Richard Kline
Among the great shooters from Hollywood’s Golden Age, cinematographer Richard Kline is one practitioner of ‘lens-craft’ who possessed a surgical perfection with his camera. The twice Oscar-nominated DP was literally a ‘sire of Tinseltown.’ His mom was a paymaster at Universal while his father, (Benjamin Kline) lensed filmnoir classics like Detour as well as Three Stooges side splitters, including Sock-a-Bye Baby and A Plumbing We Will Go.
Kline’s prolific career began after high school in 1943 when alerted to a gig in Columbia Pictures’ camera department. Starting as a slate-boy on the Charles Vidor-helmed Covergirl (shot by cinematographer extraordinaire, Rudolph Mate), the future ‘Prince of Panavision’ thrived amid the hectic pace of Hollywood’s war years. Despite these beginnings, however, by 1944 the call to duty prompted his enlistment in the U.S. Navy where he served in a photographic- sciences unit until discharged in 1946. Returning home to Los Angeles, the twenty-something vet resumed his path ‘in the biz’ when Columbia Pictures called him back to work.
First laboring as a loader, then ultimately a camera assistant, Kline was exposed to A-list lensmen, including Curley Linden, Joe Walker, Charlie Lang, Burnett Guffey, Phil Lathrop, Charles Lawton Jr. and James Wong Howe. Learning the DP’s crafts of set etiquette, lighting and lens selection from such a wide variety of photographic mentors proved to be beneficial to the camera department newbie, as this allowed Kline to form his own ‘eye’ and become the chameleon-like story teller that would serve him well throughout his nearly 100-feature career.
Recalling those early days, Kline spoke of camera-assisting on Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai, staring newcomer Rita Hayworth. Filmed aboard Errol Flynn’s yacht, The Zacca, Kline’s eyes sparkled as he said, “We were charmed by Flynn as skipper, not to mention the procession of women and alcohol aboard the ship.”
The post-War ‘can-do’ credo of 1950s America produced the new technology of television. This, combined with Local 659’s rule change regarding seniority-based hiring, resulted in Kline being limited to camera jobs on TV shows like Burns and Allen or I Love Lucy. Feeling constrained, he decided to use the G.I. Bill to attend Paris’ fabled Sorbonne, where he studied Fine Arts. After three years abroad, Kline returned to California to make motion pictures.
His first major go (back at Columbia) was operating on the basketball vehicle, The Harlem Globetrotters in 1951, followed by several Sam Katzman B pictures like The Magic Carpet (starring Lucille Ball), The Pirates of Tripoli, It Came from Beneath the Sea, and William Castles’ New Orleans Uncensored. This new school of cinema production appealed to Kline. When asked about the impact of these films upon his career, he replied, “Katzman was one of the best producers that I ever worked with. He was never over budget while making these ten-day features, which were a terrific classroom for learning economical shot selection and ‘making the most’ with what’s available.”
Finding steady assistant-camera work throughout the mid-1950’s, Kline crewed often with DP mentor Burnett Guffey including the last of the filmnoir classics, The Harder They Fall (Bogart’s final picture). Remembering the daily mechanics of shooting these flicks, he recalled producers like Katzman averaging 80 camera set-ups a day.
During the next ten years, Richard Kline came into his own as a camera operator on some amazing films. From shooting Pal Joey, Around the World in Eighty Days, and Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea to Elmer Gantry, A Raisin in the Sun, The Birdman of Alcatraz, The Days of Wine and Roses, and his final operator gig, Blake Edwards’ The Pink Panther, he had become one of the finest cameramen in town.
Like many ‘perfect storms’ of success in La-La land, so too was Kline’s next transition—to cinematographer. Called upon by director Josh Logan (after coincidentally seeing Kline’s dailies from Chamber of Horrors and being impressed with their period look), he was offered Camelot. Pulling the proverbial sword from the stone, the new DP garnered an Oscar nomination for best photography—his first shot at the big time.
After Camelot’s success, Richard Kline’s career-plate sizzled. Shooting everything from Eastwood westerns like Hang ’em High (in 1968) to action dramas such as Richard Fleischer’s The Boston Strangler as well as the sci-fi standard The Andromeda Strain, Kline created a vision of clarity with his camera that always put the story first. Whether he was staying true to the gritty funk of production designer Boris Levin’s A Dream of Kings, or climbing inside the mind of a hit man in The Mechanic, he photographed all with equal panache. Additional notable films from that time included the Richard Fleischer projects— Mandingo, The Don is Dead, Mr. Majestyk and Soylent Green. When queried as to what clicked between Fleischer and himself, he answered, “With Richard’s background via his father (Max Fleischer) and a Yale education, he knew motion picture making from the ground up. Plus the guy was trusting, always interested in your ideas.”
By 1976, DP Richard Kline had become a ‘go-to’ guy for the good stuff being shot in Hollywood. And of that, no picture was bigger than Dino De Laurentiis’ King Kong. Sporting the world’s largest live-action mechanical monkey, the film’s production presented many challenges. Recalling a difficult ‘straight-down’ POV shot that utilized a cantilevered platform fastened to the World Trade Towers (1,400 feet up), Kline said, “When the platform was completed by rigging grip Eddie Knott (and his crew), famous high-wire artist Philippe Petit came to see the rig and was impressed with its engineering.”
“There was true professional respect from Petit,” the cinematographer said quietly. “It was an amazing experience making those shots.”
Following a second ‘best photography’ Oscar nom for King Kong, Kline continued shooting interesting fare throughout the next 20 years. Mega flicks like Star Trek: the Motion Picture (1979), as well as Kasdan’s filmnoir- revisited, Body Heat and the Francois Truffaut crime caper, Breathless kept his creative juices flowing. Constantly working through the ’80s, Kline’s later movies continued to show an intelligence behind the camera that marked them a cut above the other stuff in town.
Now into his sixth decade in the film biz, the fit, seventysomething- year-old cinematographer desires only to continue working at what he loves—making motion pictures. And in the midst of constant technical changes on set, one thing has remained the same according to Kline—what it takes to be a good DP.
“Aside from a thick skin and a sense of humor,” he said, “the ability to observe is of utmost importance, along with the idea of seeing a happy accident and being able to take advantage of it.”
Parlaying that statement into advice for the next generation of shooters, Kline offered this thought, “Integrity is paramount. You must always be prepared and focused on the task at hand before you shoot frame one!”
