Funny Cartoon Face Biography
Source(google.com.pk)Der Fuehrer's Face (originally titled Donald Duck in Nutzi Land[2]) is a 1943 American animated propaganda short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released in 1943 by RKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon, which features Donald Duck in a nightmare setting working at a factory in Nazi Germany, was made in an effort to sell war bonds and is an example of American propaganda during World War II.[3] The film was directed by Jack Kinney and written by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer from the original music by Oliver Wallace.[4] The film is well known for Wallace's original song "Der Fuehrer's Face", which was actually released earlier by Spike Jones.
Der Fuehrer's Face won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 15th Academy Awards. It was the only Donald Duck film to receive the honor, although eight other films were also nominated.[5] In 1994, it was voted Number 22 of "the 50 Greatest Cartoons" of all time by members of the animation field. However, because of the propagandistic nature of the short, and the depiction of Donald Duck as a Nazi (albeit a reluctant one), Disney kept the film out of general circulation after its original release. Its first home video release came in 2004 with the release of the third wave of the Walt Disney Treasures DVD sets.
Contents
1 Plot
2 Song
2.1 Other versions
3 In other media
4 Releases
5 See also
6 Further reading
7 Notes
8 External links
Plot
The cartoon begins with music from Wagner's comic opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg before continuing into the title song.
A German oom-pah band -- composed of Axis leaders Hideki Tōjō on sousaphone, Hermann Göring on piccolo, Joseph Goebbels on trombone, Benito Mussolini on bass drum and Heinrich Himmler on snare drum -- marches through a small German town, where everything, even the clouds and trees, are shaped as swastikas, singing the virtues of the Nazi doctrine. Passing by Donald Duck's house (the features of which depict Adolf Hitler), they poke him out of bed with a bayonet to get ready for work. Herr Donald then faces and "Heils" the portraits of the Führer (Adolf Hitler), the Emperor (Hirohito), and Il Duce (Benito Mussolini), respectively. Because of wartime rationing, his breakfast consists of a piece of wooden bread, coffee brewed from a single hoarded coffee bean, and an aromatic spray that smells like bacon and eggs. The band shoves a copy of Mein Kampf in front of him for a moment of reading, then marches into his house, carrying the bass drum, and escorts him to a factory with Donald carrying the drum and Göring kicking him.
Donald salutes the "Fuehrer"
Upon arriving at the factory (at bayonet-point), Donald starts his 48-hour daily shift screwing caps onto artillery shells in an assembly line. Mixed in with the shells are portraits of the Führer, so he must perform the Hitler salute every time a portrait appears, all the while screwing the caps onto shells, much to Donald's disgust. Each new batch of shells is of a different size, ranging from minute shells to massive shells, as large as Donald if not larger. The pace of the assembly line intensifies (as in the Charlie Chaplin comedy Modern Times), and Donald finds it increasingly hard to complete all the tasks. At the same time, he is bombarded with propaganda messages about the superiority of the Aryan race and the glory of working for the Fuehrer.
After a "paid vacation" that consists of making swastika shapes with his body for a few seconds in front of a painted backdrop of the Alps as exercise, Donald is ordered to work overtime. He has a nervous breakdown with hallucinations of artillery shells everywhere, some of which are snakes and birds, some sing and are the same shape of the marching band from the start, music and all. When the hallucinations clear, he finds himself in his bed, and realizes that the whole experience was a nightmare, but he sees the shadow of a figure holding its right hand up in the form of a Nazi Salute. He begins to do so himself until he realizes that it is the shadow of a miniature Statue of Liberty. Remembering he is in the United States, he embraces the statue, proud of his United States citizenship.
The short ends with a caricature of Hitler's angry face. After two sets of "Heils", a tomato is thrown at Hitler's face and forms the words The End.
