John Alton
John Alton A.S.C. (October 5, 1901 – June 2, 1996), born Johann Altmann, in Sopron/Ödenburg, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary, was an American cinematographer. Alton won an Academy Award for the cinematography of An American in Paris (1951), becoming the first Hungarian-born person to do so. He photographed some of the most famous film noirs of the classic period. He started out in Los Angeles as a lab technician in the 1920s, later becoming a cameraman within four years. He moved to France with Ernst Lubitsch to film backgrounds for The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) and ended up staying for one year heading the camera department of Paramount Pictures's Joinville Studios. In 1932 he moved to Argentina where he shot many Spanish-language films and designed the country's first sound film studio for Lumiton and Argentina Sono Film. He returned to Hollywood in the late 1930s, with two dozen film credits, and became one of the most sought after cinematographers in American cinema. Alton was known for unconventional camera angles—especially low camera shots. His style is most notable in the film noirs: He Walked by Night, The Big Combo, The Amazing Mr.
Cinematographer
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Escape to Burma
"Tropic heat… and human hate!" squealed the posters for this entertainingly off-the-cuff B-movie, which finds a quartet of film noir veterans (director Allan Dwan, cinematographer John Alton and stars Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Ryan) tearing loose amidst an old-fashioned adventure yarn set in...Watch Movie -
Silver Lode
A stranger in town becomes the target of a lynch mob in Allan Dwan's feverish Western noir, made at the height of the nation's "Red Scare" witch hunts and now acclaimed as one of the most concise anti-McCarthy parables ever made by Hollywood. About to marry the lovely Rose (Lizabeth Scott) on the...Watch Movie -
Tennessee's Partner
"You're rotten Tennessee, dirty. And, what’s more, you like it that way!" cries a local brothel owner to a unrepentant professional gambler in Allan Dwan's surprisingly illicit Western, set "when the West was a shameless young hussy!," as the original poster memorably stated....Watch Movie -
Cattle Queen of Montana
Barbara Stanwyck stars as "a woman of fire… in a land aflame!!!" in Allan Dwan's tough-as-nails 1954 Western, gorgeously shot in Montana’s scenic Glacier National Park. "Stripping off her petticoats and strapping on her guns" (as the original press material screamed),...Watch Movie
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Pearl of the South Pacific
B-movie legend Allan Dwan continued his odyssey through all the genres that Hollywood possesses in this jovial piece of South Seas hokum, one of three titles he released in 1955. Three treasure hunters (Virginia Mayo, Dennis Morgan and David Farrar) of varying levels of...Watch Movie -
Passion
Set in Old Spanish California of the 1800s, a dashing young rancher (Cornel Wilde) seeks vengeance for the murder of his wife (Yvonne de Carlo). Her identical twin (also played by Yvonne de Carlo) accompanies the rancher on their hunt for outlaw (Rodolfo Acosta) and his gang. Will lawman Castro...Watch Movie -
The Big Combo
A gripping gangster movie starring Cornel Wilde as the tenacious cop determined to bring down a ruthless and sadistic mobster played by Richard Conte. Often overlooked, this movie is a fine example of the evocative film noir style that became so popular during the 40s and 50s. John Alton's...Watch Movie

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