Osmond Borradaile

Osmond Hudson Borradaile (born July 16, 1898 in Winnipeg , Canada , † March 23, 1999 in Vancouver ) was a Canadian cameraman for British film, a specialist in gorgeous, documentary outdoor shots.

The early years

Osmond H. Borradaile had already seen a film in her native Canada at the age of seven and was enthusiastic about cinema at an early age. Shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, the family moved to San Diego , where Borradaile soon left school and earned his first own money as a ticket seller. He is said to have first made contact with the film industry while filming a film with Mary Pickford . Through a friend of his mother's, Borradaile finally got the job of a lab technician at Jesse L. Lasky's production company Feature Play Co.

Officially resident in Victoria , British Columbia , Borradaile was drafted early as a Canadian citizen. He served in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in the 5th Regt. CGA from September 8th to November 30th, 1916 at the front in France .

In April 1919 he returned from Victoria to Hollywood and was immediately taken over by the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, where he found employment as a camera assistant and initially worked for the director Sam Wood . He quickly specialized in outdoor shots and demonstrated a flair for dealing with natural light. In the late silent film years, Borradaile worked with Hollywood legends such as Wallace Reid , Gloria Swanson , Rudolph Valentino , Clara Bow and child star Jackie Coogan . As a simple cameraman, he was involved in the shootings of Ernst Lubitsch's love parade in 1929 , and the following year he took care of the aerial shots of Howard Hughes ' legendary flight strip Höllenflieger .

Career high point in England

In March 1932 Osmond Borradaile and his eight years younger, French wife Christiane from Lille , did not return to Hollywood from a trip to Australia , but settled in London . There he was hired by the production company Alexander Kordas and in the same year took on the field shots for the film Men of Tomorrow . Korda's brother Zoltan , with whom Borradaile was to work regularly in the future , was involved in the direction . Initially, Borradaile had to be content with the work of a simple cameraman for central Alexander Korda productions such as The Private Life of Henry VIII , The Private Life of Don Juan and The Scarlet Flower , before he was allowed to shoot films on his own since 1934.

For Zoltan Korda's productions Bosambo , Elephant Boy , Danger on the Doro Pass and Four Feathers , the Canadian provided a wealth of impressive exterior shots of exotic locations. These were mostly gripping adventure film productions that were supposed to praise the British Empire. Borradaile received an Oscar nomination for best color film camera work for the performance of Four Feathers at the side of his respected Parisian colleague Georges Périnal .

In between, on December 7, 1937, Osmond and Christiane Borradaile took the ship from Le Havre to Los Angeles , where they arrived exactly one month later to give birth to both children. On August 8, 1938, the couple returned to England with their daughter Anita, who was born on May 19, 1938.

The outbreak of World War II brought Borradaile's illustrious career in British film to an abrupt end. The large-scale production, The Thief of Baghdad , which was still in production in the first winter of the war in 1939/40 , an extremely lavish 1001-Nights story for which Borradaile had provided some recordings, had to be canceled in London and production ended in Hollywood. Borradaile was drafted again and named Army Officer Photographer. In this role he traveled from Swansea via New York home to Canada on June 9, 1942 , where he was able to land government contracts for photography and directing short documentaries. He stayed in England again until the end of 1944, and again in North America for the entire year 1945.

The late years

Immediately after the end of the war, Borradaile, who by now had a reputation for being an excellent landscape photographer , was brought to Australia , where he caused a sensation with his trek shots for the cattle-driving and outback adventure “ The Overlanders ”, which was enthusiastically celebrated by local film critics . Shortly thereafter, he went to Africa for the exterior shots of the Hollywood production The Macomber Affair , and another year later (in November 1947) Borradaile returned to London from Mombasa . In 1948 he shot the South Pole drama Scott's Last Voyage in Norway and Switzerland and immediately afterwards the south German exterior shots for the tumultuous Cary Grant comedy I Was a Male War Bride by Hollywood veteran Howard Hawks .

At the beginning of the 1950s, the globetrotter Borradaile finally returned home to Canada and from then on concentrated largely on the photography of film documentaries. In 1955, Zoltan Korda brought him for the remake of the “ Four Feathers ” material “ Storm over the Nile ”. Borradaile subsequently remained largely unemployed and returned to western Canada. Apart from his impressive winter shots from the Canadian wilderness in the trapper drama “ Wie ein Schrei im Wind ” ( The Trap , 1965), Osmond H. Borradaile did not receive any follow-up orders from the feature-length feature film.

In 1982 the former cameraman was awarded the highest civilian honor in his home country, the Order of Canada . Borradaile died, almost forgotten by the industry, very old at the age of over 100 in his long-term adopted home of Vancouver.

Films (selection)

• 1934: The Private Life of the Gannets (short documentary)
• 1934: Bosambo ( Sanders of the River )
• 1936: Elephant Boy
• 1938: Danger at the Doro Pass ( The Drum ) (recordings in India)
• 1938: Four springs (photos taken in Sudan)
• 1939: The Lions Has Wings
• 1939/40: The thief of Baghdad (additional recording)
• 1942/43: Action Stations! (Documentary)
• 1943: Men Without Wings (director, short documentary)
• 1946: The big buzz ( The Overlanders )
• 1946: The affair Macomber (The Macomber Affair) (recordings in Africa)
• 1947: Bonnie Prince Charlie
• 1948: Scott's last ride
• 1948: The Winslow Boy ( The Winslow Boy )
• 1948: I was a male war bride (South German recording)
• 1949: Saints and Sinners
• 1951: Breakdown (medium-length documentary)
• 1951: Royal Journey (medium-length documentary)
• 1953: Dues and the Union (short documentary)
• 1953: Country Magistrate (short documentary)
• 1954: L'esprit you mal
• 1955: Storm Over the Nile (Storm Over the Nile)
• 1955: Prepare for Advancement (short documentary film)
• 1956: Methods of Instruction (short documentary)
• 1965: Like a Scream in the Wind ( The Trap ) (second unit camera)
• 1967: West to the Mountains (short film)
• 1970: Travelin 'Light (documentary)

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} according to the film archive Kay Less

Web links

• Osmond H. Borradaile in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• New York Times Biography [1]