Philip H. Lathrop

Philip H. Lathrop, ASC (October 22, 1912 – April 12, 1995) was an American cinematographer^[1] noted for his skills with wide screen technology and detailed approach to lighting and camera placement.^[2] He was a notable collaborator of director Blake Edwards, working on ten of his productions between 1958 and 1971.^[3] He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, for The Americanization of Emily (1964) and Earthquake (1974). He was also a two-time Primetime Emmy Award winner.

Lathrop was a long-time member of the ASC Board of Directors, as well as co-chairman of the ASC Awards committee. He received the ASC's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992. He also participated in the affairs of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.^[4]

Lathrop was born in Merced, California, on October 22, 1912. As a child, the Universal Studios lot was his playground, where his mother was employed in the film lab. Lathrop became a member there in the camera department at 18-years old. There, he watched Gilbert Warrenton photograph the first version of Show Boat in 1928–29. On the 1936 version of the film, Lathrop loaded cameras from John Mescall.^[2]

Lathrop began his career as a film loader in Universal’s camera department in 1934 for Russell Metty, ASC, on the Irving Reis film, All My Sons.^[2]

In 1938, he became assistant to Universal’s top-ranking cinematographer Joseph A. Valentine, ASC, and worked on the Deanna Durbin pictures, The Wolf Man, and two Alfred Hitchcock classics, Saboteur and Shadow of a Doubt.^[4] Later, he once again worked as a camera operator with Metty for nine years where he shot the opening of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil,^[1] one of the most renowned tracking shots in the history of cinema.^[4]

Lathrop becomes director of photography at Universal in 1958. His first feature that year was The Perfect Furlough, which was shot in CinemaScope and Eastman Color, with director Blake Edwards, whom he subsequently worked with on seven more films, including Experiment in Terror, Days of Wine and Roses, and The Pink Panther. In 1959, Lathrop and Edwards collaborated on the television series, Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky.^[4]

Using the new Panavision lenses, Lathrop shot the 1962 black and white drama, Lonely Are the Brave, with director David Miller in New Mexico’s Sandia Mountains^[4]—this is an early example of the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Lathrop’s particular visual style seems to epitomize the times, such as in Point Blank, directed by John Boorman in 1967, where a glossy, dense feel was utilized to a tough thriller.^[2] In this film, color charts were prepared for each scene—the colors were subdued and desaturated and no scene was ever too bright or showy. After Point Blank, Lathrop worked on Francis Ford Coppola’s Finian’s Rainbow, another unusual color film.^[4]

He was inducted into the ASC Hall of Fame in 1974. During the 1980s, Lathrop worked on eight television movies-of-the-week as well as several mini-series,^[4] winning him two Primetime Emmys.

His last theatrical film as cinematographer was Wes Craven's horror film Deadly Friend (1986). The following year, he shot the comedic short film Ray’s Male Heterosexual Dance Hall, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

In the 1974 disaster film Earthquake, Lathrop made director Mark Robson’s vision of the movie come true. Robson wanted a natural look for the film, without its being documentary-like. Instead of shooting in natural locations, Earthquake was filmed almost entirely on the Universal Studios' sound stages and back-lot due to the extraordinary degree of control deemed necessary to execute the required special effects. To bring the earthquake scenes to life, a shaker mount for the camera was created. Lathrop said it “created an amazing illusion. You’d swear that the ground was going up and down and moving sideways, when, of course, it wasn’t moving at all.” Sets were also built on shaker platforms, which is incredibly costly so “in the sets that were not on shaker platforms, [it] was [difficult] to get the actors to move as if they were responding to an earthquake, when there wasn’t one,” he added.^[5]

A five-story section of what is supposed to be a 25-story building was made in Stage 12, the highest in the studio, where every floor was used to shoot the action. Lathrop stated that “it was necessary to dig down 20 feet into the floor of the stage in order to accommodate [the building model].” He continued, “[the] photography of this sequence was difficult because of the way [they] had to light the set” to avoid shadows from the hanging lights when the simulated earthquakes took place. So “in order to light it, [Lathrop] went clear up above the grids with four arcs pointed down to simulate the angle of the sun. [He] matched each of the arcs on the way down and didn’t overlap them, nor did [he] use any fill light at all.” ^[5]

To execute a film like Earthquake, natural sets would have been very limiting. Shooting on set allows for control in the lighting and to “do things with the camera that would have been impossible in a natural set,” said Lathrop. Without a single day off of work after Earthquake, Lathrop immediately began working on Airport 1975, also for Universal Studios.^[5]

Lathrop had two marriages, to Molly Lathrop and Betty Jo Lathrop, and three sons, Larry, Bill and Clark.^[4]

He died of cancer on April 12, 1995, in Los Angeles, the same year he was honored with the 1992 ASC Lifetime Achievement Award. Services were held at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills where Stanley Cortez, ASC, delivered the eulogy.^[4]

• Philip H. Lathrop at IMDb