Career
He photographed such silent films as Ernst Lubitsch"s The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927), but he is best known for his work in the 1930s at Universal Pictures, where he often worked on the films of James Whale. Mescall was famous for his elaborate (some might say grandiose), effective camera movements, in which the camera would often track completely across or around a set, or even one performer (as it does around Paul Robeson while he sings Ol" Manitoba River in the 1936 film version of Show Boat). He would not always use these kinds of camera movements (The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg has none), but his most famous films all have them.
Unfortunately, after the 1939 "weepie" When Tomorrow Comes, starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer in their second film together, Mescall was limited to working in a series of forgettable films, except for the 1944 film-noir Dark Waters, starring Merle Oberon, Franchot Tone, and Thomas Mitchell.
He photographed two Sonja Henie films at Twentieth Century-Fox, and also did uncredited work on the 1944 film The Bridge of San Luis Rey.