First, a little life and Thunderbean news:
This is a week of interruptions here- with each new thing starting stopping something else. It turned out to be a good thing in many ways. Oddly enough, a lot of progress made too. Maybe life is really all about interruptions, hellos and goodbyes, and hopefully a better understanding as things move forward.
The Rainbow Parade 2 replication fundraiser (on gofundme) was a great success! Thanks to everyone for helping make the set a reality. Bonus features are nearly done, and a majority of the films are in final crop and edit— with two of the last three nearly done now. I can’t wait to have the set finished and out to everyone.
Mid Century Modern 3 is taking off overall pretty well- and I’m glad people are enjoying the disc. There was an authoring error discovered that is a bit of a bummer involving a menu button, but all the films are at least accessible. Still, we’ll be re-replicating it and sending updates to everyone.
I’ll be going out to Los Angeles on Friday – and will be happy to catch up with good friends while there. It’s not a vacation though— but rather a trip to help with a large archive of film with Vinegar syndrome.
The Lou Bunin set is moving along nicely too, with the last of the bonus films in final cleanup. Alice in Wonderland is very much in progress on the set too, with additional elements being introduced to compare editing order and quality. It’s really fascinating to see all the iterations this one film went through.
Now — onto today’s film: Weapon of War (1944)
Back in 2009, and again in 2012 and 2013, I spent a lot of time at the United States National Archives, researching and viewing the materials they have on the animated films made for the war effort and the years following. The Snafu DVD set came out of those trips, but so did More Cartoons for Victory featuring a bunch of animated shorts from around the world, and including some of the non-Snafu material from what the National Archives has. After a while, the staff there got to know me just a little, and I got more and more interested in the reasoning behind what was made. While I haven’t looked through anywhere near as much of the paperwork associated with the films, the many boxes I did look through had some really interesting memos and letters related to the productions.
Tommy Aschenbach of Film and Video solutions convinced me that I should do 2k *at least* on everything we were scanning, and I have to thank him all these years later since I have these nice high definition scans of many of these shorts. As each of the current projects have had a little break, I’ve been pulling things onto the SSD drives on the other projects we’re working on getting done this year. Weapon of War really struck me this week, so I thought it would be fun to share this nearly completed digital restoration. It will appear on the upcoming ‘Cartoons for Victory’ Thunderbean Blu-ray.
Originally part of the Army-Navy Screen Magazine, Number 37, Weapon of War is the second feature of the 20 minute reel prepared specifically for the Army and Navy. The first segment is a heart breaking piece on war refugees, focusing on how refugees have lost everything – and how the US is acting as a rescue mission for many. The segment runs a full five minutes, with the animated film butting right up next to it.
I find this particular film to be pretty fascinating, in both ideas and design. It was produced by the First Motion Picture Unit, with MGM producing the animation and music score, I’m not sure if Mel Blanc, who provides the voice of the huckster, recorded at MGM or FMPU, but it’s interesting to see him involved in a non-comedic short. Scott Bradley’s score is immediately recognizable to those who know the MGM cartoons.
The storyboard comparison done for the More Cartoons for Victory DVD was posted here at Cartoon Research about 9 years back HERE.
Back then, several readers pointed out the film is narrated by Kent Smith, who does narration for other war films around this time.
The messaging of this particular short stuck me when I first saw it. When I’ve shown the short to my animation history class, they’re always amazed at how the film talks directly to servicemen. I believe it’s the only animated film made by FMPU that talks specifically about race and religious hatred. The serious tone of the short reminds me of Disney’s Education for Death. The film ended up being issued as both a special one reel (to the service) as well as a civilian release.
I wish I knew who the artist was that did the boards on this film. Some of the work on the boards looks a lot like Paul Julian’s work on the later UPA films and his short The Hangman. The final art and production in the film is very faithful to the boards – and if you didn’t know this was produced by MGM you might think it was made by UPA.
I always enjoy reading everyone’s thoughts on these films. Really enjoying revisiting this particular set. It’s moving along nicely.
Have a good week everyone – and I hope you enjoy this short film.
Steve Stanchfield is an animator, educator and film archivist. He runs Thunderbean Animation, an animation studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has compiled over a dozen archival animation DVD collections devoted to such subjects at Private Snafu, The Little King and the infamous Cubby Bear. Steve is also a professor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
“Weapon of War” reminds me of John Sutherland’s “Make Mine Freedom”, in that a political ideology of foreign origin is marketed to Americans by means of an old-time medicine show. I suppose many Americans in 1944 would have asserted that the prevalent system of legally enforced racial segregation was not at all the same thing as “race hatred”, but that might be a fine hair to split. The cartoon’s message is somewhat undercut by the fact that, despite the country’s acknowledged ethnic diversity, all of the Americans in it look exactly alike. Still, like “Education for Death” it pulls no punches when it comes to showing the grim consequences of putting Nazi ideals into practice, and thankfully it doesn’t try to get big laffs with a Wagnerian opera parody.
I know the MGM cartoons pretty well, but are you sure that’s Scott Bradley’s music here? It’s a different ensemble than the one Bradley normally used, with more brass and no strings at all. It also seems to me that Bradley could have done a better job of dovetailing the music around the narration, as he did in so many Tex Avery cartoons, instead of the sound engineer repeatedly having to turn down the gain so that the narrator’s voice could be heard over the score.
I’m also questioning whether it was Scott Bradley, insofar as I don’t recall him using so much, if any “borrowed” music; (e.g., the snippets of Wagner (from “DIe Walkure”), and “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”) in his MGM cartoons.
I’m pretty sure that is Scott Bradley’s score. It reminds me of some of the war cartoons that he composed like “Blitz Wolf” or “The Stork’s Holiday”. but I could be wrong though.
The surviving production notes at the National Archives list Bradly for the score, and MGM of course as production studio. There is a date for the music track being recorded at MGM, but no date for the voice work (there are dates for voice work on a few of the Snafus). The Boards were done at First Motion Picture Unit, but there is no credit listed, just approval date.
Wow!
HELP!!!! Got Thunderbean brain. On which disc is the Johnson’s floor wax commercial where the people come gliding through the air into the room on a wax {plexiglass} shield? And while we’re at it is there an indeces of all the individual Thunderbean discs content?
I would be interested to know if there are any contemporary reviews or reports as to how this was received by its military personnel audiences.
Steve, I hope you will one day restore the Hook cartoons.
As a 71-year old, i was always surrounded (and adored) WWII toons (from early-tv!) Kudos to this site!!
This is such a great find, Mr. Stanchfield! I love how strikingly beautiful this short is, through the use of minimalist backgrounds and designs.
Beautiful short – and the message makes me wistful in a way that’s hard to explain.