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Young Frankenstein is beloved for its graphic monochrome photography, an ode to the horror films of the 1930s and ’40s, but Hirschfeld notes that he was initially reluctant to go with that look. “It was not my decision to shoot it in black-and-white, and Mel also had to fight with the studio about that. He told them, ‘Either we do it in black-and-white or we don’t do it.’ Mel and Gene arranged for me to screen the original Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein to remind me of their look. The problem was how to re-create that look with different lenses, different film stocks and different lights than they had used in 1932. At the end of the first week of shooting, Mel and Gene told me they were not happy with the look. I said, ‘What are you talking about? You showed me Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, and that’s what I’m giving you.’ Mel said, ‘That’s not what we want. We want to satirize that look. We want it to be more than that.’ I pointed out that nobody had told me that, and Gene acknowledged that was true. I told them I would try several things that night, and the next day they could tell me which they liked best.”Specifically, Hirschfeld further exaggerated the backlight and dispensed with midtones through force processing to help create high-contrast hilarity. “At the next day’s dailies, they said, ‘This is more like it!’ Then the next sequence came up, and they liked that even better. Halfway through the picture, Mel said to me, ‘Jerry, I’m glad I didn’t fire you four weeks ago.’ I thought, ‘Mel, you’re lucky I didn’t quit,’ but I didn’t say that!”During prep, Hirschfeld worked with makeup artist William Tuttle to give the Monster (Peter Boyle) the proper “dead” look by using a green makeup that would appear pasty white in black-and-white. However, his emulsion was far more sensitive to that hue than normal flesh tones, demanding that Hirschfeld carefully control his lighting and exposure of the character. “Since all good monsters have larger-than-normal frontal lobes, ours was no exception,” Hirschfeld wrote in AC (July ’74). “In order to bring out those protuberances and throw the eyes into monstrous shadows, his key light was kept very high, often hanging from the ceiling — not too easy to do, but the look was right.”Production designer Dale Hennesy also created something monstrous with his sets for Frankenstein’s castle, especially the elaborate lab where the zany doctor brings his creature to life. Thanks to electrical-effects expert Ken Strickfaden, who had worked on the 1931 Frankenstein, the ghoulish workshop buzzed and hummed with props used on that film as well as new designs. As Hirschfeld wrote, “The climax of this electric ‘circus’ occurs when Dr. Frankenstein stands on an operating platform with the Monster’s prone body and is hoisted by his assistants … by chains through the laboratory roof into the face of a tremendous lightning storm.”Donning safety goggles, Frankenstein calls for Igor to switch on the lab machines, activating a massive electrode through which life-giving voltage will flow into the Monster. “This effect was created on the elevated castle-roof set,” wrote Hirschfeld. “The special-effects team, on cue, started throwing switches and an arc started to jump from the electrode, positioned right over the Monster, a mere 2 feet from Gene. It started growing in power and size until 500,000 volts were crackling through the air!”Young Frankenstein was a massive hit, and Hirschfeld and Brooks, friends to this day, later re-teamed on the period comedy To Be or Not To Be (1983). Wilder also brought Hirschfeld aboard to shoot the Hollywood send-up The World’s Greatest Lover (1977). “Gene had asked me a lot of questions on Young Frankenstein about lenses and camera placement, and I could tell he was preparing himself to direct,” recalls Hirschfeld. In 1976, Hirschfeld and Peerce collaborated on the thriller Two-Minute Warning, in which police detectives (Charlton Heston and John Cassavetes) track a deranged sniper who is terrorizing 90,000 football fans in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. “I wanted to photograph the point of view of the sniper as he lifts up and looks through his rifle’s scope,” says Hirschfeld. To that end, he designed an apparatus incorporating a real rifle scope that could be attached to the front of the camera and swung up into position by an assistant in the midst of a subjective shot. The clever device magnified the subject and also had crosshair markings, creating the illusion of the sniper’s view. However, given the light loss created by the placement of the scope in front of the lens and the shift in magnification, another assistant had to simultaneously pull focus and stop precisely as the rig was swung into place. “There were three people working for each of those shots,” says Hirschfeld. “The operator [Owen Marsh] was really on the spot. In the first scene we shot with it, two people on bicycles are the sniper’s targets, and they were easily a quarter-mile away from the camera position. He was supposed to put the crosshairs on one of the people’s shoulders, but on the first take they ended up on the actor’s behind instead. So we did it over.”Hirschfeld’s drive for perfection cemented his reputation not only as a top-notch cinematographer, but also as one of the toughest to work for. “I was pretty tough, that’s true,” he says today. “But it was only because I was always trying to push myself, to learn and be a better cinematographer, and I expected the same work ethic from everyone around me.” He recalls working with actor Yul Brenner on The Ultimate Warrior: “I’d heard horror stories about Yul and how hard he could be on crews, so I asked him about it. He said, ‘Yes, I am, if they don’t know how to do their jobs correctly.’ Yul and I became very good friends on that picture.”Building a strong creative relationship with his director was always a priority for Hirschfeld. “One of the first things I did during prep was ask the director, ‘What do you see regarding the look of the film?’ Sometimes they had a picture or a painting we could use as a reference. On [the 1989 TV movie] The Neon Empire, Larry Peerce said, ‘I can’t tell you the look I want, but I want it to feel hot.’ Some directors would say, ‘Why don’t you come up with something, and we’ll talk about it?’ The director’s job is mainly to get the best performance out of the actors. I enjoyed working on a picture when I wasn’t given too much information. That put the ball in my court and made me feel even more responsible to do the very best I could.”
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