In Defence of Bela (Maybe)

It is without fear of contradiction that we stand before you and state that the most cringe-inducing movie posters of all time were the ones to promote MGM cartoons in the early part of the ‘40s.

Look to the right, if you dare. Would this prompt you to rush to your neighbourhood theatre and see these characters in action? Mind you, you wouldn’t see these particular characters. The ones on the one-sheet are so poorly drawn, any resemblance between them and the finely-honed designs on film by the Hanna-Barbera unit is purely coincidental.

Some time ago, the Cartoon Research website featured a post highlighting this nadir in the art world. In the comments, the late Cole Johnson identified the artist as New York-based Bela Reiger.

But hold on a minute!

To the left you see part of a poster re-produced in the May-June 1939 edition of the MGM house publication “Short Story.” The identity of the artist is identified in an article. And it’s not Bela Reiger.

Here’s what the publication had to say:

TO AID THEATREMEN in publicizing the new Technicolor cartoon series produced by Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising, M-G-M has obtained the services of the celebrated illustrator, Charles "Call Me Chuck" Mulholland who will do a special one-sheet poster on each release. His multi-color lithograph poster on the current release, "Art Gallery," as reproduced above, is now available at all Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Exchanges.

One of today's top-ranking illustrators, Mulholland hails from the wilds of Minnesota where, by his own admission, in spite of the art schools a prodigious native indolence protected him against the common or garden variety of provincial art.

Migrating ultimately to New York City he soon discovered that even Greenwich Village bohemians had to eat. So, totally innocent of the technique of lettering or the intricacies of mathematics he got a job teaching lettering and math in an institution for deaf mutes. During this period he picked up an interest in these two subjects which endures today. He has no idea, however, what the deaf mutes picked up.

After his pedagogic instincts were satiated Mulholland turned to newspaper and magazine illustration work. He did caricatures for the old New York World and then moved over to the Post as theatrical caricaturist for John Anderson. Subsequently he has illustrated for Cosmopolitan, Colliers, Good Housekeeping, Pictorial Review, Delineator, Life, This Week and for Manhattan's leading advertising agencies.

There’s not much else to tell you about Charles Joseph Mulholland. He was born July 30, 1900 in Minneapolis and attending the Minneapolis School of Art when he was drafted in 1917. By 1920 he was a designer for a bag company, then moved to New York within the next five years. He died in Manhattan on September 3, 1960. His wife Juliet was a book and magazine illustrator and researched antiques after her husband died.

So who do we blame for the graphic monstrosities with misshapen, disproportionate characters that advertised MGM cartoons? Has Bela Reiger been blamed unfairly all this time?

I don’t have the answer. I do know the posters are pretty ugly but, fortunately, never took away from the enjoyment of any cartoons.