Walter Lassally

Birth : 1926-12-18, Berlin, Germany

Death : 2017-10-23

History

Walter Lassally was a German-born British cinematographer. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 1965 for the film Zorba the Greek.

Movies

After Before
Self
A documentary that takes a look at the production of BEFORE MIDNIGHT. As the film starts, Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke are sitting around as filming has just completed. From here we get some terrific stories as they talk about the characters as well as what they bring and take from them. We also get footage from the filming of the movie where we get to see how the actors and director work together to try and build up the scenes.
Before Midnight
Patrick
It has been nine years since we last met Jesse and Celine, the French-American couple who once met on a train in Vienna. Now, live in Paris with twin daughters, but have spent a summer in Greece on the invitation of an author colleague of Jesse's. When the vacation is over and Jesse must send his teenage son off to the States, he begins to question his life decisions, and his relationship with Celine is at risk.
Small Is Beautiful: The Story of the Free Cinema Films Told by Their Makers
Self
Silent Film
Director of Photography
Being brought up by deaf parents did not hinder director Malcolm Venville. Instead, it opened his eyes to a whole new world of vivid images. Silent Film is an 11-minute film documenting his parents' romance.
The Little Dolphins
Director of Photography
Set in the period between the two world wars in a seaside village in the bay of Amvrakikos. Two children, Petros (8 years old) and Anthoula (7 years old) spend their summer holidays. During a walk they discover in an isolated shack a boy who lives with his mother. He is rejected by the community because of tuberculosis. Petros and Anthoula become friends with the boy. They encounter the cruelty of the adults and they decide to resist.
The Man Upstairs
Director of Photography
Hepburn plays an elderly woman whose house becomes a hideaway for an escaped convict (O'Neal), and the pair strike up an unlikely friendship.
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Director of Photography
A small-town eccentric opens a café in her decaying home.
Die Erbschaft
Director of Photography
The Deceivers
Director of Photography
India, 1825: the country lives in mortal fear of cult members known as the “Deceivers." They commit robbery and ritualistic murder. Appalled by their activities, an English military man, Captain William Savage, conceives a hazardous plot to stop them. In disguise, he plans to himself become a “Deceiver” and infiltrate their numbers. Ever present in Savage’s adventures is a sense of dread; he is in constant fear of betrayal and vengeance and also undergoes a disturbing psychological transformation as he experiences the cult’s blood lust firsthand.
The Perfect Murder
Director of Photography
Police Inspector Ghote lives a middle-class life in Bombay along with his wife, Pratima. He has been employed with the Bombay Police for many years. He is assigned to investigate the deadly assault on a Parsi man named Perfect, who is the Secretary of Lala Heera Lal, a wealthy man with underworld links. Inspector Ghote commences his investigation and is displeased when his superiors ask him to work with a Swedish Forensic Expert by the name of Axel Svennson.
Indian Summer
Director of Photography
Married film director has affair with leading lady.
Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry
Director of Photography
A rich widow shocks her snobbish WASP family when she decides to marry her Jewish, divorced, doctor. His family is equally shocked.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Director of Photography
Adventurous Huck Finn prefers rafting on the Mississippi River rather than being a part of civilization.
Stone Pillow
Director of Photography
A homeless woman named Florabelle becomes the unwitting guide to the streets for a New York social worker named Carrie who thinks she has lessons to offer the down-and-out clients she serves at the homeless shelter. Soon, however, Carrie realizes that she's the one who has much to learn.
Children in the Crossfire
Director of Photography
For the children of Northern Ireland, violence and hatred are a way of life passed from one generation to the next. In "Children in the Crossfire" four children from both sides of the conflict come to America through a special project, and discover each other away from the ravages of their homeland.
The Bengal Lancers!
Director of Photography
30 minutes of footage left after the finances collapsed.
The Bostonians
Director of Photography
A bored lawyer and a suffragette vie for the attention of a faith healer's charismatic daughter.
Private School
Director of Photography
Private-school student Christine loves Jim. But her classmate, Jordan, is also vying for Jim's attention and trying to end his relationship with Christine. Meanwhile, Jim's friend Bubba embarks on a series of sexual escapades, including dressing up as a woman to access the girls' locker room. Despite Jim and Christine's efforts to spend some time alone, various shenanigans and schemes interfere.
Heat and Dust
Director of Photography
Anne is investigating the life of her grand-aunt Olivia, whose destiny has always been shrouded with scandal. As Anne delves into the history of her grand-aunt, she is led to reconsider her own life.
