FEEL IT.STREAM
Alex Phillips

Alex Phillips

Camera

Biography

Alex Phillips (January 11, 1901 Renfrew, Ontario – June 14, 1977) was a Canadian-born Mexican cinematographer and the father of Alex Phillips, Jr., also a cinematographer. In his youth, his family moved to Russia, but he returned to Canada because of his dislike with the czarist government. He enlisted in the Canadian Army where he met Mary Pickford who introduced him to Hollywood since he expressed his interest in becoming an actor. He auditioned with Fox and Paramount Pictures but was unable to obtain a role. He later approached Christie Comedies where he was advised to look for more stable positions in the movie industry and started his career in cinematography and film editing. He received an opportunity when an assistant fell sick and was able to travel to France with the Canadian Official Photography. After Christie Comedies went bankrupt, he was hired by Samuel Goldwyn while he attended evening classes. He received the opportunity of working with Barnes, Edison and Meyer, and learned techniques such as graduations, tridimensional vision and the sense of potential balance. Phillips then began experimenting with lights and camera movements. He moved to Mexico in 1931 and worked with directors such as Arcady Boytler, Roberto Gavaldón, Julio Bracho and Luis Buñuel. He worked on some of the earliest Mexican movies such as the silent film Santa (1931) where his worked was considered expressionist. He worked in more than 250 movies in Mexico and 150 in the United States including La mujer del puerto (1934), Aventuras de Robinson Crusoe (1952 with Luis Buñuel), La Red (1953 with Emilio Fernández). His last film was El castillo de la pureza (1972 with Arturo Ripstein).

Known For

The Proud and the Beautiful
6.8

Life in a small Mexican village where joy and misery, hope and pain, passion and guilt, love and decay, life and death are mixed in the peasants life and two French citizens who end up stranded in there, during a typhoid epidemic.

The Proud and the Beautiful

1953
Robinson Crusoe
6.4

The titular adventurer, after defying his parents to go to sea, survives a shipwreck and becomes a castaway on a deserted island for nearly thirty years, learning to build a new life from scratch, discovering companionship with a native man he names Friday, and eventually returning to civilisation a changed man, finding wealth and new challenges.

Robinson Crusoe

1954
Sierra Baron
5.0

Director James B. Clark's western, set in 1848 California, is about a brother and sister battling a crooked businessman over property rights.

Sierra Baron

1958
Little Red Riding Hood
7.5

The classic story of the Red Riding Hood spiced up by a couple of funny characters like the dog Duke, companion to the girl in her adventures, and the stinky Skunk, henchman to the Wolf.

Little Red Riding Hood

1959
Twilight
6.0

Doctor Alejandro Mangino falls in love with Lucía just before he goes on a round-the-world trip. Pining for her all the while, he returns to find that she’s married his best friend.

Twilight

1945
The Other
6.9

A mousy, poor manicurist seeks to switch places with her more glamorous, wealthy twin sister.

The Other

1946
Geronimo
5.5

In 1883, the Apache Indians lead by Geronimo reluctantly surrender to the attacks of American and Mexican troops, in exchange for a territory and food for their warriors. Soon though, Geronimo escapes the camps and declares war against the Americans.

Geronimo

1962
Cortesana
6.2

A young woman is seduced by her cousin's husband when the couple arrives at his house during the pianist's tour.

Cortesana

1948
Up and Down
8.0

It is the story of a sportsman who is a little bit dumber than most people but nevertheless he succeeds in getting a job at a sports article saler's. Having this job is the beginning of a lot of funny problems he causes due to his dumbness.

Up and Down

1959
No image
8.0

Jim Wilson is separated from his wife Bella, so when his maiden Aunt Selina -- who thoroughly disapproves of divorce -- comes to visit, Wilson is compelled to locate a temporary wife. His friend, Kit Eclair, is happy to fill in, but during a party, his home is quarantined for smallpox. To complicate matters, a burglar is hiding from a cop in Wilson's home, and wacky Anne Brown is busy trying to hold a seance.

Seven Days

1925
The Last of the Fast Guns
5.5

A rich, dying Easterner hires gunfighter Brad Ellison to find his brother and heir in Mexico. En route, it becomes clear to Ellison that his is a dying profession. At a remote rancho, Ellison enlists ranch foreman Miles Lang to help him search the hills where the missing man is rumored to have lived. They find nothing ...except that someone wants to kill them; and Ellison becomes wrapped in a maze of double crosses.

The Last of the Fast Guns

1958
Gran Hotel
7.2

Cantinflas is a vagrant being evicted for not paying rent, after wandering gets a job at the 'Grand Hotel' through a friend, that's confused by Count Zapatini, who is undercover in the hotel, stealing a gem making this funny movie more complicated.

Gran Hotel

1944
The Wonderful Country
6.1

Having fled to Mexico from the U.S. many years ago for killing his father's murderer, Martin Brady travels to Texas to broker an arms deal for his Mexican boss, strongman Governor Cipriano Castro. Brady breaks a leg and while recuperating in Texas the gun shipment is stolen. Complicating matters further the wife of local army major Colton has designs on him, and the local Texas Ranger captain makes him a generous offer to come back to the states and join his outfit. After killing a man in self-defense, Brady slips back over the border and confronts Castro who is not only unhappy that Brady has lost his gun shipment but is about to join forces with Colton to battle the local raiding Apache Indians.

The Wonderful Country

1959
Tizoc
7.5

An Indian arouses envy for his expertise in hunting animals without ruining their skins, for his wisdom and his kindness.

Tizoc

1957
Castle of Purity
7.4

A disciplined and sexually driven man forces his family to stay isolated in their home in order to protect them from the “evil nature” of human beings.

Castle of Purity

1973
Ojos tapatios
6.3

Mexican feature film

Ojos tapatios

1938
Reportaje
7.3

Reporters compete for cash prize awarded for biggest scoop on New Year's Eve.

Reportaje

1953
Celos
3.8

Story about the rocky relationship between an engaged couple after the husband-to-be discovers a picture of his fiancée with an old boyfriend. He becomes consumed with jealousy and attempts to find out as many details as possible about her life before they met.

Celos

1936
Pepita Jiménez
5.9

On March 22, four days after returning to his home in Andalusia, Luis de Vargas writes the first of his letters to his uncle and favorite professor at the seminary. He reports that his father intends to fatten him up during his vacation, to have him ready to return in the fall to finish his training for the priesthood. He mentions in passing that his father is courting a twenty-year-old, attractive widow, Pepita Jiménez; his father is fifty-five years old. Pepita had been married for only a short time to an eighty-year-old moneylender named Gumersindo. Luis is not eager to see his father marry again, but he promises his uncle not to judge Pepita before he knows her.

Pepita Jiménez

1946
Amok
6.7

A doctor embezzles the proceeds of his Parisian clinic in order to better support the manipulative woman with whom he is having an affair. After losing all the money while gambling, he is forced to flee to an undeveloped region of India. There, he tries to mitigate the onslaught of a disease the natives term "Amok," while his past mistakes still plague him.

Amok

1944