I didn't learn John Miehle's name until recently, but I've known many of his images for awhile (and I'm sure lots of you will recognize some of them too). He was a still photographer for a
ton of movies in the 30s and 40s, but according to his IMDb page, he was uncredited for almost
all of them! I can't figure out why this was - perhaps this has to do with the different style of crediting in older films, and it didn't become standard to mention a film's still photographer until later? Anyway, he did the stills/publicity shots for a lot of really well-known and awesome films -
Top Hat, Flying Down to Rio, Kitty Foyle, Stage Door, Swing Time, Follow the Fleet, Bachelor Mother, Vivacious Lady - and to point out a very obvious trend, was apparently attached by the hip to Ginger Rogers, career-wise! Seriously, go take a look at his IMDb page, and you'll see almost every movie Ginger did in the 30s, he was a still photographer for! Was she personally employing him? Anybody who can explain this, or who can say with certainty that it was purely coincidence or that they happened to work well together, let me know! Again the internet is pretty sparse with info on him.
Anyway, he did work on non-Ginger films - Rain, with Joan Crawford (some images from this displayed here), and Rope with Jimmy Stewart, for example. I've only included images of his that I saw were explicitly described as being his own, since I don't know if perhaps more than one still photographer was employed in the aforementioned films. Let me know if I've credited something incorrectly.
And now for his lovely images of beautiful people. Enjoy!
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| Stunning portrait. I don't normally think Joan Crawford is super beautiful, but this image is something else. |
