Sometimes you go one way and end up another way. I was thinking about doing a piece on Director William Cameron Menzies, which I will do eventually, but discovered the name George Perinal instead. I didn’t know who in the world of motion pictures he was, but I discovered that I knew a lot of his works in Cinematography and my reader may also. So here is his story as far as I could discover, because there is very little written about him. We have a major contributor to motion picture history and really a blank slate to write upon. I was able to confirm George Perinal was born in Paris, France in 1897, but on what date or what his early life was also remains a blank except that in 1913 he started out as a projectionist in a silent movie theater and then worked in French films. I can tell you he died on April 23, 1965 at the age of 68 and that he worked for such heavyweight film makers as: Jean Cocteau, Zoltan Korda and his brother Alexander Korda, the above mentioned William Cameron Menzies, Josef von Sternberg, Gregory Ratoff, Charlie Chaplin, Otto Preminger, George Pal and Vincente Minnelli. To show you how hard it is to know more about this Academy Award Winning Cinematographer other than a complete listing of his films I give you this Biography put together by Turner Classic Movies: Quote: Began his career as a projectionist in 1913 and went on to photograph some of the finest French Films of the early 1930’s, by directors including Jean Cocteau (“Blood of a Poet” 1930) and Rene Clair (“A Nous la liberte” 1931, “Le million” 1932). Perinal began working with Alexander Korda in London in 1933 and applied his talents to a succession of fine English films, notably the Oscar-winning “The Thief of Bagdad” (1940). He worked in France and Hollywood in the late 1950’s. Unquote The quote really tells you nothing about the man’s life. Actually this is one of the better bio’s I found. I cannot tell you if he was married, or had children. I cannot tell you anything, but what films he worked upon. Also TCM’s “complete” Filmography starts in 1930, but we know he made seven French films before that year starting in 1924 with “Le Biere” which was directed by Jean Gremillion and was a documentary about French Beer. Maybe not an auspicious start for an Oscar Winning Cinematographer and again there is more links about that film then Perinal’s private life. What I will do is just select a few examples of his work that I believe you might enjoy as samples of a career that span several movie formats. The first film is a Charles Laughton classic with wife Elisa Lanchester 1933’s “The Private Life of Henry VIII.” The film as a tour de force performance by Laughton and is at times serious and at other pure comedy. It was directed by Alexander Korda. Laughton would get the Best Actor Oscar and the movie became the first British film ever nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Korda followed it with 1934’s “The Private Life of Don Juan” starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Merle Oberon, but two years later was the film I started to look at when I was thinking of William Cameron Menzies H.G. Wells’ “Things to Come”. The script was written by H.G. Wells himself and the films initial rough cut was supposed to be 130 minutes in length, but the version submitted to the British Board of Censors ran only 117m 13s. When it was first released in the U.K. the film was cut to 108m 40s. Neither cuts remain. Then on its re-release re-edited to only 98m 06s. The United States version even shorter at 96m 24s. The version colorized by Ray Harryhausen indicates a 108 minute run time which would probably be the original British release and in 2011 The Criterion Collection released a remastered 96m 31 s version, or probably the American cut. I bring this up, because one has to wonder how both the directorial work of Menzies and the cinematography of Perinal changed with each new cut of the film. An example of little artistic control by either to the studio system. 1939 was another Korda film and one if you like a great adventure films is a must to see. Georges Perinal was nominated for the Best Cinematography Oscar for “The Four Feathers”. Set in the Sudan in 1895 and dealing with the Battle of Balaclava. This is a tale of a man perceived a coward and his agonizing road to redemption. It is also a beautifully filmed in Technicolor on the actual Sudanese locations the novel describes. The next year Perinal received his only Oscar for one of the most expensive and lash productions for the Korda’s “The Thief of Bagdad”. An Arabian Nights fantasy film that holds up well even today. It tells the story of a thief who helps a prince win back the princess he loves as he fights an evil magician, outwits a Giant Genii, flies on both a Magic Carpet and a fights up a Mechanical Flying Winged Horse. The next eleven years were slowed due to World War 2, but a couple of notable films were 1949’s “The Forbidden Street” starring Dana Andrews and Maureen O’Hara. This Victorian love story was filmed in the U.K. by 20th Century Fox for the simple reason of a large amount of their funds being frozen over there during the Second World War. Many studios would make films in the early 1950’s in the U.K. for this reason. Aside: The IRS went after Walt Disney for alleged taxes due on some of his films going back to “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in 1939. So “Uncle Walt” left the United States and made a large amount of films in England starting with his classic “Treasure Island.” This left the IRS with no way to attempt to investigate him. Disney had enough money to outlast the IRS and they finally dropped the investigation and Walt returned. 