Prolific German cinematographer of Jewish ancestry, a soft focus specialist. In films from 1916, he was forced to leave Germany after the Nazis took power in 1933. He then worked in Britain and France, where he did his best work on
La Bête Humaine (1938) and
Le Jour Se Leve (1939). After the fall of France in 1940, he moved to Hollywood, but found little work.