’s Funny Lady, and was hospitalized, but returned to finished the shoot and earn his tenth and final Oscar nomination in his last year of life.