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Børge Ring - mentor and playmate.

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Working with Børge was fun, hard, boring, exciting, unusual, normal, and most of all educational. Over a year before leaving high school, in March 1978 I found out he lived in my neighborhood from a tv program about him and his wife Joanika. So I found him in the phone book (remember those?) and called him up. While studying art history, for a year I was his "pupil" doing animation tests, dropping by and having him correct them. Then, fed up with my art history professors, I moved my animation desk with my Neilson-Hordell disc into his Blaricum attic! (I am pointing at it in this photo taken last year:) Here, for almost four years, from March 1980 to November 1983 I smelled of his Douwe Egberts Red Amphora pipe tobacco and every day incl. weekends, Christmas and New Year from 10 to 6 we worked to the sound of BBC World Service if there were no jazz songs he had to listen to over and over again for an upcoming gig. I started doing simple non-production tests from his animation
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Prod. CM17 - Fishin' Around

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Happy 90th Birthday, Mickey Mouse! Let's celebrate with another animation draft, the one "next in line" in my files. (Next was CM-16, Blue Rhythm, which I posted in 2007 .) Directed by Burt Gillett, released 9/25/1931. Animated by Les Clark, Jack King, Norm Ferguson, Hardy Gramatky, Dave Hand, Dick Lundy, Charles Byrne, Ben Sharpsteen, Tom Palmer, Johnny Cannon and Jack Cutting. Music by Bert Lewis. I love Fergy's under-water slow-motion scenes, though there is little under-water feeling left in the later scenes that seem to incorporate animation from The Moose Hunt. I am not normally Dick Lundy's greatest fan, but I very much enjoy the little dance the fish do around the can of bait. Fun to see scene 16 as "Hands' [sic] old drawings" in the draft. I'm not to sure about the moral of this story, but hey - it's 1931! The Hebrew-looking "No Fishing" sign raises a lot of questions that probably better stay unanswered... In July/August
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Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967)

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As a departure from my usual Disney-related posts, here is a bit about my "guilty pleasure," the French musical film by director Jacques Demy, "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort," in English "The Young Girls of Rochefort," released March 8, 1967. The first DVD I ever bought in the late 90s, in Annecy, France, was just this film. Recently I also got the Blu-Ray , and now having just received the 5-CD box set with Michel Legrands great music that came out last year , I revisited the movie and had a look at, where in Rochefort the film was shot. With the help of Google Maps, here is an overview of the locations: The film begins and ends around the strange (and defunct) bridge Le Pont Transbordeur, south of the city, but most of the action happens around Place Colbert, the center of the old town, with the office of the town's mayor used as the home of the twins, played by the Dorléac sisters, Françoise and Catherine, the latter using as stage name her mother&
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Prod. CM-15 - Mickey Steps Out

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Directed by Burt Gillett, released 7/7/1931. Animated by Jack King, Johnny Cannon, Norm Ferguson, Dave Hand, Harry Reeves, Ben Sharpsteen, Tom Palmer, Frenchy de Trémaudan, Dick Lundy, Hardy Gramatky, Rudy Zamora, Charles Byrne(s), Les Clark, Marvin Woodward and Jack Cutting. (15 animators on 39 scenes...) The person transcribing the draft must have missed scene 33 - maybe by Frenchy (Minnie), Hardy (Pluto) and Hand (cat)? A very happy musical endeavor. But it seems that the PC-Police has struck against the Ben Sharpsteen's last scene in later copies. After the screen has gone black from soot, all characters are black-face; Minnie yells "Mickey!," Mickey yells "Minnie!," Pluto comes out of the top of the stove and yells, Al Jolson-like but in a gravelly voice "Mammie!" and the cat comes out of the stove pipe and ends saying "Yippie!" and smacks Pluto on the head with the lid of the stove... There is a YouTube version of the entire short inclu
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Prod. CM-14 - The Delivery Boy

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Directed by Burt Gillett, released 6/13/1931. Animation by Johnny Cannon, Rudy Zamora, Jack Cutting, Harry Reeves, Norm Ferguson, Frenchy de Trémaudan, Dave Hand, Dick Lundy, George Lane, Tom Palmer, Chuck Couch, Jack King, Hardy Gramatky, Les Clark, Frank Tipper, Bill Mason and Charles Byrne(s). At this time, Burt Gillett's musician was Bert Lewis. Since Tom McKimson was Fergy's assistant, I surmise that "Tom" and "Palmer" here are the same person. Lane is here misspelled as Lano. Bill Mason, who seems to have been born in England and died in 1937, is identified by Alberto Becattini , though he doesn't seem to appear in studio records otherwise. Alberto has this info on him: "Animator: DISNEY c31-33 (Silly Symphony 31-32 [The Cat’s Out 31, The Spider and the Fly 31, Babes in the Woods 32]); SCHLESINGER/WARNER BROS. 33 (Buddy 33 [Buddy’s Day Out]); LANTZ 35-37 (Oswald the Rabbit 36-37, Meany Miny and Moe 36-37)" This is a fun film , and it beco
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Prod. CM13 - The Moose Hunt

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Directed by Burt Gillett, music by Bert Lewis, released 5/8/1931. In other words, I am two days late for its 87th anniversary... Animated by Jack King, Dave Hand, Norm Ferguson, Les Clark, Dick Lundy, Tom Palmer and Ben Sharpsteen: the usual suspects. Yes, this IS the film with Tom Palmer's "Dead dog scene" ending with Pluto saying "Kiss Me!" Since this film was released May 8th, it was likely animated late March-early April 1931. Here is an image of some of the animators in their new building (the L-shaped one) while the film was just released, in May 1931. L-to-R: Dave Hand, Dick Lundy, Norm Ferguson and Les Clark. Both Hand and Lundy have their May 1931 calendars prominently placed - thanks, guys! Les Clark has three photos pinned up - two of the building of the building they are in, and one of one of the small Fauchon & Marco advertisement cars parked in front of the billboard across the street... Added note: we have seen a BG from this film before !
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Prod. CM12 - The Castaway

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Over the coming weeks I intend to post a few more very early Mickey Mouse drafts, especially for my old mentor and friend Børge Ring. Here is an early draft for this Robinson Crusoe-type Mickey Mouse film directed by my favorite director, Wilfred "Jaxon" Jackson, released through Columbia on 4/6/1931. We find as animators: Jaxon himself, Charlie Byrne, Rudy Zamora, Cecil Surrey ("Sizzle"), Johnny Cannon, Gilles Armand "Frenchy" de Trémaudan, Jack Cutting, Les Clark, Dave Hand and Dick Lundy - with Norm Ferguson sharing two scenes with Jack Cutting. On page 18 in Ross Care's must-have book about Jaxon, one can read how he (Jaxon) asked Walt to "handle" a whole film by himself, with which he meant "animate a whole film." Walt, however, thought he wanted to direct a film, and gave him the assignment of pulling together several previously discarded musical Mickey scenes, having him put them to music by a new composer Walt wanted to try
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