Walt Kelly in Features (II)
Here is the second bit of The Reluctant Dragon with Walt Kelly scenes, as promised yesterday. As to the relative merit of the animation, well, it is very much action-based. The few acting scenes of Walt Kelly's are solved in a very simple manner. They seem to be adequate, even a bit "old school", especially in relation to Woolie's dragon, which is quite more sophisticated, with well thought-out "animation in place". Sharing this character with Fred Moore (obviously the lead) and Paul Murry, it shows he still had some way to go before stardom - but he was given a chance anyway. It is in itself interesting that he got credited with name and caricature on this film.
I must note that Seq. 12.3 ("Hurray for Sir Giles, the Dragon Killer") is missing in my draft, and has been since the count of the BGs on the BG Morgue in 1964, it seems. Hence the hand-written notes about Seq. 12.3 at the bottom of a few of these pages.
Much of the dragon later in the film was animated by Ward Kimball. A note to those who think Kimball may have had anything to do with the Goofy animation that Ward is seen to be flipping: the draft credits this to "Steve Bosustov (Woolie)". Leads me to believe that it was animated by Woolie Reitherman, but the "person to see" about this was Bosustov, OR Bosustov animated it under Woolie's supervision.
See Mark Mayerson's mosaic of these here!
I must note that Seq. 12.3 ("Hurray for Sir Giles, the Dragon Killer") is missing in my draft, and has been since the count of the BGs on the BG Morgue in 1964, it seems. Hence the hand-written notes about Seq. 12.3 at the bottom of a few of these pages.
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See Mark Mayerson's mosaic of these here!
Labels: Draft
posted by Hans Perk at 2:00 AM
2 Comments:
Are they referring to Stephen Bosustow, one of the founders of UPA?
I know Steve spent some time at Disney in the early forties, I think. Years later, I met Steve, and even worked with him on a number of projects after UPA was sold to Hank Saperstein.
Steve has two sons, Tee (named after T.Hee) and Nick.
Same Steve Bosustow, who after the strike (May-Sept 1941) left Disney and started Industrial Film and Poster Service together with Zack Schwartz and Dave Hilberman (in 1943), which became UPA. The latter sold their stake to him in 1946, so he controlled UPA until 1960, when, as you mentioned. he sold it. More here.
Bosustow was actually asked to work on, possibly direct, a feature film in Denmark around 1949, and at that time visited Nordisk Film, the company producing it with the small company they bought which included my old mentor Børge Ring. This was after Dave Hand, with whom Børge and his two companions had worked the year before, had left Denmark and returned to the States. There is enough material in this for a book, and I do hope Børge continues writing his memoires!
My company, A. Film, is affiliated with Nordisk Film, which is the oldest functioning film production studio in the world - it officially started November 6th, 1906, and it is getting ready for a big celebration.
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