American Cinematographer - February 1990 - 40

contract and pay

for all advertising. UA could pre¬
pare subtitled editions, at the producer's expense,
and either party could propose dubbed editions

Old-style dolly
with auto wheels
and heavily
blimped Mitchell
camera typify
production equip¬

though again at producer's cost.
Krimsky and Cochran would be respons¬
ible for paying the cost of royalties to Electrical

ment of 1933.

Research Products, Inc. for the use of sound record¬

ing patents, and the cost of prints, though UA
assigned their manufacture to the company's usual
New York lab, Deluxe.
The profit schedule

split the gross between
the producer and UA 70/30 in North America and
the British Isles until production costs were re¬
couped, after which participation became 50/50.
split for Mexico and Cuba was 60/40, with all

The

of my scenes,

although we also expect to go on
location, possibly to Florida, for our jungle stuff."
Florida was a pipe dream; Robeson's contract specif¬
ically forbade it. An estimating budget was pre¬
pared for 34 shooting days, 10 of them on location in
Haiti. Four days were allocated for New York City
locations; six nights on the backlot; and fourteen
days on the stage.
The cost of The Emperor Jones was publicly
given as $290,000 - a respectable figure commen¬
surate with a second-string Hollywood "A" picture
(John Ford's Air Mail was made at Universal in 1932
$305,000). But independent producers tradi¬
tionally inflate the published price tags of their
goods to keep appearances. The estimating budget
for The Emperor Jones was $168,605, not including the

other world territories 50/50.
United Artists would have the right to
the film to suit different territories, but the

alter
only
changes allowed in the U.S. and England were those
dictated by censor boards.
On the strength of the contract with UA the
producers obtained $152,000 from Exhibitor's Re¬
liance Corporation, a funding company entwined
with Eastern Service Studios. An additional $90,000
was available as a
contingency. Reliance held as

security the property, talent contracts and physical
production materials. Krimsky and Cochran's prof¬
its would be assigned to Reliance until the $152,000
plus interest was repaid.
A United Artists inter-office

for

producers' combined salaries of $10,000.
The biggest single budget item was the
$30,000 paid to O'Neill, followed by $18,000 for
Robeson's services over the seven weeks of photog¬
raphy (by contrast, Dudley Digges received $3,000
for two weeks' work as Mr. Smithers). Murphy
earned $7,500 as director, and de Mille, $6,000.
Ernest Haller, ASC, was chosen as director
of photography. Originally from New York, he was a
master craftsman who was freelancing at this point.
He had just finished several pictures at Paramount

including the charming King of the Jungle. It is likely
that Haller's success in properly photographing
black actors together with white actors in King of the
Jungle affected the decision to hire him for The
Emperor Jones. John Krimsky claimed that Haller's
mastery of this problem in The Emperor Jones was the
reason he was assigned to Gone With the Wind. For
his labors on Jones Haller was paid $500 a week.
Production began on May 25th, 1933. The
producers had undertaken the project without a
distribution contract, intending to finance produc¬
tion themselves. On May 23rd, following several
weeks of negotiation, United Artists agreed to dis¬
tribute the film worldwide. UA would handle the

picture for

seven years

from the date of delivery (in

the form of one original negative
for domestic use, and a second

and master print
dupe or original
negative and master for export). UA would retain
16mm

38

rights and reissue rights

American

Cinematographer

over

the life of the

memo

dated

July 17,1934 indicates that by that date Reliance had
recouped all but $6,000 of principal and interest.
The art direction for the picture was han¬
dled by the talented Dutch artist, Herman Rosse. A
noted Broadway designer of the 'twenties, he turned
to film with Universal's The King of Jazz in 1929, for
which he received the first Academy Award for art
direction. The Emperor Jones was his last American
film before Rosse returned to Europe.
His designs are practical and well-realized,
though they under-utilize his skills. Had a stylized
treatment been desired, Rosse was an ideal choice as
his concepts tended toward the fanciful. This deci¬
sion was probably Murphy's. The entire jungle

sequence is enacted literally rather than
psychologically, avoiding the kind of staging that
had made the play so gripping. The spectres that
haunt Jones during his flight are all achieved by
black velvet and double exposure. Rosse's own imag¬
ran in much more vivid directions. But an
observant eye is demonstrated by the blistering

ination

paint of the southern church and the shabby decor
of Dolly's rural cabin, decorated with fragments of
old newspapers and catalogues.
Very little location work was employed.
The chain gang sequence was filmed in a stone
quarry in suburban New Rochelle, a half-hour north
of the city. The sequence of Brutus being washed
ashore was filmed just beyond Jones Beach on Long
Island. A few ferns placed in front of the lens were
the touch to

suggest the tropics.

Krimsky maintained in later years that the
nightclub interiors had been shot at The Cotton
February 1990
American Cinematographer - February 1990

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