Frank B. Good — Little Close-Ups of the A. S. C. (1922) 🇺🇸
Frank B. Good, A. S. C, is another wild west shooter who has trained his lenses on the festive gunman, the cowpuncher, the Indian, the stage driver, the cattle rustler, the road agent, the gambler, miner, cow girl and two gun hero until he can make a western with his eyes shut.
Mr. Good can shoot anything in the way of a scene as well as any other cinematographer that ever cranked a camera, but he has specialized in westerns and, with a sure fire star like Tom Mix to photograph, whose pictures have a world-wide circulation and go year in and year out, he has naturally become identified with the western picture.
Among others Mr. Good made with Mix “The Cyclone,” “Desert Love,” “The Terror,” “Three Gold Coins,” “The Untamed,” etc.
With Buck Jones he filmed “The Big Punch,” “Get Your Man,” “The One Man Trail.”
In shooting these westerns the cameraman is often called upon to place himself in a dangerous position in order to get a certain effect and Mr. Good tells of a situation in which he was placed where his life depended upon the perfect timing of a leap by Mix from one engine to another. Good had to shoot straight down between parallel railroad tracks so close together that he could not spread his tripod and had to remove his camera head and set it on a post.
Mix had to make his leap close to the camera and it had to be perfectly done. A miscalculation meant a collision with Good and the post with the attendant danger of being thrown under the wheels. When the shot was made Mix cleared all right, but Good was in such close quarters that the engines grazed his shirt sleeves as he cranked.
But Mr. Good will tell you that these little things are all in the day’s work. They show, however, that a cameraman must be like the Roman sentry at Pompeii. Once set to his duty he is there to do it regardless of danger or what may happen. He must get the scene if it costs him his hide.
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Collection: American Cinematographer, February 1922
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