Richard E. Cunha

American cinematographer

Richard E. Cunha
Born	Richard Earl Cunha March 4. 1922 Honolulu, Hawaii
Died	September 18, 2005 (aged 83) Oceanside, California
Occupation(s)	Cinematographer, director, writer
Family	Father Albert "Sonny" Cunha (songwriter)

Richard Earl Cunha (March 4, 1922 – September 18, 2005) was an American cinematographer and film director.^[1] Cunha's father was Albert "Sonny" Cunha, an American songwriter.

Career

During World War II, Cunha served as an aerial photographer for the military, and then was transferred to Hal Roach Studios in Los Angeles, where he made military training films, newsreels and documentaries.^[2]

After the war, Cunha worked as a TV photographer, eventually working his way to up director of photography for the TV shows Death Valley Days and Branded.

Cunha wrote and directed only a handful of films, with his four best-known ones all being low-budget, sci fi-horror B-movies released in 1958 by Astor Pictures -- Giant from the Unknown, She Demons, Missile to the Moon, and Frankenstein's Daughter.^[3]

In an interview with The Astounding B Monster Archive, Cunha said his low-budget films had "budgets [that] were under $80,000, and we tried very hard to bring them in for approximately $65,000 or less," that the "shooting schedules were always six days," and "you don't run over on these low-budget films - you shoot the opening scenes and the end scenes, and then fill in the picture in between."^[4]

Selected filmography

As cinematographer

Red Rock Outlaw 1950
Death Valley Days (TV) 1952
Giant from the Unknown 1958
Bloodlust! 1961
The Silent Witness 1964
Le Proscrit (TV) 1965

As director

She Demons with Irish McCalla, Ted Griffin, Victor Sen Yung, Rudolph Anders. 1958
Giant from the Unknown with Ed Kemmer, Sally Fraser, Buddy Baer 1958
Missile to the Moon with Richard Travis, Cathy Downs, K.T. Stevens, Tommy Cook. 1958
Frankenstein's Daughter with John Ashley, Sandra Knight, Donald Murphy, Sally Todd, Harold Lloyd. 1958
Girl in Room 13. 1960
Dog Eat Dog. 1964

As writer

She Demons. 1958
Girl in Room 13. 1960

References

^ Schallert, Edwin (Oct 8, 1957). "Teen-age Idol Feature Planned for Collins; Irish McCalla in Deal". LA Times. Retrieved 7 September 2013.
^ "BUILT CULT FOLLOWING WITH '50S SCI-FI FILMS". Miami Herald. October 5, 2005. Retrieved 7 September 2013.
^ Weaver, Tom (1999). Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Heroes. McFarland. pp. 105–118. ISBN 0786407557.
^ Weaver, Tom. "Cunha's Canon - She Demons, giants and bargain basement thrills". The Astounding B Monster Archive. The Astounding B Monster. Retrieved 2022-09-07.