Best Cinematography 1958

[Precious Doll]

I don't think any of these nominees are really that worthy. I voted for I Want to Live & Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Most notable omission is of course Vertigo with Some Came Running, Touch of Evil, A Time to Love and a Time to Die, La Venganza, Bonjour Tristesse, Equinox Flower, Gunman's Walk and Man of the West are all more worth of nominations that what the Academy selected.

[Reza]

B/W
1. The Defiant Ones
2. The Young Lions
3. Separate Tables
4. I Want to Live!
5. Desire Under the Elms

Colour
1. Gigi
2. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
3. Auntie Mame

The other two nominees are absolute crud.

4. South Pacific - those ugly filters
5. The Old Man and the Sea

[Big Magilla]

Black-and-White

What Desire Under the Elms is doing here over A Night to Remember (Geoffrey Unsworth) is beyond me.

The Defiant Ones and The Young Lions by virtue of their subject matter cried out for striking cinematography and they got it.

The confined spaces of I Want to Live! and Separate Tables, though, were more difficult to capture and they both did it seamlessly.

My vote goes to Charles Lang for Separate Tables.

Color

The Old Man and the Sea is one of the most boring movies ever made. Even the great James Wong Howe's cinematography couldn't save it. It should not have been nominated. Vertigo (Robert Burks) is the glaring omission here.

Auntie Mame is one of the great comedies, but its cinematography does nothing to open up the play. I would have given its slot to The Big Country (Franz Planer).

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a filmed play that has a life of its own. A very good nomination.

My vote, though, comes down to the two musicals in the category. Both Gigi and South Pacific are gorgeously photographed, although those annoying color filters Josh Logan insisted on over Leon Shamroy's objections in the latter, district from some of the musical numbers. Shamroy had suggested putting them in in the editing so that they could be removed if need be, but Logan insisted on them being used in the camera so they couldn't be.

For putting up the good fight, even though he lost, my vote goes to Leon Shamroy for South Pacific.

[Big Magilla]

Have at it.