TEUTONIC TALENT 

Cinematographer Erwin Hillier BSC shaped British cinema with inventive, poetic imagery, from A Canterbury Tale to The Dam Busters, blending artistry and technical mastery across decades of filmmaking. 

1911 – 2005  

BSC Founding Member  

Born in Berlin to English and German parents, Erwin Hillier BSC briefly studied at art school before joining Germany’s renowned UFA Studios. Impressed by his paintings, director F.W. Murnau invited him to be an assistant on Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931 ph. Floyd Crosby) – however, Hillier’s father forbade him from working with Murnau after discovering that the director was homosexual. Murnau then introduced Hillier to Fritz Lang, who employed him as assistant cameraman on the classic tale of a child murderer, M (1931), photographed by Fritz Arno Wagner.  

After moving to Britain, he quickly found work as a camera assistant at Gaumont-British and became camera operator on Walter Forde’s Jack Ahoy! (1934), photographed by Bernard Knowles. His next film, The Man Behind the Mask (1935), brought him to the attention of the film’s director, Michael Powell. ‘Ernest Palmer photographed the film,’ recalled Powell, ‘but operating the camera and influencing every angle and every lighting effect was an almost insanely enthusiastic young man called Erwin Hillier.’  

Hillier was camera operator on Powell’s popular thriller The Spy in Black (1939), then, with the outbreak of war, photographed several documentaries for the Ministry of Information, which in turn led to his first feature film as cinematographer on comedy thriller The Lady from Lisbon (1942), directed by Leslie Hiscott.  

He later photographed Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s A Canterbury Tale (1944), praised by critic Richard Winnington for its ‘pastoral progression’ and ‘first-rate and refreshing photographic compositions of the Kentish landscape’. Hillier then shot one of Powell and Pressburger’s most exquisite movies, I Know Where I’m Going (1945). Powell described Hillier’s photography on the film as ‘inventive, poetic and mysterious’, but their association ended when Powell chose Jack Cardiff for A Matter of Life and Death (1946). Instead, Hillier worked on another Technicolor project, the disastrous London Town (1946), directed by Wesley Ruggles. The film’s pastel photography was one of the few elements to win praise.  

Hillier’s most distinguished work was in black-and-white. Roy Ward Baker’s The October Man (1946), a moody, psychological thriller, benefitted greatly from his superlative use of light and shade. In contrast, his colour photography for the musical Where’s Charley? (1952), directed by David Butler, was appropriately bright and sunny for this light-hearted Oxford-set romp. Alas, the film is little known today because of copyright restrictions.  

The lively farce Will Any Gentleman…? (1953) began a long association between Hillier and the director Michael Anderson, their biggest success being The Dam Busters (1954). Hillier’s last credit was for The Valley of Gwangi (1969), a Ray Harryhausen puppet-monster thriller directed by James O’Connolly.  

OTHER CREDITS: Private Angelo, Shadow of the Eagle, The Woman’s Angle, The House of the Arrow, Duel in the Jungle, Chase a Crooked Shadow, Now and Forever, The Naked Edge, The Pot Carriers, Operation Crossbow, Sands of the Kalahari, The Quiller Memorandum, Sammy Going South, The Shoes of the Fisherman  

SELECTED AWARDS: BAFTA Nomination: Sammy Going South (1963 dir. Alexander Mackendrick)