James Wong Howe was a cinematographer of Chinese descent during the Golden Age of Hollywood. His celebrated work spanned the 1920s to 70s, where he filmed actors from Myrna Loy with William Powell to Paul Newman as well as Kim Novak. James Wong Howe was nominated for sixteen Academy Awards, winning Oscars for Best Cinematography for The Rose Tattoo (1955) and Hud (1963).
Learning the Craft during Silent Movies
Born August 28, 1899 in Taishan, Guangdong, China, James Wong Howe came to the U.S. at the age of five. Howe didn’t often discuss details of his early life before living in Los Angeles, however he grew up in Pasco, Washington. In a 1958 interview, he recounted how he started working in Hollywood, “I came down to California originally to study aviation. My money ran out, so I [ . . .] was a delivery boy on a little motorcycle for a commercial photographer [. . .] [T]hen I met a friend of mine named Len Powers [. . .] He was working in the Mack Sennett comedies as a cameraman and he told me I should try to get into the motion picture work.” Len Powers was also a director, and with his encouragement, Howe gained experience as a cameraman. One of the first movie studios Howe worked at was the Jesse Lasky Studio where he met famed director Cecil B. DeMille’s cameraman, Alvin Wyckoff. Wyckoff offered Howe a position maintaining camera equipment. He later became Wyckoff’s camera assistant, where his tasks included holding the slate in front of the camera before a scene was filmed.
Between movies, Howe took headshots of actors. In the early 1920s, he took a picture of actress Mary Miles Minter. She was impressed that he photographed her light blue eyes dark, which Howe discovered was from a piece of black velvet nearby that reflected in her eyes. The orthochromatic film stock of the time often faded shades of blue. As a result, Minter requested him to be promoted as her personal cameraman. Howe filmed her final movies before she retired, Drums of Fate (1923) and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1923).
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In 1924, Howe was the camera operator for Peter Pan (1924), starring Betty Bronson. Here he solved the problem of visualizing Tinkerbell. He remembered, “I had my electrician wire this little automobile headlight bulb and hung it on this fine wire from a trout pole and the grip [. . .] maneuvered this. I hung a little Christmas tinsel, like a little skirt, to reflect the light and give it movement. Then we put it on a little dimmer, so that it would breathe and fly through the air.” Other actors he filmed in the 1920s were Clara Bow (Mantrap); Lon Chaney Sr. (Laugh, Clown, Laugh); and John Gilbert (Four Walls co-starring Joan Crawford and Desert Nights.)
Peter Pan (1924). Note the practical effect with Tinkerbell in the last image, starting at 16:35 in the full movie.
Innovator During the Sound Era
At the start of the 1930s, he filmed Fox’s Transatlantic (1930), starring Edmund Lowe. Howe used deep focus shots and sets with ceilings made of muslin that produced realistic lighting. These two techniques were later seen in Citizen Kane (1941). Howe recalled he suggested “low, sketchy, key lighting” to director William Howard and advised, “‘I think one thing that might give [Transatlantic] a style is to photograph the whole picture with a wide angle lens [. . .] and just use that one lens with [the] exception when we shoot the close-ups.’ [. . .] [F]or talkies at that period, [Transatlantic] revolutionized a certain thing photographically. . [W]e used [muslin] ceilings . . . what [cameraman] Gregg [Toland] later in Citizen Kane used.”
Howe worked at Fox until 1933, then he went to M.G.M. During Viva Villa (1934), starring Wallace Beery, he made unique lens choices as well as broke the tradition of working separately from the art director. In an article for American Cinematographer in June 1934, Howe wrote that he and art director Harry Oliver studied the script together to sketch camera shots and lighting of sets. Howe explained he used wide lenses for close-ups, since “behind [Viva and his companions] and their action is always the drama of Mexico itself” and lenses with a longer focal length in battle scenes for a compressed look to depict “the sense of confusion a battle always engenders.”
Viva Villa! (1934). Click for expanded images that show Howe's use of the wide angle. From TCM.
Other movies he filmed included three starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, Manhattan Melodrama (1933), which also starred Clark Gable; The Thin Man (1934), the first of the self-titled franchise; and Evelyn Prentice (1934). Howe’s scholarly cinematography approach was illustrated when he told American Cinematographer in August 1938, “Many may not understand the responsibility of every member of a camera crew when the camera is in action in an important and impressive scene. Each one has his own part to play, like each member of an orchestra. Those on the crew who have the ‘feel’ can make that camera perform, fast or slow; can make it slide, in rhythm, like a waltz.”
In 1936, Howe worked in England, including filming Fire Over England (1937), starring Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. He’d remember Leigh as “wonderful to work with, beautiful to photograph” and respected English actors, “That’s one thing I admired about the people over there. If the part was right for them, they didn’t care if they were just a small bit. They would be big stars on the stage, but they would come over [for a movie] and play just this little bit part.”
While he was in Europe Howe married author, poet, journalist, and editor, Sanora Babb, in Paris in 1936. They weren’t able to marry in the U.S. due to California’s law against interracial marriage. After returning to the United States, Babb volunteered with the F.S.A. (Farm Security Administration), helping migrants at California camps and maintaining reports. The experiences inspired her novel, Whose Names are Unknown. Yet Howe refrained from discussing racial discrimination he encountered during his marriage and profession, instead he focused on sharing his camera techniques.
