Bruce Surtees

The son of Hollywood cinematographer Robert Surtees, Bruce Surtees himself began setting up angles and focus in the late 1960s. Surtees first gained widespread attention for his camerawork on the Clint Eastwood-Don Siegel collaborations The Beguiled (1971) and Dirty Harry (1971). When Eastwood launched his own directorial career, he took Surtees with him, and the results included such visual feasts as Play Misty For Me (1971), High Plains Drifter (1973), The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976) and Pale Rider (1985). Surtees' moody, noirish stylings, best exemplified by his Oscar-nominated black-and-white photography for Mike Nichols' Lenny, have earned him the nickname "The Prince of Darkness." Not that Bruce Surtees is confined to any one genre; the same Surtees responsible for such shadow-drenched exercises as Escape from Alcatraz and Tightrope has also contributed the vibrant colorations of such lighter fare as Movie Movie (1979), Risky Business (1982) and Back to the Death (1987).

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide