developed during the war for combat photography, the Cunningham Combat Camera. The large square camera was mounted a rifle stock, held tightly to the cameraman’s chest by handles mounted on each side, and aimed in the general direction of the action, sighted by a top-mounted viewfinder. With a two hundred foot magazine, it could run for two minutes. The other primary motion picture camera used by the military was the Bell and Howell Eyemo, a spring-run camera held to the eye with a 20 second running time. After the war, Engel and an engineer he met it the service, Charles Woodruff, reconfigured the Cunningham camera into a much smaller camera for civilian purposes. 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." It used the Cunningham 35mm 200 foot interchangeable magazines which met the camera at the film gate with the lens, motor, shutter, and viewfinder comprising the camera body. Twin lens geared together enabled the viewfinder lens and the camera to be focused together, as on Engel's preferred still camera, the Rolleiflex. Like the Rolleiflex, the viewfinder was viewed from above. Held against the waist, rather than in front of the face, the camera was both steadier and less conspicuous than the Eyemo. "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]. This camera was about the same size as the Eyemo, but looked like a giant Ocarina with the camera in the wide part at the top and the smaller curved part below. Film teacher Joel Schlemowitz says, "The film’s storyline, about a young boy gone on the lam among the boardwalk, beach, and amusements of Coney Island, provided the opportunity to film in situations well matched to this unobtrusive camera's virtues. The Rolleiflex-inspired chest-level configuration also assisted in giving the film its sense of visual rapport with the film's child actor, placing the camera at eye level with the youngster's view of the world." Reception Critical response The film was greeted by critical acclaim at the time of its initial release. François Truffaut was inspired by its spontaneous production style when making The 400 Blows (1959), and he said years later that "Our New Wave would never have come into