Francis Thompson (1908-2003) made this striking work, NY, NY: A Day in New York, in 1957. Trained as a painter, he was interested in finding a way to capture the effects of Surrealism and Cubism in photography. He achieved that through a variety of lenses, reflectors, optical effects and editing tricks. The film works both in the abstract and narrative sense, and while it’s not animated, Thompson’s creative use of the cinema medium is fresher and more emotionally engaging than many of today’s artificial worlds created through motion graphics and digital means. Thompson was secretive about how he made the film, describing the production simply as, “a magic, secret process of bending, twisting, and turning inside out. It was a self-funded project that involved my roaming about New York City with a camera over my shoulder.”

Aldous Huxley once wrote about this film:

“And then there is what may be called the Distorted Documentary a new form of visionary art, admirably exemplified by Mr. Francis Thompson’s film, NY, NY. In this very strange and beautiful picture we see the city of New York as it appears when photographed through multiplying prisms, or reflected in the backs of spoons, polished hub caps, spherical and parabolic mirrors. We still recognize houses, people, shop fronts, taxicabs, but recognize them as elements in one of those living geometries which are so characteristic of the visionary experience. The invention of this new cinematographic art seems to presage (thank heaven!) the supersession and early demise of non-representational painting. It used to be said by the non-representationalists that colored photography had reduced the old-fashioned portrait and the old-fashioned landscape to the rank of otiose absurdities. This, of course, is completely untrue. Colored photography merely records and preserves, in an easily reproducible form, the raw materials with which portraitists and landscape painters work. Used as Mr. Thompson has used it, colored cinematography does much more than merely record and preserve the raw materials of non-representational art; it actually turns out the finished product. Looking at NY, NY, I was amazed to see that virtually every pictorial device invented by the old masters of non-representational art and reproduced ad nauseam by the academicians and mannerists of the school, for the last forty years or more, makes its appearance, alive, glowing, intensely significant, in the sequences of Mr. Thompson’s film.

Graphic designer Heinz Edelmann, who developed the psychedelic look of the Beatles’ animated 1960s film Yellow Submarine, died on Tuesday, aged 75. The Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, where Edelman taught illustration from 1986 to 1996, confirmed the report of his death by German daily Stuutgarter Nachrichten. AP report here.

Yesterday Michael Sporn posted a commentary about how the musical composers at animation studios of the past served as a trademark for a particular studio. Each had a unique style and sound which immediately identify the cartoon to its makers.

Scott Bradley, who composed the music for MGM cartoons from 1934 through 1957, was one of the best. His delightful scores are upbeat and lush sounding, and perfectly capture the right feel of the upscale MGM animation. But what if Bradley had composed a score for a B-Studio like Universal? Well it just so happens that Bradley did take on such a freelance assignment in 1938 just prior to joining MGM full time, where he’d be under contract for the rest of his career (He had previously been a composer at large, creating music for Ub Iwerks and Harman-Ising cartoons).

Baby Kittens (1938) is an unremarkable, run-of-the-mill Universal short, directed by Alex Lovy for Walter Lantz Productions. It’s made even more unbearable by the voice-over “thoughts” of the dog character. Print uploaded (embedded below) has time code obscuring part of the picture, but we present it here for its soundtrack not the animation or story. Bradley’s trademark themes and music cues are all there, and are much more sophistcated than what Lantz house composer Frank Marsales was doing at the time. If you close your eyes and just listen to the track (and try to ignore the dog), you might think you are listening to a 40s MGM cartoon - proving Michael Sporn’s point entirely.

Ger Apeldoorn has posted a selection of rarely seen Tom & Jerry newspaper comics strips from 1950. Though credited to “Fred Quimby”, they were most likely drawn by Gene Hazelton. The strips looks great but, unlike the screen cartoons, T&J do a lot of talking. The strip, which ran between 1950 and 1952, occasionally features cameos by other MGM cartoon stars like Barney Bear and Droopy.

Michael Sporn’s Splog is a daily must-read for anyone interested in cartoons, their history and the experiences of a life-long New York independent animator. Today, Michael posts several vintage articles on the old Terrytoons studio based in New Rochelle, NY.

I want to thank Mike for giving me an excuse to post this fun TV commercial from the mid-1950s, below, featuring future Oscar winner Patty Duke playing with a Remco toy Drive-In Movie Theatre — which came complete with Terrytoons:

Here’s a DVD I’ve been waiting to see for over a decade - Beany & Cecil: The Special Edition Vol. 2.

Volume 1 is a must have for all fans of Bob Clampett. It was loaded with bonus material and rare footage we’d been dying to see for decades. Volume 2 promises to be more of the same: 11 classic Beany & Cecil cartoons, remastered from 35mm camera negatives, and several bonus features including rare Time for Beany kinescopes and an alternate version of Beanyland. It’ll be available September 8th from Hen’s Tooth Video.

There’s no debate that animator Irving Spector was, like John Dunn, an under appreciated cartoonist and storyman — working in animation at a time when the finished product didn’t do justice to the talents behind it. Thanks to Spector’s son, Irv’s work is getting some long overdue appreciation in a blog dedicated to his work.

Among the best of the late Paramount output, Chew Chew Baby was produced during a brief period when the studio put some actual effort behind its limited animation. This particular film is one of my favorites, and contains one of Jackson Beck’s (no relation) best performances. It’s also notable as one of the last cartoons to ignore political correctness and feature a pygmy cannibal - as well as one of the last cartoons credited to Isadore Sparber, released a few days before his death in August 1958.

This is also one of the “Harveytoons” not contained in Classic Media’s Complete Harveytoons DVD collection. Mike Van Eaton (of Van Eaton Gallery) recently unearthed a cache of original Spector storyboards from this film (click thumbnails below to enlarge). These drawings are a lot of fun - and this film may be the closest representation of Spector’s design style to make it faithfully to the screen.

Someone posted a bunch of vintage Danish animated commercials for Nilfisk Vacuum Cleaners on You Tube. Check them all out. My favorite is this one.

(Thanks Milton Knight)