Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Les Escargots

You can probably count on one hand, maybe on one finger, the number of animation directors who made their first film with the help of mental patients while working at a psychiatric institute.

This describes Frenchman René Laloux.

Some years later, he and writer/designer Roland Topor created the feature film Fantastic Planet (1973), a special award winner at the Cannes Film Festival.

The two of them toiled together earlier on an animated short film called Les Escargots (1965). It also won several awards in Europe.

“Surreal” may be the best way to describe it. It’s about as far removed from any studio cartoon in North America at the time. No one will mistake this for Honey Halfwitch or Daffy and Speedy.

Laloux died in 2004.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: A Visit to Santa

Some fine Christmas films have been made over the years. Perhaps you have some favourites.

And then there’s A Visit to Santa.

If it were a professional film it would be pretty easy to laugh at its incredible ineptness. But it seems to me that it was made by an amateur as kind of a glorified home movie to entertain family and friends, so picking on it may be unfair.

Stiff acting, a music soundtrack of someone playing a melody with one finger on an electric organ (and some basic chords), a suburban living room masquerading as Santa’s castle, an elf’s outfit that looks like someone’s mother made it, stock footage from who knows where, shots inside a department store, the list goes on. It has to be seen to be believed.

The opening credits say “Clem Williams Films presents.” This was an actual company based in Pennsylvania and was functioning as early as 1933. A story in the Pittsburgh Press in 1948 called it “the largest distributor of Religious Films and Equipment in the state” and that it was a rental outlet for movies by Cathedral Films.

The Syracuse Post-Standard, in 1989, published a feature story about movies being shown free outside an elementary school that were rented from Clem Williams, including classics like Dumbo and Bambi, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Groups could also rent highlight films of the Pittsburgh Steelers narrated by the great John Fazenda.

Also in its catalogue was 1970’s The Watermelon Man, sent by mistake to an elementary school in Cape Coral, Florida. Its racial stereotypes and profanity were not quite appropriate for the audience.

A. Clement Williams, Sr. died in Seminole, Florida, on June 27, 2001. He had moved there from Pittsburgh in 1979 and had sold his company. His obit mentioned he was married for 67 years and had been a member of Franklin-St. John’s-Trinity Masonic Lodge No. 221 in Pittsburgh for 57 years.

With that bit of background out of the way, you can watch the film below.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Tim Conway and Ernie Anderson

Before he cracked up Harvey Korman on The Carol Burnett Show, before he bumbled around with Joe Flynn on McHale’s Navy, Tim Conway had another partner in comedy.

Conway was a writer/director/actor on two TV stations in Cleveland in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, hooking up with an announcer and host named Ernie Anderson. Anderson ended up as Carol Burnett’s announcer after Lyle Waggoner left but is maybe better known as the voice of ABC-TV (“The Loooooove Boat” a specialty).

With the Yuletide season upon us, what better way to celebrate than with Conway and Anderson together on some short spots for Ohio Bell. They hold poses at the end for a voice-over tag.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: The Odd Couple Bonding

The U.S. government spent money to get you to give them your money to invest.

There are film examples galore where the government urges Americans to buy bonds, during war-time and peace-time. Animation fans will likely think of Bugs Bunny in Any Bonds Today? (1942). Rocky and Bullwinkle pitched Savings Stamps in a funny cartoon that is on-line somewhere.

Here’s a different example. It’s an ersatz episode of The Odd Couple, complete with the opening credit footage and the arrangement of Neal Hefti’s theme, as well as the bridge cue “Man Chases Man” (which is less gay than Sammy Cahn’s lyrics to the theme). It takes place in the apartment set used on the TV show. Not only do Tony Randall and Jack Klugman reprise their roles, so do Larry Gelman (Vinnie) and Al Molinaro (Murray). Someone other than Gary Waldman is Speed. The plot involves Felix testing out his Payroll Savings Plan pitch during one of Oscar’s poker games.

The Hagley Digital Archives site says this was made in 1970. Wrong! Here’s the background behind it, likely from a government news release, found in the Salisbury Post of May 13, 1972.

Odd Couple Aid Payroll Savings
Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, the stars of the ABC Television Network’s The Odd Couple,” have been named honorary co-chairmen of the payroll savings campaign on behalf of the U. S. Savings Bonds program by the Department of the Treasury, in ceremonies in Washington, D. C.
Randall and Klugman appear in a special Savings Bond film, “The Winning Hand,” which is being used to train payroll savings canvassers, and which was unveiled in the nation’s capital to launch the ‘72 payroll savings campaign by the Federal government.
They received individual plaques from the Department of the Treasury for their work in promoting bonds.

The laugh track despised by Klugman and Randall in the first season is absent.



As a bonus, here’s a piece on Klugman and wife Brett Somers from Earl Wilson’s column of Oct. 31, 1970.

