Merritt B. Gerstad
Merritt B. Gerstad ( born July 5, 1900 in Chicago, Illinois, † March 1, 1974 in Laguna Beach, California ) was an American cinematographer.
Life
Merritt B. Gerstad began in 1920 with director Victor Heerman with the silent film comedy The Poor Simp first time a film as a cameraman at the scene. Initially worked for Selznick Pictures Corporation, he moved in 1924 to Universal Studios and MGM in 1926, where his multiple collaboration with director Tod Browning began. Together they turned the Lon Chaney - movies The Road to Mandalay ( 1926), The Unknown (1927) and at midnight (1927 ) and the horror film Freaks ( 1932). Other directors, under whose direction Gerstad was used, were Jack Conway, Clarence Brown, Harry Beaumont, Mervyn LeRoy and WS Van Dyke.
In the early sound era, he was repeatedly cinematographer of films, in each of which William Haines and Ramon Novarro played the leading role. From 1932 he worked for all the major movie studios, so again for Universal, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, RKO Pictures and Warner Brothers. When Warner emerged with Watch on the Rhine (1943 ), Conflict (1945 ) and Rhapsody in Blue ( 1945) the last films in which he was involved as a cameraman. Throughout his career, he turned a series of film comedies, like Sam Woods Marx Brothers film scandal at the opera (1935 ), but also film dramas such as Henry Kings Seventh Heaven (1937 ) starring Simone Simon and James Stewart in the lead roles. Even Henry Hathaway's Adventure Shipwreck of Souls (1937 ) with Gary Cooper is one of his works.