Huston, We Have a Problem: A Kaleidoscope of Filmmaking Memories

8vo, pp. 276. Original black boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Photographically illustrated dustwrapper. a fine copy in a fine dustwrapper. 16 pp. b&w illustrations. First edition, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR, AND WITH AN INSCRIPTION (PROBABLY DICTATED) TO HIS FRIEND, THE DOUBLE OSCAR-WINNING CINEMATOGRAPHER FREDDIE FRANCIS: 'To Freddie, I taught you everything you know! Ossie Morris'. Forewords by Michael Caine and Sidney Lumet. Oswald Morris [1915-2014] was one of Britain's most distinguished and versatile cinematographers. Early credits include John Huston's Moulin Rouge (1952) and Beat the Devil (1953), two of eight films he made with Huston (and both of them employing Freddie Francis as Camera Operator). He worked with Stanley Kubrick on Lolita (1962); shot Look Back in Anger (1959), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), Oliver! (1968) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974); and won the Oscar for his work on Fiddler on the Roof (1971) -- most of which he shot through hosiery stretched across the lens to give the film its required earthen tones. Early in his career Freddie Francis [1917-2007] had worked as Camera Operator on Powell and Pressburger's The Small Back Room (1949) and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951). Morris and Francis had met in 1936 working on quota quickies at Pinewood, and by the 1950s they were working together as Cinematographer and Camera Operator. Morris said of Francis: 'He was a wonderful operator, very experienced. [.] Our characters worked wonderfully well. Our interests were the same, we loved ribbing each other and there was great banter between us.' Their friendship lasted more than seventy years. Huston, We Have a Problem was published in 2006, when Morris was ninety-one. The signature is in a very shaky hand; the inscription uses a different ink and is much more assuredly written, and was almost certainly added by someone else in accordance with Morris's instructions, before being presented to his friend.…