That photographer - and his unforgettable images

It's rare for the cinematographer to appear alone on a credit page at the beginning of a film. But Gregg Toland was no ordinary director of photography.

This film is beautifully photographed. It was done by Toland who was famous for creating his deep focus photography, which the public saw in his Citizen Kane, filmed at RKO in 1941. The herky-jerky camera movements - common in films - are absent from TBW. Moving close-ups are smooth as silk here.

Notice Toland's characteristic low camera angles. With the camera filming scenes while tilted upward, ceilings in those lush TBW homes unexpectedly appear. That style required hiding the overhead microphone; hiding was not needed in typical open-topped movie sets. Toland's ceilings appear throughout Citizen Kane, creating scenes that appear to occur in a "real" - not a Hollywood - room.

This under-rated - almost 70-year-old - classic becomes more popular as word-of-mouth brings more viewers to one of the best Christmas movies ever made.

E pluribus unum