Song
"Der Fuehrer's Face"
Single by Spike Jones and His City Slickers
Recorded 1942
Writer(s) Oliver Wallace
Before the film's release, the popular band Spike Jones and His City Slickers, noted for their parodies of popular songs of the time, released a version of Oliver Wallace's theme song, "Der Fuehrer's Face" (also known informally as "The Nazi Song"). The song parodied the Nazi anthem, the "Horst Wessel Song". Unlike the version in the cartoon, some Spike Jones versions contain the rude sound effect of an instrument he called the "birdaphone", a rubber razzer (aka the Bronx Cheer) with each "Heil!" to show contempt for Hitler. (The version in the cartoon features the use of a tuba instead.) The so-called "Bronx Cheer" was a well-known expression of disgust in that time period and was not deemed obscene or offensive. The sheet music cover bears the image of a tomato splattering in Hitler's face. In the Jones version, the chorus's line, "Ja, we is the Supermen—" is answered by a soloist's "Super-duper super men!" delivered in a stereotypically effeminate character; the Disney versions delivers both lines flat, without any overt suggestion of homoerotic overtones.
Other versions
Johnny Bond recorded the song in January 1942 on the OKeh label.
Tommy Trinder recorded the song in the United Kingdom soon after the cartoon's release.
In the movie Stalag 17, the American POW's sing part of the song to taunt their guard, Sgt. Schultz.
In the M*A*S*H episode "Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde", Hawkeye Pierce sings part of the song to Radar, while suffering from insomnia. This is the Spike Jones version, with the raspberries included.
Herman Wouk built a scene around the song in his novel War and Remembrance.
In the movie Hart's War, a group of American POWs are seen playing the song and dancing to it in elaborate costumes.
Harry Turtledove adapted the song in one of his Colonization novels, in tune with the novels' theme. See the page on the Race for the lyrics.
Spike sings a short version of the song in the comic book Spike vs. Dracula Number 3.
Comic book cover
In other media
In August 1943, the cover of Four Favorites comic (Number 11), displayed the four favorites — from left to right, The Unknown Soldier, Captain Courageous, Lightning, and Magno, the Magnetic Man (along with Davey, his boy partner) — all singing "Der Fuehrer's Face" in the background, whilst a strong and powerful "War Bond" simultaneously knocks out Hirohito, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini with one fierce blow in the foreground.
This short was featured in part in Donald Duck's 50th Birthday.
The film makes an appearance in Pearl Harbor (2001)
Releases
1943 – Original theatrical run
2004 – "Walt Disney Treasures: On the Front Lines" (DVD)
2005 – "Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald, Volume Two" (DVD)[1]
Let your voice be heard!
Give your input on the draft of our new privacy policy.
[ Help with translations! ]
close
J. Stuart Blackton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
J. Stuart Blackton, 1912
James Stuart Blackton (January 5, 1875 – August 13, 1941) (usually known as J. Stuart Blackton) was an Anglo-American film producer, most notable for making the first silent film that included animated sequences recorded on standard picture film - The Enchanted Drawing (1900) - and is because of that considered the father of American animation. Both stop-motion and drawn animation techniques were used in his films. He was also director of the Silent Era, the founder of Vitagraph Studios.
Contents
1 Career
2 Selected filmography
3 Media
4 External links
Career
Blackton was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, and emigrated with his family to the USA at 10 years of age. He ended up as a reporter/artist for the New York Evening World newspaper. In 1896, Thomas Edison publicly demonstrated the Vitascope, one of the first film projectors, and Blackton was sent to interview Edison and provide drawings of how his films were made. Eager for good publicity, Edison took Blackton out to his "Black Maria", the special cabin he used to do his filming, and created a film on the spot of Blackton doing a lightning portrait of Edison. The inventor did such a good job selling the art of movie-making that he talked Blackton and partner Smith into buying a print of the new film as well as nine other films, plus a Vitascope to show them to paying audiences (Reader was brought back in to run the projector).
The new act was a great success, largely despite the various things Blackton and Smith were doing between the Edison films. The next step was to start making films of their own. In this way the American Vitagraph Company was born.
During this period J. Stuart Blackton was not only running the Vitagraph studio, but also producing, directing, writing, and even starring in his films (he played the comic strip character "Happy Hooligan" in a series of shorts). Since profits were constantly increasing, Blackton felt that he could try any idea that sprang to his head. In a series of films, Blackton developed the concepts of animation.