The Mysterious Stranger
Director of Photography
The film version of the same-titled book by Mark Twain. A young printer's apprentice imagines himself back in the days of Guttenberg, helping him to print the Bible. The next thing he knows he has conjured up a young spirit from the future who casts spells over striking printers and causes general mischief.
Tuxedo Warrior
Director of Photography
A jaded soldier-of-fortune who runs a bar in Zimbabwe aids a bank-robbing couple in their attempt to evade the authorities.
Memoirs of a Survivor
Director of Photography
Based on the acclaimed novel by Doris Lessing, this dystopian science fiction tale concerns a woman struggling to make her way in a post-apocalyptic society. D (Julie Christie) is living in a city that's at the point of collapse following a catastrophic nuclear war; lawlessness and violence rule the day, and gangs of brutal youth roam the streets. With the help of her teenage companion Emily (Leonie Mellinger), D tries to make her way, and in order to cope, she often escapes into a fantasy world in which she lives in genteel Victorian surroundings in the 19th century.
Angels of Iron
Director of Photography
The subject of this historical drama is a splintering Berlin in the years of 1948 and 1949. Played against the backdrop of social upheaval, the characters in the drama come to epitomize the best and worst of each pole of the political sphere. A 17-year-old hoodlum by the name of Gladow works hand-in-glove with a local white-collar criminal to rob and pillage every day and night, defying capture. While he and his gang of thugs are terrorizing the people of Berlin, the Soviets are trying to make the blockade of their region of control impermeable. The future casts long shadows over the drama, as Berlin's problems take the shape of times to come.
The Private History of a Campaign That Failed
Director of Photography
Mark Twain tale of cowardly Confederate soldiers.
The Pilot
Director of Photography
Mike Hagan is a pilot in passenger service and candidate for the honor "Best Pilot of the Year". Nobody knows that he's got private sorrows - he's an alcoholic. A stewardess notices his regular visits of the toilet and reports it.
The Blood of Hussain
Director of Photography
A dramatic depiction of the life of Hussain, with allegorical references to the history of the Prophet Muhammad and his descendants. It is prophesied that Young Hussain will one day lead the impoverished masses to a better life. It is his brother, Hasan, however who gains in prominence and when the government is overthrown in a military coup, he tries to adapt. Hussain in the meanwhile gets married and leads a small band of rebels in an attempt to fight the military dictatorship.
Gauguin the Savage
Director of Photography
Based on the turbulent life of the temperamental French painter, Paul Gauguin, and his compulsive search for creative freedom which caused him to abandon his wife and five children in Paris for a life of contentment in Tahiti.
Der Preis fürs Überleben
Director of Photography
German director Hans Noever shot this crime drama in the U.S. in English, an unusual achievement at this time. The setting is Jefferson City, Missouri, and Joseph Randolph (Martin West), a VIP in a fictional electronics company, has just gotten the sack. The company bigwigs insist it is simply because of downsizing, but Randolph is not buying it. Enraged, he gets a handgun (this is the U.S.) and shoots five managers to death. Then he turns himself in and is eventually put in a psychiatric hospital by the police. His family suffers a series of tragedies that leave only his daughter to wonder about why her father was committed to an institution. She joins with a visiting reporter from Chicago and another interested man, and all three start digging deeper into the company's history.
Something Short of Paradise
Director of Photography
A young couple in New York are having problems with their relationship.
Too Far to Go
Director of Photography
Love and passion, anger and heartbreak, laughter and happiness, all complex textures woven into the fabric so many have come to know as marriage. For behind the seemingly comfortable well-trimmed hedges of suburban Americana, live and often love, Richard and Joan Maple. Adapted from a series of stories appearing in the New Yorker Magazine over a period of twenty three years by Pulitzer Prize winning author John Updike ("The Witches of Eastwick", "Rabbit Run"), "Too Far To Go" garnered overwhelming critical praise in its theatrical debut. With its exceptional cast, this film envelops us in a poignant, sometimes funny, sometimes exasperating journey through this most important relationship.
The Woman Across the Way
Director of Photography
A middle-aged man's doubts about himself transform themselves into paranoia about his younger wife's behavior in this psychological thriller. The husband plants listening devices around their apartment and eventually drives the heretofore innocent woman into the arms of one of his co-workers.
The Great Bank Hoax
Director of Photography
When the prominent citizens of a small town discover that the officers of the local bank have been embezzling money from it, they decide to rob the bank themselves.
Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures
Director of Photography
This lighthearted romp through Royal India presents a world of Maharajas, palaces, imperiled art objects, and the foreign collectors who will stop at nothing to possess them. Peggy Ashcroft and Larry Pine star as two rapacious art collectors who come to the decaying Art Deco palace of a young Maharaja (Victor Banerjee) to examine a legendary collection of Indian miniature paintings. While vying with each other to get the pictures away from the royal couple—nicknamed Georgie and Bonnie as children by their Scottish governess—they must also divine the true motives of the Indian curator of the collection (Saeed Jaffrey), who, in league with the Maharaja’s beautiful sister (Aparna Sen), may be working against them. Amidst the backdrop of lavish tourist entertainments, Christmas parties, fireworks, and even an English ghost, a desperate game of palace intrigue will determine the ultimate resting place of the priceless paintings.
How the Myth Was Made: A Study of Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran
Self
American documentary film-maker George C. Stoney visits the Aran Islands to try and unravel some of the myths surrounding a film that had engrossed him as a youngster - Robert Flaherty's famous documentary "Man of Aran" released in 1934.
The Clown
Director of Photography
Based on the best-selling novel by Nobel-laureate Heinrich Böll, this drama is a passionate indictment of Catholicism. Hans Schnier (Helmut Griem) has earned his living as a clown, though he is in fact a very covert sort of social critic. After enduring a difficult childhood in Bonn during the Second World War, including his mother's fanatic Nazism, he is appalled to discover many of the people he knows and loves swept deeply into involvement in the Catholic Church.
Attempted Flight
Director of Photography
The twelve year old Ivo has been living in Vienna with his family for three years. His father and brothers work at construction sites. Their Austrian neighbors despise the Yugoslav guest workers. Because the mother has to look after the sick grandmother at home in Croatia, Ivo runs the male household in Vienna alone. Solitude and insults from the locals make the child unhappy. And so Ivo decides on a rainy winter's day to return to his home village on his own.
Autobiography of a Princess
Director of Photography
On the birthday of her late father, a deposed Maharaja, a displaced Indian princess living in London and his former private secretary watch home movies and reminisce about royal India.
The Wild Party
Director of Photography
An aging silent movie comic star throws a lavish party to try and save his failing career.
Wsp
Camera Operator
A BAFTA award nominated documentary demonstrating how the particular characteristics of friction are used on a new braking system to give greater control and greater safety when driving.
Visions of Eight
Director of Photography
Eight acclaimed filmmakers bring their unique and differing perspectives to the 1972 Summer Olympic Games held in Munich. The segments include Lelouch's take on Olympic losers and their struggle to remain dignified even in the face of bitter disappointment and defeat; Zetterling's dramatic exploration of the world of weightlifting; and Pfleghar's piece on young Russian gymnast Ludmilla Tourischev's majestic performance on the uneven bars.
Malachi's Cove
Director of Photography
A tough young girl lives with her aging grandfather near a cove on the coast of Cornwall. She supports herself and him by gathering seaweed to sell as fertilizer. A cocky young neighboring boy decides to help her with the work.
Happy Mother's Day, Love George
Director of Photography
An adopted teen who runs away to what he believes to be his birth town and mother, in the hopes of putting together the missing pieces of his sense of identity. He arrives during a wave of disappearances and murders, only to encounter New England aloofness and some very eccentric relatives.
Right To Work March
Young Socialists from Glasgow, Liverpool and Swansea march to London and discuss their economic struggles en route. Supporting them are Ken Loach, Corin Redgrave, Arnold Wesker and other leading cultural figures of the left of British politics. The march is intercut with scenes dramatising parallel injustices in the English Civil War era and earlier - featuring Frances de la Tour in queenly mode as Elizabeth I. The film's unconventional structure also features frequent extracts of the rousing pop concert, with the band Slade, which culminated the epic march.
To Kill A Clown
Director of Photography
A young hippie couple rent a secluded cabin on the beach in an attempt to re-connect with each other and save their marriage. Unfortunately, the man they rented the cabin from is a military-brat sociopath with two dogs more vicious than his temper.
Savages
Director of Photography
A tribe of primitive "mudpeople" encounter a croquet ball, rolling through their forest. Following it, they find themselves on a vast, deserted Long Island estate. Entering, they begin to become civilized and assume the stereotypical roles and dress of people at a weekend party. There follows an allegory of upper-class behavior. At last, they begin to devolve toward their original status, and after a battle at croquet, they disappear into the woods.
Adventures of a Brown Man in Search of Civilization
Director of Photography
Something For Everyone
Director of Photography
An opportunistic young man working as a servant to a European countess uses his sexual talents to better his station in life.
Twinky
Director of Photography
A middle aged writer of pornographic novels meets and falls in love with a sixteen year old school girl. This alone is cause for concern but when the couple get married and move to America, the trouble (and fun) really begins.
The Adding Machine
Director of Photography
An accountant whose job is about to be taken over by a computer starts to re-examine his life and his priorities.
