French-born Benjamin Carré was a classically-trained artist who had
studied at the Atelier Amable in Paris. He started out professionally
as a scene painter for the Paris Opera and the Comédie-Francaise
(1901-06). Looking to find work in the fledgling film business, he
joined Pathé-Gaumont as a set designer and initially worked on five
feature films. Carré entered the U.S. in 1912 and soon found further
gainful employment as a production designer at Eclair/Peerless,
renowned at the time for having one of the most state-of-the-art studio
facilities on the East Coast. Working out of Ft. Lee, New Jersey, he
enjoyed a successful collaboration with a fellow Parisian, the renowned
director Maurice Tourneur. For the
remainder of the decade, Carré was under contract at MGM (1924-26),
Warner Brothers (1926-27), Fox (1928-35) and, again, MGM (1939-44). His
best work is exemplified by the production design of the subterranean
chambers and backstage setting of
Das Phantom der Oper (1925),
the Emerald City from
Das zauberhafte Land (1939) and the
home of the Smith family in
Heimweh nach St. Louis (1944).
In addition to his film work, Carré was a prodigious painter and
exhibitor of water colours featuring Los Angeles cityscapes. He also
designed murals for the General Motors Pavilion at the New York World's
Fair in 1969. Due primarily to ill-health, Carré retired from art
direction in 1937 but continued to work on background painting and the
creation of miniatures.
