Best Cinematography, 1939

Awards presented February 29, 1940

Color had arrived, and was given its own category in the cinematography awards. But there was still some hesitancy on the Academy's part, and for some reason it decided to allow each studio or production company to submit a preliminary list of suggested nominees, and then chose two "official" contenders for the final vote. This unwieldy practice was abandoned after one year. 

The nominees were ... 
(Black and White) 

• Bert Glennon, Stagecoach 
• Gregg Toland, Wuthering Heights 

Preliminary nominees:

Joseph H. August, Gunga Din 

Norbert Brodine, Of Mice and Men 

George Folsey, Lady of the Tropics 

Tony Gaudio, Juarez 

Arthur Miller, The Rains Came

Victor Milner, The Great Victor Herbert 

Gregg Toland, Intermezzo 

Joseph Valentine, First Love  

Joseph Walker, Only Angels Have Wings 

(Color) 

• Ernest Haller, Ray Rennahan, Gone With the Wind 
• Sol Polito, W. Howard Greene, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex 

Preliminary nominees: 

Georges Perinal, Osmond Borradaile, Four Feathers 

Ray Rennahan, Bert Glennon, Drums Along the Mohawk 

Hal Rosson, The Wizard of Oz 

William V. Skall, Bernard Knowles, The Mikado 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Black and White) 

Gregg Toland, Wuthering Heights. 

Gregg Toland

Though it covers only the first half of Emily Brontë's great mad novel, the film is one of Hollywood's romantic classics, thanks to the incredible beauty of the two leads, Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, the sure-handed direction of William Wyler, and perhaps most of all, Toland's brilliant chiaroscuro photography. This is, almost incredibly, the sole Oscar for Toland, one of the most acclaimed cinematographers in Hollywood history. His career was linked with producer Sam Goldwyn's -- Toland photographed thirty-seven of the producer's films. He had begun his career in the silent era, and was responsible for many innovations, including a method of muffling the noise of the camera once sound came in. He is best known for his work with deep-focus composition, giving depth and clarity to images, and by the time of his death from a heart attack in 1948, at the age of forty-four, he was the highest-paid cinematographer in Hollywood. He is also one of the few to receive solo billing in the opening credits of the movies he filmed.

Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights

(Color) 

Ernest Haller, Ray Rennahan, Gone With the Wind. 

Ernest Haller

Ray Rennahan

Haller had begun his career as a cameraman in 1915 and was a director of photography by 1920. He received his first nomination for Jezebel, which prompted producer David O. Selznick to hire him for Gone With the Wind, replacing Lee Garmes, who had disagreements with the Technicolor consultants who were contractually obligated to supervise any film made with the technique. Haller had had little experience with Technicolor, so Rennahan, a pioneer in color cinematography, was hired to work with him. Haller received five more nominations, the last in 1963 for Lilies of the Field. Rennahan began working with color during the 1920s, filming among other things a color sequence for Cecil B. DeMille's 1924 The Ten Commandments.  Much color work was done on short films in the early days, and one of Rennahan's shorts, La Cucaracha, won the 1934 short film Oscar. He also filmed the first full-length technicolor feature, Becky Sharp, in 1935. He won a second Oscar for Blood and Sand in 1941. After the advent of color television, he spent most of his time working in that medium.

Gone With the Wind