Three Into Two Won't Go
Director of Photography
Steve Howard, a British sales executive living in Manchester, England, begins an affair with a young hitchhiker, Elle Patterson, to emotionally get away from his marriage to his wife Francis. But when Elle moves into a room in Steve and Francis's house, he must keep the true nature of his relationship with Elle under wraps at all costs.
Joanna
Director of Photography
When 17 year old Joanna comes to Swinging London, she meets a host of colourful characters, discovers the pleasures of casual sex and falls in love. That's when things get complicated.
Oedipus the King
Director of Photography
This classic Greek tale tells how a noble youth accidentally marries his own mother, kills his own father and ends up paying a terrible price for invoking the wrath of the Gods.
Assignment Skybolt
Director of Photography
An American secret service agent goes to Greece to investigate a stolen hydrogen bomb. It's connected to an antique coin that belonged to his brother...another agent. Now he's tasked with taking his brother out!
The Day the Fish Came Out
Director of Photography
A plane carrying a weapon more dangerous than a nuclear weapon goes down near Greece. To prevent panic, the officials go in dressed as tourists (who are dressed so casually that the pilots assume that they are all gay). The pilots are not to make themselves known and can't contact the rescue team. The secrecy causes a comedy of errors including the desolate Greek Isle deciding that since tourists have now arrived, they have to become touristy.
Open Letter
Director of Photography
Thirty-year-old lower middle class Dimitris, faint-hearted and not particularly ambitious, is ready to jump at the opportunity that will get him handsomely provided. He wavers between yesterday, the German occupation nightmare and his love debut with a neighbour and contemporary, fluid reality. He meets Thaleia, a rich woman his age, who frequents the same night club as him, but his daily routine is invariably the same. The closure of the small industry in Drapetsona, where he used to work for the last 8 years, and his relationship with Maria confront him with a different reality. Maria is a progressive, evening school teacher, full of dreams.
In the Labyrinth
Director of Photography
"Labyrinth" is a groundbreaking multi-screen 45-minute presentation produced for Chamber III of the Labyrinth at Expo 67 in Montreal, using 35 mm and 70 mm film projected simultaneously on multiple screens. A film without commentary in which multiple images, sometimes complementary, sometimes contrasting, draw the viewer through the different stages of a labyrinth. The tone of the film moves from great joy to wrenching sorrow; from stark simplicity to ceremonial pomp. It is life as it is lived by the people of the world, each one, as the film suggests, in a personal labyrinth. Re-released in 1979 as "In the Labyrinth" by the National Film Board of Canada in a 21-minute single projection format.
Zorba the Greek
Director of Photography
An uptight English writer traveling to Crete on a matter of business finds his life changed forever when he meets the gregarious Alexis Zorba.
Psyche 59
Director of Photography
An industrialist's wife tries to remember the shocking sight that made her blind.
The Peaches
Director of Photography
A film fantasy concerning the adventures of a modern girl whose passion for peaches is eventu­ally replaced by a very different type of passion.
Tom Jones
Director of Photography
Tom loves Sophie and Sophie loves Tom. But Tom and Sophie are of differering classes. Can they find a way through the mayhem to be true to love?
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
Director of Photography
A rebellious youth sentenced to a reformatory for robbing a bakery rises through the ranks of the institution through his prowess as a long distance runner. During his solitary runs, reveries of his life and times before his incarceration lead him to re-evaluate his privileged status as a prized athlete.
Electra
Director of Photography
Living in exile after the death of their father, the grown children of a murdered and usurped king converge to exact eye-for-an-eye revenge.
Lisa and the Other Woman
Director of Photography
A rich girl leaves her family to avoid marrying the person her father has chosen for her. Her father offers a reward in order to find her and an other girl that looks exactly like her is brought to him.
A Taste of Honey
Director of Photography
A working class girl struggles to create a life for herself with her gay co-worker after becoming pregnant from a one-night stand with a black sailor.
Let My People Go
Camera Operator
A BAFTA award winning documentary looking at apartheid in South Africa and the Sharpville massacre.
Alice in the Navy
Director of Photography
Aliki is in love with someone who serves his duty in the greek navy. Wanting to see him, she disguises as a navy soldier and gets aboard her lover's ship. Things get more complicated when she comes accross the ship's captain; her father!
Madalena
Director of Photography
Madalena is a tough seventeen-year-old who is forced to take on her father's ferry business after he dies. She has her many brothers and sisters to support, and there is no one else to do the job. So she rallies her defenses and sets out to give her rival in the ferry business a run for his money. But at the same time, the rival's handsome son is starting to look better and better. Madalena refuses to acknowledge her feelings for him -- though how long she can sustain that denial is the question.
