Harold Michelson

Birth : 1920-02-15, New York City, New York, USA

Death : 2007-03-01

Movies

Writing with the Camera
self
A short documentary made for the 2019 Criterion Collection DVD release of NOTORIOUS featuring new and archival interviews with scholars Steven D. Katz and Bill Krohn, storyboard artists Gabriel Hardman and Harold Michelson, production designer Robert F. Boyle, and others. Filmmaker Daniel Raim delves into the extensive preproduction and previsualization processes Alfred Hitchcock undertook to ensure his cinematic vision for NOTORIOUS would be realized precisely.
Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story
Himself (archive footage)
Working largely uncredited in the Hollywood system, storyboard artist Harold and film researcher Lillian left an indelible mark on classics by Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski and many more.
Something's Gonna Live
Himself
The Los Angeles Times Critics' Pick Something’s Gonna Live is an intimate portrait of life, death, friendship and the movies, as recalled by some of Hollywood's greatest cinema artists. Academy Award®-nominated director Daniel Raim (The Man on Lincoln’s Nose), captures the late life coming together of renowned art directors Robert Boyle (North by Northwest, The Birds), Henry Bumstead (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sting) and Albert Nozaki (The War of the Worlds, The Ten Commandments), storyboard illustrator Harold Michelson (The Graduate, Star Trek: The Motion Picture), and master cinematographers Haskell Wexler (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Medium Cool) and Conrad Hall (In Cold Blood, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). These prolific artists have worked on a total of 400 films, garnering 25 Academy Award® nominations and 8 wins.
The Boneyard Collection
In Memory Of
A quirky anthology, consisting of four separate short films connected by host segments. The first one, BOOGIE WITH THE UNDEAD, has an all girl rock band booked to play a gig in a town overrun by flesh-eating zombies. In the second one, THE DEVIL'S DUE AT MIDNIGHT, a coven of beautiful witches conjure up Brad Dourif as The Devil, and endures the inept attacks of witch killer Ken Foree. In the first long segment, HER MORBID DESIRES, an actress gets the lead role in a vampire movie, only to discover that starlets are being murdered on the set. The other long segment, CRY OF THE MUMMY, has the reincarnated mummy, formerly the last Pharaoh of the 4th Dynasty, looking to sue the movie studios because he can't get work as a mummy. His new lawyer offers to represent him as an agent, but the mummy will only work in film if he can direct.
Dick Tracy
Art Direction
The comic strip detective finds his life vastly complicated when Breathless Mahoney makes advances towards him while he is trying to battle Big Boy Caprice's united mob.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Art Direction
An irritable marketing executive, Neal Page, is heading home to Chicago for Thanksgiving when a number of delays force him to travel with a well meaning but overbearing shower ring curtain salesman, Del Griffith.
Spaceballs
Art Direction
When the nefarious Dark Helmet hatches a plan to snatch Princess Vespa and steal her planet's air, space-bum-for-hire Lone Starr and his clueless sidekick fly to the rescue. Along the way, they meet Yogurt, who puts Lone Starr wise to the power of "The Schwartz." Can he master it in time to save the day?
Terms of Endearment
Art Direction
Aurora, a finicky woman, is in search of true love while her daughter faces marital issues. Together, they help each other deal with problems and find reasons to live a joyful life.
WarGames
Continuity
High School student David Lightman has a talent for hacking. But while trying to hack into a computer system to play unreleased video games, he unwittingly taps into the Defense Department's war computer and initiates a confrontation of global proportions. Together with his girlfriend and a wizardly computer genius, David must race against time to outwit his opponent and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.
Mommie Dearest
Art Direction
Renowned actress Joan Crawford, at the height of her career, adopts two orphans — Christina and Christopher — to fill the lonely gap in her personal life. However, as her professional and romantic relationships sour, Joan's already callous and abusive behavior towards Christina intensifies. Christina leaves home to pursue an acting path of her own, only to find her mother's presence still overshadowing her.
History of the World: Part I
Production Design
An uproarious version of history that proves nothing is sacred – not even the Roman Empire, the French Revolution and the Spanish Inquisition.
Can't Stop the Music
Art Direction
A loose biography of seminal disco hit-makers The Village People and their composer Jacques Morali.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Production Design
When a destructive space entity is spotted approaching Earth, Admiral Kirk resumes command of the Starship Enterprise in order to intercept, examine, and hopefully stop it.
Cross of Iron
Art Direction
It is 1943, and the German army—ravaged and demoralised—is hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of the madness, conflict brews between the aristocratic yet ultimately pusillanimous Captain Stransky and the courageous Corporal Steiner. Stransky is the only man who believes that the Third Reich is still vastly superior to the Russian army. However, within his pompous persona lies a quivering coward who longs for the Iron Cross so that he can return to Berlin a hero. Steiner, on the other hand is cynical, defiantly non-conformist and more concerned with the safety of his own men rather than the horde of military decorations offered to him by his superiors.
Mame
Art Direction
Following the death of his father, an orphan is sent to live with his free-spirited aunt.
Two People
Art Direction
Evan Bonner is a deserter from the Vietnam war; he is on his way back to America to give himself up when he meets Deirdre McCluskey, a beautiful if petulant model. The two make an unlikely couple, but once in France the magic of Paris works its charm and these two vulnerable people finally find each other.
Un homme est mort
Production Design
A French hit man is hired by a crime family to end the life of a rival mobster, but things fall apart when the boss who hired him is killed.
The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
Production Illustrator
A stockbroker is stuck in a dreary job and a marriage that's become a dull routine. To cope with the boredom and frustration, he resorts to voyeurism and extramarital love affairs.
Catch-22
Art Direction
A bombardier in World War II tries desperately to escape the insanity of the war. However, sometimes insanity is the only sane way to cope with a crazy situation.
Pretty Poison
Art Direction
A young man gets in over his head when he convinces a small-town girl he's a secret agent.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Storyboard
A history professor and his wife entertain a young couple who are new to the university's faculty. As the drinks flow, secrets come to light, and the middle-aged couple unload onto their guests the full force of the bitterness, dysfunction, and animosity that defines their marriage.
Ben-Hur
Storyboard
In 25 AD,Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners. Three years later and freed by a grateful Roman galley commander whom he has rescued from drowning, he becomes an expert charioteer for Rome, all the while plotting to return to Judea, find and rescue his family, and avenge himself on his former friend. All the while, the form and work of Jesus move in the background of his life...