Returning to Hollywood, Howe filmed his first technicolor movie, Tom Sawyer (1938). Next, he filmed Algiers (1938), starring Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr, which garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography. He later explained the diffused lighting in Lamarr’s close-ups was to mirror the perspective of Boyer’s character falling in love, “If I had made [Hedy Lamar] beautiful throughout [the scenes before], then when we come to this point where [Charles] Boyer meets her [for the first time] . . . it wouldn’t pay off then.”
Howe enjoyed a steady stream of successes. By the late 1930s, he was at Warner Brothers. Here, Howe worked with John Garfield (They Made Me a Criminal, Dust Be My Destiny); Edward G. Robinson (Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet); Ann Sheridan (Kings Row, which earned him another Oscar nomination); James Cagney (most singularly Yankee Doodle Dandy); and Barbara Stanwyck (My Reputation). He also became friends with Humphrey Bogart. Howe said, “I enjoyed working with Humphrey [Bogart]. I liked him as a person very much. Besides working with him, we used to go to the steam baths. [. . .] Peter Lorre would be down there and they were quite a pair. [. . .] Humphrey was no trouble to a cameraman. He didn’t have a good side or favorite side. [. . .] He just went out there and played his scene.”
Howe was busy off the film set, too. In October 1946, American Cinematographer reported that he was helping China’s film industry by supervising development of a lab and research center, while advising visiting educators. The magazine complimented Howe’s sense of humor for maintaining rapport during filmmaking’s long working hours; adding off-set he enjoyed golf and swimming. He also liked making home movies. In 1948, Howe remarried Babb when California laws were amended. Amidst the Hollywood blacklist of the era, Babb moved to Mexico temporarily to prevent Howe’s career from being impacted by her previous link with the Communist party.
Accomplished Camera Operator
Freelancing throughout the 1950s, projects he filmed included Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), starring Burt Lancaster; Picnic (1955) starring William Holden and Kim Novak; and The Story on Page One (1959) starring Rita Hayworth. In 1956, Howe won his first Oscar for Best Black and White Cinematography for The Rose Tattoo (1955). He’d later say, “Black and white is a harder medium, for me at least, and more challenging. It is more satisfying because you can make the audience furnish their own color values.” Additionally in 1956, he received the Look Achievement Award and plaque for the ASC (American Society of Cinematographers) Wall of Fame. In 1957, he received the George Eastman House Medal of Honor.
Some of his work from the 1960s were Paul Newman movies, such as Hud (1963), which he won another Oscar for Best Cinematography, and Hombre (1967). Howe remembered Newman as “a nice fellow” who was quiet, yet “very cooperative.” For Hud (1963), Howe described his use of a light blue filter over the lens to wash out the sky and emphasize the vast landscape that influenced Hud’s (Newman) restlessness. He added, “Whether you’re a director or whether you’re a cameraman, [ask], ‘Look, what am I trying to say here?’ You got to learn to see, learn to feel light. [. . .] feel the quality of light, the texture of light [. . .] You got to understand all this to make your pictures speak out to what you feel that you want to say.”
Howe’s final movie was Funny Lady (1975) starring Barbra Streisand in her reprise as Fanny Brice. Earlier in 1946, Howe expressed a desire to remain in filmmaking, “Hollywood has been very good to me and I’m grateful for all I have
been able to learn [. . .] and for the friends I’ve made while doing so. [. . .] There are still great strides to be made [in motion pictures] and I want to do my part [. . .] I’m staying behind that viewfinder because I can’t see myself settling down to the life of a golf-playing country gentleman. The motion picture industry is too vital, too alive—I’d never be happy away from it.” Howe died in 1976 and Sanora Babb died in 2005. James Wong Howe’s personal story illustrates resilience, while his camera work continues to inspire modern filmmakers in a craft that still relies on the techniques he introduced.
Rachel Martinez is an artist and writer whose passion at an early age for classic movies further inspired her in storytelling. She studied film production throughout high school and went on to earn a B.A. in cinematography and a minor in creative writing.
Secondary Sources for Further Reading
American Society of Cinematographers. Accessed: September 3, 2024. https://theasc.com/
Babb, Sanora. The Dark Earth and Selected Prose from the Great Depression. New York: Muse Ink Press, 2021.
Chaw, Walter. James Wong Howe’s Way with Light. The Criterion Collection, September 9, 2022. Accessed: September 24, 2024.
“Sanora Babb: Papers and Biographical Sketch.” Harry Ransom Center, Accessed: September 2, 2024.
Silver, Alain. James Wong Howe The Camera Eye: A Career Interview, Self-published: CreateSpace, 2011.
Primary Sources
Original records from the US Immigration and Naturalization Service where Howe was granted permission to leave the US and return, as a US citizen.
The image of James Wong Howe and his wife, Sanora Babb taken at their home, used with permission from the El Pueblo Monument Photo Collection. Permission granted via email with the author on September 19, 2024.