John L. Russell

John L. Russell , also Jack Russell (born May 15, 1905 in the USA , † July 22, 1967 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American cameraman whose fame is based on a single movie classic.

Live and act

Russell trained as an electrical engineer at the Pratt Institute and initially worked (in the 1930s) as camera assistant to the extremely productive B-film photographer Benjamin H. Kline . In the following decade he served his established colleague Russell Metty as a simple cameraman, u. a. 1947 in Lewis Milestone's Remarque filming Triumphal Arch . In the same year, Orson Welles hired Russell as head cameraman for his idiosyncratic adaptation Macbeth - The Kingslayer of Shakespeare's Macbeth . In this film, Russell, who in those early years was mostly known as "Jack Russell" in the opening credits, proved to be an excellent black and white cameraman with a sure feeling for light and shadow effects in atmospheric backdrops.

Nevertheless, for years he had to be content with commissions for third-rate low-cost productions - science fiction films, melodramas, crime novels, westerns. In the winter of 1959/60 John Russell shot his most famous and optically sophisticated film by far. Led by the visually thinking director Alfred Hitchcock , Russell created an atmosphere of consistently subtle, suggestive threat with his black and white photography for his psychological thriller. Above all, his chiaroscuro effects and some ingenious camera perspectives - legendary: the shower curtain scene - earned the cameraman, who was previously seen as an agreeable manufacturer, with great respect.

During this time, Russell had also photographed a considerable number of episodes of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series for Hitchcock as a TV cameraman . Other notable works are his camera work in Welles 'dark border crime thriller Imzeichen des Evil and his chief camera in the rather uninspired US interpretation of the classic German Expressionism' Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari . Here, too, Russell's suggestive imagery, already shown in Psycho , is one of the main assets of the film.

Russell, who later took care of a large number of other (also popular in Germany) television series such as Wagon Train , Checkmate and Die Menschen von der Shiloh Ranch , died shortly after completing the TV comedy Now You See it, Now You Don't and the average crime thriller Die nackte Tote, shot on television .

Filmography (cinema only)

• 1947: Macbeth - The Kingslayer (Macbeth)
• 1948: Legacy of the Executioner (Moonrise)
• 1948: The Green Promise
• 1949: Guilty of Treason
• 1950: The Man from Planet X
• 1952: Invasion against United States
• 1952: Problem Girls
• 1953: Panik in New York (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms)
• 1953: Chicago - 12 noon (The City That Never Sleeps)
• 1953: Geraldine
• 1953: Raid in the Chinese Quarter (Hell's Half Acre)
• 1953: Make Haste to Live
• 1954: The Atomic Kid
• 1954: Pelikan company (The Eternal Sea)
• 1955: Double Jeopardy
• 1955: The Vanishing American
• 1955: The Strangler of Sing-Sing (The Indestructible Man)
• 1956: You should still hang today (Star in the Dust)
• 1956: I rode for Jesse James (Hell's Crossroads)
• 1958: Touch of Evil (Touch of Evil) (only simple camera)
• 1959: Blonde curls - sharp claws ( Girls Town)
• 1960: Psycho
• 1961: The cabinet of Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Caligari)
• 1964: Billie
• 1967: The Naked Dead (Jigsaw)

literature

• Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 6: N - R. Mary Nolan - Meg Ryan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 684.

Web links

• John L. Russell at the Internet Movie Database (English)