Bob Willoughby’s film-set photography is, quite simply, its own form of cinema. He was among the first photographers of his kind to use a mechanical arm to bring his camera close to his subjects, and he also blimped it, so that his shooting produced no sonic disturbance. Directors he shadowed became, in turn, his characters: Otto Preminger rabidly gesticulating to Frank Sinatra on the set of The Man with the Golden Arm; Roman Polanski on the set of Rosemary’s Baby showing Mia Farrow, with prissy fastidiousness, just how to be Rosemary; Hitchcock on the set of Marnie looking as if he’s about to slap an oddly feminine-looking Sean Connery.

The main intrigue (and, indeed, shock) of Willoughby’s world is, of course, that it ever existed. No longer does Hollywood go to such great lengths to refashion reality materially (it is no coincidence that, of all the studios, Willoughby was closest to MGM). No longer does it foster the kind of café society portrayed here, which merges so well with the movies to which it is tied that Willoughby can barely distinguish between the two. One shot shows Elizabeth Taylor and Marlene Dietrich on the set of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the former fully immersed in Martha, the latter fully immersed in her visiting-dignitary mode. The image is magnetic and pleasing: not because it is candid, but because, rather, it could never be.

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