ABSTRACT
By this time in my career, 1978, I was in a fortunate position of getting more and more calls for projects. I was an up-and-coming New York cinematographer, who was fortunate to land some plums. My first feature, One Potato, Two Potato (1964), had been a Cannes Film Festival winner. Because of the controversial subject matter of that film for the time-an interracial marriage-it received lots of publicity, which is always a good way of getting one's name batted around in the industry. My second feature was Francis Ford Coppola's first major film, You're a Big Boy Now (1967) and The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968), Billy Friedkin's first major film, followed. Both of these films drew great attention from the industry and the box office. The reviews singled out the photography of these films, labeling them as new wave cinematography. The look of these films was much imitated in television commercials, which was by then, and is still the best testimonial a cinematographer can get. Minsky's was a star-studded, relatively high-budget movie for the time, but it had lots of problems during production, not the least of which was the unfortunate death of the legendary actor Bert Lahr, best known for his portrayal of the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz, in the middle of the shooting. The film was finished with doubles, voice mimics,
and clever cutting, but nothing could really do the job Bert Lahr would have done.
