Mob City, name the camera

<p>In the new TV show, Mob City, a photographer catches Bugsy Siegel in the act of killing Harry Greenberg; a murder that took place in 1939. The camera she uses appears to be a 35mm rangefinder which, at least as shown on tv, advanced the film without twisting a knob. Can anyone suggest the likely candidates?</p>

<p>Possibly a Leica with a trigger winder, I believe they were first used in the 1930s.</p>

<p>Is the camera the one pictured in this article? </p>

<p>http://collider.com/alexa-davalos-mob-city-interview/</p>

<p>If so, it is a Leica, but I believe the one shown is much newer than those available in 1939.<br>

But then, would a TV show not be historically accurate? </p>

 

<p>Following Allen's link, it looks like a Leica IIIc to me. They were made from 1940 to 1951. Here is a link to the jpeg.</p>

<p><a href="http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/mob-city-alexa-davalos-simon-pegg.jpg">http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/mob-city-alexa-davalos-simon-pegg.jpg</a></p>

<p> </p>

<p>Yup, Leica III-something. You can see the knurled film winding knobs on both sides of the top plate, and I can clearly see "Wetzlar" on the front of the lens. It's clearly not an M-series. Whether this particular one is period-correct for 1939, I don't know, but I expect someone from the Leica forum could tell you.</p>

<p>The top cover of this camera goes down to the upper part of the lens mount. This is the shape of the top cover of a IIIc model, introduced in 1940 so there is a slight mismatch. At least not such a big mismatch as in "The Public Eye" where an Exakta with prism finder is used - more than one decade too early. </p>

<p>It's the post-war model Leica IIIc, or possibly a IIIf.<br />I can't see the shutter dial very well and her hand is possibly covering a self-timer lever<br /><br /><br />The camera skin definitely looks like sharkskin to me, which also matches nicely with the IIIc and IIIf cameras.</p>

<p>Yep, a 111C I reckon, at least that is close....they were trying :)</p>

<p>I'm still waiting for the Speed Graphics with fully extended bellows.</p>

 

<p>Would a TV show not be historically accurate? Yes they would - - not. When I shot still photos on TV and movie sets in the 1960s and 1970s, some prop guy would have a few shelves of cameras of various vintage and would try to supply whoever was shooting with one that looked somewhat like the cameras that were used in that era. They were not camera experts and the cameras were the dregs of what they found in thrift shops near the film studios. Of course studios hired technical experts from everything from bombs to fine art but they mostly collected their paychecks and would say "anything you want." The guys who hired the tech experts just wanted to get on with the shooting. Parachutes are a hoot. You'll see somebody jump out of an airplane in a World War II drama and the chute opens and you see a canopy that was not invented until 12 years later. They there's a shot from another angle of the canopy and now it's a square all-silk canopy from the 1930s. Then when the jumper lands his chute falls down around him and it is a different color than the one he was falling under a few minutes before. From what I can see of the Mob City shot the camera could be a Leica with a Leicavit trigger film advance on the bottom of the camera. Very fast.</p>