June 8 - Ernest B. Schoedsack

Happy Birthday, Ernest B. Schoedsack! Born today in 1893 as Ernest Beaumont Schoedsack, this American motion picture cinematographer, producer, and director had worked on several films with another famous filmmaker. 

This was American aviator, United States Air Force and Polish Air Force officer, adventurer, screenwriter, film director, and producer Merian C. Cooper. 

  

Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Schoedsack, years later, ran away from home at age fourteen and worked with road gangs.  

  

He later went to San Francisco, California, where he worked as a surveyor. Schoedsack eventually grew to be 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m), and his friends called him "Shorty". 

  

Schoedsack began his career in films in 1914 when he became a cameraman for Canadian-American film actor, director, and producer, and studio head Mack Sennett (known as the "King of Comedy"). Schoedsack continued working as a cameraman in World War I. 

  

Two years later, he served in the Signal Corps of the United States Army in France in 1916. He also flew in combat missions. 

Unfortunately, Schoedsack's eyesight was severely damaged in World War I, yet he continued to work with films afterwards.  

  

In 1920, he helped refugees in Poland escape the Polish–Russian Wars. Schoedsack worked with the American Red Cross.  

  

During 1921 and 1922, he also helped refugees from the Greco-Turkish War. He was later hired by The New York Times as a cameraman on an expedition around the world. 

  

Schoedsack began as a co-director with Cooper. He first met Cooper in 1918 in Vienna. They both later worked for The New York Times, but decided to make their own films. 

Their first collaboration was on the 1925 American silent black and white documentary film 'Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life' (also known as 'Grass'). 

  

That same year, Schoedsack met American screenwriter and former actress Ruth Rose. He would later marry her in 1926. They had met on an expedition Galápagos Islands where Schoedsack was the cameraman on that trip, and Rose was the official historian. 

  

In 1927, Schoedsack and Cooper co-directed the 1927 American silent black and white (tinted and toned) film 'Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness' (also known simply as 'Chang').  

  

The film depicts a man named Kru and his survival in the Northern Siamese jungle. Schoedsack and Cooper had spent eighteen months in the jungle in order to produce the film and photograph certain scenes.  

  

While producing the film, stampeding elephants that are featured in the film almost ran over Schoedsack and his crew. 

The risk was worth it, however, and 'Chang' was later nominated Best Picture at the first Academy Awards ceremony. This occurred in mid-May 1929. 

  

Schoedsack kept a print of a Bengal tiger pouncing with its jaws open in his office. When asked by a reporter about the photo, Schoedsack said that the tiger had sprung and he shot it. 

  

In the late 1920s, Schoedsack and Cooper worked to create the 1929 American silent black and white adventure/war film 'The Four Feathers'. 

This was the first fiction film that the duo had collaborated on. It was also one of the last silent films of Hollywood. 

  

Among their credits, however, the most notable collaboration between Schoedsack and Cooper was in making the 1933 American pre-Code black and white adventure/fantasy monster film 'King Kong'. Schoedsack co-produced and co-directed. 

The film later opened in New York City, New York on March 2, 1933 to rave reviews. 

  

A sequel quickly followed, directed by Schoedsack. This was the 1933 American Pre-Code black and white adventure/fantasy monster film 'Son of Kong' (released in December). However, this was just one of several more films made in the following decades, including two remakes. 

  

After 'Son of Kong', Schoedsack's career was spotty after the quick follow-up, as his 1935 American RKO black and white epic disaster film 'The Last Days of Pompeii' was a disappointment. 

  

In the following decade, Schoedsack directed the 1940 American Technicolor sci-fi/horror film 'Dr. Cyclops'. This was Hollywood's first science fiction film in Technicolor.  

  

In the late 1940s, Cooper enlisted Schoecsack to make one more giant-gorilla movie. This would be the 1949 American RKO black and white fantasy/drama film 'Mighty Joe Young'.  

  

The film was a reunion film of the main King Kong creative team of Schoedsack, Cooper and Ruth Rose. This would be the last film that Schoedsack would direct due to eye injuries received in World War II from testing photography equipment. 

  

Three years later, Schoedsack used his skills for the prologue of the 1952 American black and white/Technicolor documentary film "This Is Cinerama". The film was designed to introduce the Cinerama widescreen format to the world.  

  

With Schoedsack co-directing (prologue only, but uncredited), this was after he had concentrated on audio, rather than visual, projects. Cooper also served as one of the four directors. 

  

'King Kong' has been ranked by the American review-aggregation website for film and television Rotten Tomatoes as the fourth greatest horror film of all time. The site has also ranked it as the thirty-third greatest film of all time. 

  

Schoedsack eventually faded from view and lived out his last years in Santa Monica. He passed on December 23, 1979 in Los Angeles, California. He and his wife are interred there together at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. Schoedsack was 86. 

  

In 1991, 'King Kong' was deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. 

On AFI's 100 Years... 100 Quotes list, the line "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast." ranked in at #84. 

  

According to Schoedsack's personal life, he and Ruth Rose had one son together named Peter. Born in 1929, he still currently survives them at 91. 

  

Schoedsack's extraordinary life was the stuff movies are made of. He had found success by combining his love of adventure with his talent for nontraditional filmmaking. 

  

Nicknamed Monty, Schoedsack had been active from 1915–1952. 

  

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