<em>Rodney</em> (1956) <em>Rodney</em> (1956)

Last week Amid posted several Disney industrial films and got quite a nice reaction, so I thought I’d try posting another one – this one not from Disney. Sometimes we dwell too much on the commercial and entertainment films produced by Hollywood and New York’s animation industry, but it was industrial and educational films like these that were the backbone of the business in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

Rodney (posted below) is typical of the kind of bread and butter product produced by small studios that kept animators alive between larger assignments. Lee Blair’s New York studio, Film Graphics, produced this one allowing veteran animator Lu Guarnier a rare chance to direct. Don Towsley, Cliff Auguston and Preston Blair animated. Jack Shaindlin, a well known stock music composer, provides a classic 1950s score.

Cataloging the hundreds (thousands?) of ephemeral films like these is the next great frontier in researching animation. An important part of the history of the medium is contained within these – and many of them are still lost, neglected or forgotten.

Jerry Beck

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