Morris Engel

Engel was a pioneer in the use of hand-held cameras that he helped design throughout his features and in using nonprofessional actors in American films, following the example of Italian Neo-realism.

[2] After the war, he returned to New York where he again was an active Photo League member, teaching workshop classes and serving as co-chair of a project group focusing on postwar labor issues.

Engel explained, "Designed for me, it was a compact 35mm, hand held, shoulder cradled, [with] double registration pins and twin lens finder and optical system.

"With a simple shoulder belt support," Engel said, "I was armed with a camera which became the heart of the esthetic and mobile approach to the film [the Little Fugitive].

[8] In 1950, Engel tried to sell a March of Time imitation called How America Lives filmed with his new camera to distributors but found no takers.

The film told the story of a seven-year-old boy, played by Richie Andrusco, who runs away from home and spends the day at Coney Island.

[12] He made a fourth feature in 1968[2] called I Need a Ride to California, which followed a group of young hippies in Greenwich Village.

It finally received its premiere in October 2019 at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); it was first released on home video in March 2021.

First, in A Little Bit Pregnant Engel focused on the 8-year-old Leon's reactions, anxiety and wonderment to the impending birth of his baby sister Camellia.

Engel and Orkin's work occupy a pivotal position in the independent and art film scene of the 1950s, and was influential on John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, and François Truffaut,[1][10][14] and was frequently cited as an example by the influential film theorist Siegfried Kracauer.