Beat Girl
Director of Photography
When her architect father brings home a much younger new wife, rebellious and resentful teen Jenny goes to extreme lengths to sabotage their relationship.
Our Last Spring
Director of Photography
The lives of two male Greek teens and the young daughter of the British Ambassador in Greece are turned upside down when the best friend of a teenage gang leader dies. Meanwhile, a love triangle is developed between the three characters.
The Day Shall Dawn
Director of Photography
A look at the daily lives of fishermen in East Bengal.
We Are the Lambeth Boys
Director of Photography
Seminal piece of documentary filmmaking by New Wave director Karel Reisz following the daily activities of members of the Lambeth Youth club in late-1950s London.
Refuge England
Director of Photography
Short drama-documentary showing the first day in England of a Hungarian refugee.
Alone with the Monsters
Director of Photography
An old woman apparently tormented by people in the street comforts herself in her room with memories of her youth.
A Matter of Dignity
Director of Photography
A daughter discovers her wealthy family is actually on the verge of bankruptcy and decides to charm a millionaire for his money in marriage. Soon she is torn between living a lie and keeping up appearances.
Every Day Except Christmas
Director of Photography
Every Day Except Christmas is a 37-minute documentary film filmed in 1957 at the Covent Garden fruit, vegetable and flower market, then located in the Covent Garden area of East central London. It was directed by Lindsay Anderson and produced by Karel Reisz and Leon Clore under the sponsorship of Ford of Britain, the first of the company's "Look At Britain" series.
A Girl in Black
Director of Photography
Against the backdrop of a cloudless summer, love's unforeseen complications will entwine an Athenian writer, a morosely beautiful daughter, and a scorned local suitor. And then, calamity strikes. Can love redeem the sad girl in black?
Together
Additional Photography
The workaday boredom and crushing hardships of London's East End in the 1950s, seen from the point of view of two deaf-mutes who share a strong bond of friendship.
Momma Don't Allow
Director of Photography
A night at the Wood Green Jazz Club - an example of 'Free Cinema'.
Foot and Mouth
Director of Photography
Two farming brothers take a chance on a sick cow and send cattle that have been in contact with it to market.
Henry
Director of Photography
Promotional film for the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children).
The Passing Stranger
Director of Photography
The British Passing Stranger stars Hollywood actor Lee Patterson as a deserting American GI. He drifts about until he falls in with a gang of gunrunners. He wants to quit, but can't until he makes enough money to support himself and his love Diane Cilento. Just before this is possible, Cilento's ex-boyfriend blows the whistle on the crooks. Just long enough not to wear out its welcome, The Passing Stranger is a passing good little film noir.
Bow Bells
Director of Photography
A montage of scenes from East End life set to a soundtrack of music hall songs with appropriate lyrics.
Thursday's Children
Director of Photography
Won the Academy Award for the Best Documentary Short of 1954. The subject deals with the children at The Royal School for the Deaf in Margate, Kent. The hearing-handicapped children are shown painstakingly learning what words are through exercises and games, practicing lip-reading and finally speech. Richard Burton's calm and sometimes-poetic narration adds to the heartwarming cheerfulness and courage of the children.
Simon
Director of Photography
Story of Simon, the odd boy out and how he is thwarted in his attempts to be one of "the gang".
Another Sky
Director of Photography
After a puritan youth, a young English woman discovers her sensuality in North-Africa.
The Pleasure Garden
Director of Photography
People quietly or campily pass the time in an overgrown garden full of statues, while a puritanical, funereal gentleman posts bills prohibiting all leisure activities.
Power Signal Lineman
Director of Photography
Part of BFI collection "London on the Move."
Sunday by the Sea
Director of Photography
London families spend a day at Southend-on-Sea.
Wakefield Express
Director of Photography
Documentary about the production of a small town weekly newspaper from reporting to printing.
Three Installations
Director of Photography
Early Lindsay Anderson industrial film promoting Sutcliffe's conveyors. Three different uses of Sutcliffe's conveyor installations.
Every Five Minutes
Director of Photography
Four examples of the kind of carelessness that leads to fires in this country frequently.
Night and the City
Focus Puller
Londoner Harry Fabian is a second-rate con man looking for an angle. After years of putting up with Harry's schemes, his girlfriend, Mary, becomes fed up when he taps her for yet another loan.
Can Horses Sing?
Cinematography
Elizabeth Sussex's exquisite documentary about a rural Scottish school, edited by Gladwell.
Bilocation
Director of Photography
"Professor Marian died under mysterious circumstances."