The World War I Past of Academy Award Winner Alexander Edouart

A winner of ten Academy Awards and for many years a recognized innovator in special movie effects, Alexander F. Edouart worked on approximately 350 films, including Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, the last one being Rosemary's Baby. His photographic work with the U.S. Signal Corps during the First World War merits our special attention.

2nd Lt. Maurice F. Graham, 50th Aero Squadron, and Pvt. Alexander F. Edouart (left), Photo Unit, 78th Division. Photographer: Pvt. A.A. Furst, U.S. Signal Corps. Location: Menans farm near Chatel-Chéhéry, Ardennes, France. Date: October 14, 1918. NARA Ref. #: 111-SC-27131. Courtesy Harry B. Kidd

Link to high res image

Top Hollywood Special Effects Technician

Edouart was for many decades one of Hollywood's top special effects technicians. Though of French descent, he was born in Northern California in 1894, the son of a portrait photographer. He joined the film industry early on, working for a subsidiary of Paramount, Realart, as an assistant cameraman from about 1915. At Paramount in the 1920s, Edouart developed a rear-projection technique which became the crowning achievement of his career. To improve this technique, Edouart developed a triple-head process projector, which improved and sharpened the background image. Remaining as head of Paramount's special effects department until his retirement in the late '60s, Edouart won Academy Awards for I Wanted Wings (1941) and Reap the Wild Wind (1942), the latter film lensed in Technicolor.

General view of Grand Pre from a distance showing some of the most hotly contested battlefields. Pvt. Alex. F. Edouart in foreground, moving picture cameraman. Location: Between Chevrières and Grand Pré, Ardennes, France. October 19, 1918. NARA Ref#: 111-SC-27138. Courtesy Harry B. Kidd

Link to high res image

Edouart's early experiences in the film business during the First World War are shrouded in ambiguity because of conflicting reports. According to some references, when the United States entered World War I, Edouart enlisted in the Signal Corps which was assigned to arrange for the pictorial coverage of the Great War. Due to a bureaucratic tangle, he was at first not sent to France but attended the Signal Corps' cinematographers course at Columbia University. It was said he was so gifted with his craft that the university administrators invited him to stay on board as an instructor after he graduated.

Capturing the Great War in France

Edouart may indeed have attented the military school of cinematography at Columbia University in 1918, but he is definitely not listed as an instructor in the official document on this photographic school. There is no reference to Edouart in the list that mentions all staff members of this school. He did go the France later on in 1918 to capture the Great War with his camera, but the reports on his photographic activities with the Signal Corps are muddled. According to a number of sources, Edouart played a major role in the U.S. Signal Corps photographic work during World War I, to such an extent that he even rose to become chief of the photo section of the 78th Division of the American Expeditionary Force.

Edouart filming in the Sahara desert, circa 1920

Again, there is some truth in these stories because Edouart was with the 78th Division of the American Expeditionary Force while serving in France. But the U.S. Signal Corps records at the National Archives do not mention a commission for him as a photographic officer with this American division. As a matter of fact, research by Harry B. Kidd clearly identifies Edouart as a private soldier attached to the 78th Division. We have his picture taken on the Western Front only a couple of weeks before the Armistice, on October 14 and 19, 1918, at Chatel-Chéhéry in the French Ardennes. His rank then was a private, definitely not a lieutenant in charge of a U.S. photographic team for an American Division. In this picture Edouart apparently is working with a still camera, but we do know that he also shot film at the close of World War I. His personal papers which are now at the Hoover Institution Archives refer to motion pictures taken by him at the end of the First World War for the American Red Cross in Normandy and Brittany. This interesting collection shows that he was promoted to Sergeant 1st Class at the close of the Great War and the documents definitely merit further research.

Filming with the American Red Cross

Shortly after World War I Edouart left the Signal Corps and became a cinematographer for the American Red Cross, filming relief work in Greece, Albania, the Balkans and the African Sahara. Details about his work with the Red Cross are sketchy but it appears that he was in Montenegro in the summer of 1919, filming refugees in the Balkans at a time when he had been commissioned into the American Red Cross as a Major. He also worked for the Red Cross together with Merl LaVoy, the famous American war photographer who had been with the French army in 1916 and had shot his film Heroic France on the battlefields of the Somme and Verdun. In 1920, LaVoy and Edouart were working together in Algeria, taking pictures for the American Red Cross; here is a link to a collection of photographs that were shot by LaVoy at this time.

Also, here is a download link to a contemporary newspaper story on the Red Cross film work shortly after World War I, which also mentions Major Edouart and Merl LaVoy.

Alexander Edouart retired from the movie industry in 1967. Despite numerous surgeries to save his sight, he became totally blind during the last years of his life and died on March 17, 1980. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

With special thanks to Harry Kidd for his research and input on this weblog