DIAMOND CITY

Original 9 3/8 inch x 7 3/8 inch Still of DAVID MACDONALD directing a bar room scene for his 1949 Adventure DIAMOND CITY, from an original screen story by Roger Bray starring David Farrar, Honor Blackman, Diana Dors, Niall MacGinnis, Andrew Crawford, Mervyn Johns, Bill Owen, Ronald Adam and John Salew.

A diamond field is discovered in South Africa, and British entrepreneur Stafford Parker attempts to exploit it while maintaining law and order in a situation of near-anarchy.

Photo by Norman Gryspeerdt with his stamp on the reverse.

Norman Louis Gryspeerdt was born in Croydon in 1911 and was a member of Croydon Camera Club since 1926.

During the Second World War he was in charge of the photographic section on the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Implacable.
His first position after the war was with a fashion magazine, Women’s Wear News, but he soon became a stills photographer with the J. Arthur Rank Organisation. Fifteen years later he moved to Universal Pictures. His subjects, both on the film set and informally, included many household names from the cinema world, such as Sophia Loren, Julie Christie, Vanessa Redgrave, Lee Marvin, Michael Caine, Marlon Brando and Gregory Peck; he also became friendly with Karsh of Ottawa, one of the great names of photography.

He was made a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in 1980 and nine years later he was invited to become a member of the London Salon of Photography, generally regarded as the most prestigious honour in the photographic world; members of the Salon come from all over the world and are elected for life, membership being restricted to some thirty-five photographers.

The still is in very good condition with slight curling due to age.