What a thrilling Part One of Jack Cardiff – I am as always in awe of your story telling and the subject matter of your stories. Real life intensifies the depth of joy springing from what you share. Then to read the comment by George Stevens Jr. – wow – I was thrilled again by the happiness of amazing people catching your gifts and autographing them. How nice and how exciting! I was deeply touched to review the acting of Ingrid Bergman and to remember this film too. And there is now Part II.

Thank you John.

In 1958 I was working with my father as associate producer on “The Diary of Anne Frank” which we were shooting at 20th Century Fox in Beverly Hills. On a large stage on the Fox lot we had built a three-story set of the spice factory where the Frank family hid from the Gestapo on the top floor, as well as a duplicate of the top floor at ground level (constructed on springs so it could shake in bombing sequences.) After several months shooting my father was far behind schedule and after a meeting with the studio he agreed that for the first time in his career he would put the location shooting in Amsterdam in the hands of another director. I was 26 at the time, and though I had directed episodes of “Peter Gunn” and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” I was totally surprised when my father said to me that he wanted me to direct the location scenes. I had such respect – perhaps awe is a fair word – for his command of motion picture storytelling which went back to his days as camera assistant to the great Floyd Jackman on location in Utah for the serial, “Rex the King of Wild Horses,” that I had serious doubts as to whether I could rise to his standard on this film that meant so much to both of us.

Of course I agreed to do it, but I insisted that I must have a really fine cameraman. I joked, “Someone like Jack Cardiff.” It turned out to be no joke and three weeks later I arrived in Amsterdam and had drinks at the hotel with one of the most charming and fun loving men I ever met. Jack and I planned the location shooting and suddenly I was filled with confidence. He seemed to love the challenge of making Amsterdam look the way it did when occupied by the Germans. He befriended me, we visited art galleries, and he offered deference to me as the director despite the difference in age and experience.

The night before we began shooting, Jack – who though extremely hardworking, was a bit of a bon vivant – said that we must have a fine dinner for good luck. Jack and I and his wife and a beautiful friend of hers (that’s another story) went to the nicest restaurant in Amsterdam. We dined in good cheer with Jack exercising his wine connoisseur’s touch, and by the second bottle of fine Bordeaux I was beginning to feel just fine about the job that began the next day with the cinematographer of “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” at my side. At that point Jack asked the waiter to replenish our glasses and raised his own. “Let’s drink to the good work ahead of us,” he said. “And, George, I think you should know, I’ve never shot a frame in black and white.”

Jack had come up through the ranks at Technicolor and never had reason to shoot in black and white. And he had not been a popular choice for this assignment with the bureaucracy in the 20th Century Fox camera department who had wanted to assign one of their own. The first batch of film we sent off to the studio for processing was from a scene shot at night with German soldiers on the streets of Amsterdam. Jack was bold and didn’t want it flooded with light. Two days later he came to me holding a terse telegram from Sol Halperin, the head of the Fox Camera department. It said simply, “Cardiff’s footage printing on light one.”

An hour later came a telegram from George Stevens. “Just screened your first days shooting. Masterful. Keep at it.”