Ben Carré

Finding his talent lay in painting rather than arithmetic, he took a job as an assistant scene painter at Atelier Amable, at the time one of the most important scenic art studios in Paris.

[3] After seven years as a scenic artist in Paris, Carré moved to the United States in 1912 to work for the Eclair Film Company, based in New York.

Their productions included The Wishing Ring, The Man of the Hour, The Ivory Snuffbox, and the Mary Pickford films The Pride of the Clan and The Poor Little Rich Girl.

After a disagreement, Carré left Goldwyn to work for Marshall Neilan where he was loaned to Metro Pictures in 1920 to design the Alla Nazimova film Stronger than Death.

Carré worked on a string of films for the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, starting with The Masked Bird and including La Bohème, directed by King Vidor.

His solo credits from the period include the first all-talking western, Riders of the Purple Sage, the first Charlie Chan film, The Black Camel, and F.W.

During that time he painted backgrounds for many of MGM's classic films including Marie Antoinette, An American in Paris, Meet Me in St. Louis, Julius Caesar, North by Northwest, Singing in the Rain, and The Wizard of Oz.