Did you know that Arthur Edeson, the same man who shot Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Mutiny on the Bounty, and All Quiet on the Western Front, also shot The Big Trail, one of John Wayne's early classics?
Widely regarded as one of the greatest black and white photographers of all time, James Wong Howe (The Thin Man, Body and Soul, Sweet Smell of Success) shot The Rough Riders, a western adventure set in the Spanish American War. Another Wong Howe classic, Hud, while not fitting neatly into the western genre, has enough revisionist elements to qualify in my book, and is one of the finest examples of black and white photography to ever grace the big screen.
Stanley Cortez, who gave us The Magnificent Ambersons, Night of the Hunter, and two Sam Fuller classics: Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss; plied his trade on Badlands of Dakota, featuring Robert Stack and Dave Letterman's fav, Broderick Crawford.
The underrated Franz Planer, whose stunning work includes Roman Holiday, Criss Cross, and The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, is at his best in the fine westerns The Big Country, directed by Wyler, featuring Gregory Peck and Charles Heston, and John Huston's The Unforgiven, starring Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn.
Conrad Hall gave us Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Even Robert Burks, best known for his classic Hitchcock work (North by Northwest, Strangers on a Train, To Catch a Thief, and many more) shot Michael Curtiz's The Boy from Oklahoma, featuring the immortal Slim Pickens, and Hondo, a fairly typical John Wayne effort.
And finally, the man who gave the world Life is Beautiful, the Beautiful Swindlers, and one of the finest films ever produced, Seven Beauties, is the very same artist who combined with Leone to create the unrivalled visuals of The Good the Bad and The Ugly, and Once Upon a Time in the West. Tonino Delli Colli: a true master.
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