20th Century shot another film in 1950 using their British money. The film “The Mudlark” starred American Actress Irene Dunne as Queen Victoria and British Actor Alec Guinness. The following year found George Perinal doing the cinematography on his third British film with 20th Century Fox’s British money entitled “No Highway in the Sky.” This excellent movie starred James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Glynis Johns and Jack Hawkins. Based upon a novel by Nevil Shute (“On the Beach”). It tells the story of Theodore Honey a scientist and engineer engaged in aircraft design who while on a plane flight suddenly realizes it’s going to crash due to sudden metal fatique when the plane arrives at a certain amount of flight hours, but how to convince anybody? The movie contains a great James Stewart characterization. A most for both movie and aviation buffs. Skipping ahead to 1956 George Perinal would photograph an excellent no nonsense science fiction film “Satellite in the Sky” staring Kieron Moore (“Doctor Blood’s Coffin”, “The Day of the Triffids”, “Crack In the World”), Canadian actress Lois Maxwell before she became Miss Moneypenny from 1962 to 1985 in 14 James Bond films, and Donald Wolfit (“Blood of the Vampire”, “Room at the Top”, “Lawrence of Arabia” and 1968’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”). This was the first British science fiction film to be shot in CinemaScope and color. Pernial’s cinematography works very well in the wide screen medium. The film’s plot had the first mannerd specship the “Stardust” launched to test a nuclear ‘tritonium” bomb outside of Earth’s atmosphere to avoid radiation contamination on the Earth’s surface. Of course a problem develops when the bomb after being released safely attaches itself to the spaceship by a magnetic field. His next project was filming Otto Preminger’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s play “Saint Joan”. The screen play was by Graham Greene (Orson’s Wells’ “The Third Man” based upon his own novel, the novel “The Ministry of Fear” made into a movie in 1943 by Fritz Lang starring Ray Milland, the novel “the Quiet American” made into a 1958 film starring Audie Murphy and Michael Redgrave and again in 2002 starring Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser). The movie starred the unknown Jean Seberg as Joan of Arc, Richard Widmark, Richard Tood, John Gielgud and Harry Andrews. This film was followed by Charlie Chaplin’s “A King in New York” in 1957. Chaplin had been “Blacklisted” by the House Committee on Anti-American Activities so this successful film was shot in the U.K. and is a satire of McCarthyism as only “The Little Tramp” could do it. It wouldn’t be until 1973 that the film would be shown in the United States. Because pf the power that Congressional “Blacklisting”. George Pal brought his crew to England after casting Russ Tamblyn in the title role of ”Tom Thumb”. The film had songs written by Peggy Lee and introduced the British comedians Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers to the majority of non-Art House movie goers outside of the U.K. One of the problems that George Pernial had to deal with in his shots was matching in 1958 the live action with Pal’s “Puppetoons”. He had to work closely was Tom Howard who would win the 1959 Academy Award for best Effects and Special Effects. This is a great family film and I personally recommend it. The last film I want to mention with George Perinal’s cinematography that I want to mention is an overlooked British film from 1960 “The Day They Robbed the Bank of England” starring Aldo Ray and Peter O’Toole (it would be this role that won him the part of “Lawrence of Arabia”), Kieron Moore and Hugh Griffith (the 1959 Best Supporting Oscar for “Ben Hur”) as Irish revolutionaries in 1901 that plan to rob the Bank of England of a million pounds of gold. It is an excellent film. The Irish Gang pulls off the robbery without a hitch, but the twist is in the end as the cart full of gold breaks as they pass a British Bobby. I went even to French Language pages to look up more information on George Perinal, but found even less mentioned about him than the TCM biography. Anyone with more knowledge pleaser add to this sketch of one of the forgotten “Warlords of Cinematic Imagination” which is the purpose of my page.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 16:34:59 +0000