The first of these films is The Enchanted Drawing, with a copyright date of 1900 but probably made at least a year earlier. In this film, Blackton the lightning artist sketches a face, cigars, and a bottle of wine. He appears to remove the last drawings as real objects, and the face appears to react. The "animation" here is of the stop-action variety (the camera is stopped, a single change is made, and the camera is then started again) first used by Méliès and others.
The transition to stop-motion was apparently accidental and occurred around 1905. According to Albert Smith, one day the crew was filming a complex series of stop-action effects on the roof while steam from the building's generator was billowing in the background. On playing the film back, Smith noticed the odd effect created by the steam puffs scooting across the screen and decided to reproduce it deliberately. A few films, some lost, use this effect to represent invisible ghosts or to have toys come to life. In 1906, Blackton directed Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, which uses stop-motion as well as stick puppetry to produce a series of effects. After Blackton's hand draws two faces on a chalkboard, they appear to come to life and engage in antics. Most of the film uses life action effects instead of animation, but nevertheless this film had a huge effect in stimulating the creation of animated films in America. In Europe, the same effect was had from "The Haunted Hotel" (1907), another Vitagraph short directed by Blackton. The "Haunted Hotel" was mostly live-action, about a tourist spending the night in an inn run by invisible spirits. Most of the effects are also live-action (wires and such), but one scene of a dinner making itself was done using stop-motion, and was presented in a tight close-up that allowed budding animators to study it for technique.
Blackton made another animated film that has survived, 1907's "Lightning Sketches", but it has nothing to add to the art of animation. In 1908 he made the first American film version of Romeo and Juliet, filmed in New York City's Central Park and The Thieving Hand, filmed in Flatbush, Brooklyn. By 1909, Blackton was too absorbed in the business of running Vitagraph to have time for filmmaking. He came to regard his animation experiments in particular as being rather juvenile (they receive no mention in his unpublished autobiography).
Blackton left Vitagraph to go independent in 1917, but returned in 1923 as junior partner to Albert Smith. In 1925, Smith sold the company to Warner Brothers for a comfortable profit.
Blackton did quite well with his share until the Stock Market Crash of 1929, which destroyed his savings. He spent his last years on the road, showing his old films and lecturing about the days of silent movies. His daughter Violet Virginia Blackton (1910–1965) married writer Cornell Woolrich in 1930 but their marriage was annulled in 1933.
In the 1930s, Blackton produced letterhead that read, "Pioneer of the Movies in Association with Thomas A. Edison in 1896. Founder of the Famous Vitagraph Company of America in 1900. Producer of Countless Successful Motion Pictures. Creator of Hundreds of Screen Stars — Commodore J. Stuart Blackton — Presents the First Comprehensive and Authentic History of the Motion Picture in Absorbing and Entertaining Discourse Entitled — "The Inside Story of the Movies" — Illustrated by Rare and Priceless Historical Motion Pictures of the Screen's Greatest Stars from 1986 to the Present Day. The Glamorous Story of the Movies told by "THE DEAN OF THE SCREEN." The sidebar read, "Remember Roly-Poly and John Bunny? Funny Flora Finch? Beautiful Florence Turner? and Handsome Maurice Costello? These Beloved Favorites All Live Again in BLACKSTON'S (sic) FILM. This unique entertainment is endorsed by the California Federation of Woman's Clubs The Parent Teachers Assn., Universities, Press and the Public. Hollywood, Calif. Phone Hempstead 6641." In 1934, he signed and sent a letter to American Legion Hollywood Post 43, arranging for "The Inside Story of the Movies" (referred to in the body of the letter as "The March of the Movies") to be shown twice at the Post on Monday, January 7, 1935 at "9 or 9:15 p.m.," and Tuesday, January 8, 1935 at 8:30 p.m. "For the first evening," the letter states, "I am to receive twenty-five dollars for my services and for the second evening... an admission is to be charged and the entire proceeds are to be divided equally between Legion Post 43 and myself."
Blackton was married to actress Evangeline Wood when he was killed in a road accident in 1941. Cremated, his ashes were placed in the columbarium at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
No comments:
Post a Comment