I’m a big fan of Lou Bunin’s work. In these last weeks of the summer break from the College for Creative Studies, I’m enjoying getting special disc projects together for shipping during the day, and the night shift at Thunderbean is all about advancing the ‘Cartoons for Victory’ Blu-ray. Here’s another short that is, at least for now, done for the set.
Lou Bunin’s Bury the Axis has been the subject of this space before. One of my favorite posts here was from 2019, about the outtakes that Amy Bunin, Lou’s daughter, lent me for the Lou Bunin Alice project that has been going on forever. Here is that post.
Bunin’s little film is clever in its approach and its message of the Allied Forces knocking back the Axis. It’s pretty similar to the US studio’s drawn animated propaganda in terms of the overall story and gags, but the musical aspect I think is especially good. Perhaps Bunin was inspired by Spike Jones’ song “Der Fuehrer’s Face”, released in 1942. I’m not sure if Bunin’s film was released before or after the Disney short based on that song.
It was clear from the outtakes that Bury the Axis was shot with a Bolex professional 16mm camera on 16mm Kodachrome stock. It’s really unclear *how* the film was distributed, or why it ended up being released in Cinecolor either as a non-theatrical rental short or perhaps distributed free to support the war effort. There is no record of theatrical release of the short, so my guess is that it was distributed in 16mm Cinecolor. I do hope more information becomes available on it (cartoon researchers, put on your hats!).
For now, I’ve scanned a more modern 16mm LPP (low fade) print that was available to collectors in the 80s, and done some cleanup using Diamant’s film restoration tools. I think it’s about the best I can get out of this particular material, at least for now.
If you look back on the outtake tests in the old post, you can see the palette of the film is much richer than the Cinecolor release of the film. It’s also neat to see sequences that didn’t make it into the final film. I especially like Hitler’s stench killing the flowers, and wonder what the sound would have been like accompanying these visuals. I’m hoping someday the Kodachrome original will show up on the whole film.
I’ll keep working on getting the Cartoons for Victory Blu-ray update finished, and will most likely write about another film. for the upcoming set soon. We’re making really great progress on the set right now, but I’m still waiting on some things from one of the archives, and very excited to see what those look like.
Have a good week everyone!
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.
good stuff steve!
do you know if the voice actor who voices hitler in the short also voices the ‘hitler pig’ in the terry cartoon “the last round up”? at 5:22 they especially sound alike. and as this short was made in 1943 new york, just like the terrytoon, its highly likely.
And for some inexplicable reason, I can access this site again. It was timing out for many months.
Don’t know if this was related, but I was getting warnings (from one of my malware protection programs) for several months when I tried access the site this spring. And then they suddenly stopped appearing and have not reappeared.
I think it may have been the “expired certificate” issue.
However, if you got time-outs that may be a different issue.
if he couldn’t get distribution during the war, it might also have been a problem politically to release this film after the war, because the USA was giving Germany foreign aid, we were friends again! (see the Peter Sellers comedy The Mouse That Roared)
why can’t you just do a post devoted to rainbow parades volume 2
I’d imagine that will happen round about the same time that the Rainbow Parades Volume 2 blu ray starts to actually be dispatched ie. at the time of it’s official release date (which hopefully should be soon now) –
or maybe the week before that or after it.
Purely a guess but would make sense timing wise.
Raises the question: is closed captioning part of the Thunderbean process? A quick look at some Blu-rays suggest no. which I can understand if the choice is between leaving people wondering what was said and giving possibly wrong information. So I took a look at YouTube’s auto-generated CC, and, boy, was that a mistake.
“Then I come to Germany.
Their portions was good to me.
I joined Mr. Yoners in pumping off stunkers who wanted democracy.
And then I push stepped across the line marched. I grew the marginal line.
I high up as henchmen some fifth column Feenchmen on May……or mine.”
“Mr. Yoners” is audibly (and by rhyme scheme) Mr. Yonkers, and, I suspect, Yonkers with a J, as Junkers is German aircraft manufacturer. So I wonder if the “portions” of the line before is Porsche. What was the fame of that name in 1930s US? The next lines I hear as: “And then I goosestepped across the Rhine, marched right through the Maginot Line. I hired as henchmen some fifth column Frenchmen and made Western Europe all mine.” with the computer giving up on the gibberish at the ellipses.
Is that Lionel Stander as the narrator?