NEW YORK — Jack Klugman, the slob sports writer on “The Odd Couple” TV show, hears unofficially and round-about and every way but officially that the show’s being renewed . . . which means that the poor man will still be hopping over to Las Vegas from Hollywood at every opportunity to spend his clay in the horse parlor.
“It’s my one vice,” Klugman says. “It’s like a job. I’m there from 9 to 6. I bet all six tracks and nearly all nine races, so I got 50 bets going.
“I go to tracks besides. One day I was doing the FBI series, I was ready to fly back to New York but they had to reshoot a scene.
“They ca1led my wife in Weston, Conn., to find out where I was in California. She said, ‘Is there a race track open?’ They said ‘Yes, the trotters at Hollywood.’ They paged me, ‘The FBI calling Jack Klugman.’ I was on the daily double line.”
Jack’s love for gambling is surpassed only by his respect for his colleague in the series. Tony Randall. “Tony once told me,” Jack says, “I’m an authority on everything.’ He is. The man knows everything — and remembers it.”
Jack’s wife, actress Brett Sommers, has a couple of tricks for saving his money from the gamblers. “She goes to auctions. She hates gambling. I hate auctions.”
When they did “He Said, She Said” recently, his wife pocketed both his fee and hers. He asked her why she took his fee.
“Listen,” she said, “if you weren’t married, you couldn’t do this show.”

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Freedom 2000

There was plenty of talk in the 1970s about the saving the environment and, by extension, saving the Earth. From it was born the environmental protest movement.

This also seeped down into Saturday morning television at a time when pressure groups demanded cartoon producers teach “correct” behaviour to children, naively believing this would end things like racism, pollution, violence and other world ills.

Hanna-Barbera responded with a TV movie called Yogi’s Ark Lark (1972), which was turned into a series. Its message to the kids: clean up the planet.

But this wasn’t the studio’s only foray into what was called ecology back then. There was another film, this one by Hanna-Barbera’s industrial division and funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Freedom 2000 (1974) follows planet inspectors from another world, first as they look at a world killed by its peoples who couldn’t get along with each other. Then they zoom to Earth, where the “captain” champions the American economic system as the best. From here, there is a history of how the system came to be and then the usual warning from the Chamber about the government stifling it, with another veiled threat about Communism. “A totally-controlled economy has within it the implication of a totally-controlled populace.”

It’s only toward the last four minutes the film segues back into the environment, with the captain opining how technological change is adversely affecting the eco-system. But, hurray!, Corporate America is up to the task of doing its part.

The superior aliens, having reviewed the situation (as big business sees it), promise to return to Earth in the year 2000 to see if any advancement has been made.

We know the answer.

You’ll recognise the voice of Korann as Janet Waldo. Vic Perrin is the narrator. Having made these notes, I didn’t realise there are credits at the end. Gerald Baldwin directed the cartoon and co-wrote it with George Gordon and Art Scott. The animators were Alan Zaslove, Ruth Kissane, Fred Crippin and Bob Bachman, with backgrounds by Bob McIntosh and layouts by Rosemary O’Connor, Wall Batterton, Charles McElmurry and Cliff Roberts.

Ross Martin and Richard Carlson supply the other voices and the string-filled score is by Dean Elliott.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Once Upon a Time

“The business of America is business,” newly-elected president Calvin Coolidge is quoted as saying about 100 years ago. Certainly business believed that. And likely still does.

After the Second World War, the great paranoia of America was Communism. To business, Communism meant the government ran everything, not business. Government interference was bad for business. This sentiment found its way into propaganda cartoons produced by John Suthlerland Productions for Harding College. Its message slips through the Industry On Parade TV series given free to stations by the Manufacturers Association of America.

We’ve found another example in a mainly animated short produced as a “public service” for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1965 by the Calvin Company. Industry On Parade spoke of “wise government spending.” This one is more pointed, criticising government agencies for the “problems” they’ve caused businesses in the U.S. It favours “essential regulation,” no doubt meaning regulation that favoured increased company profits.

The Sutherland cartoons featured interesting designs and solid animation. This one is a little lacklustre and stiff, I’m afraid. Its main attraction is the work of Mel Blanc, who is the only person who gets a screen credit. The King’s voice has more than a slight resemblance to Cosmo Spacely, including, in jowly manner, the immortal words “You’re fired!”.

There’s no indication who was responsible for the animation. A background drawing, appropriate for a cartoon, shows one of the businesses is named “Acme Firewood.” The building next to it is “Jones Wood.” It’s probably just a coincidence, but it would be neat if this “illustrated radio” film was honouring you-know-who.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Magoo is No Dim Bulb

You couldn’t help but see the incongruity of someone who couldn’t see, selling light bulbs.

As Television Age of March 21, 1960 put it in a feature story on General Electric signing with UPA to use Mr. Magoo in its TV ads: “The advertiser felt no hesitation in choosing for its salesman a bumbling, half-blind little guy who obviously sees no better with GE light bulbs than without, evidently feeling the humorous approach would work in its favor. Magoo himself has worked for other advertisers—most notably Stag beer—in regional campaigns, but GE intended to promote its use of the character to such an extent that Magoo and GE bulbs would be synonymous.”

And Television Age was told by G.E’s ad manager that it moved its money from print into spot TV because it worked for Lestoil, which had cartoon ads parodying Dragnet.

Sales Management magazine of February 17, 1961 pointed out G.E. spent a million dollars on Magoo TV spots in the fall of 1960, and another $100,000 in accompanying promotion among its dealers.

It boiled down to one simple fact: people loved Mr. Magoo.

Rather than go on and on about what trade publications had to say, let’s give you something a little more fun—a 1963 G.E. promotional film for the company’s retailers. Not only does it feature some Magoo commercials, but Jim Backus is on camera to give an explanation. And there’s a cameo appearance by the NBC peacock (a little washed out, but the print is old).

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: The Key to Efficiency

We don’t talk a lot about non-American animation on the blog, as the focus is mainly on theatrical cartoons that appeared on TV in the 1960s (and a little earlier).

However, I enjoy much of the stylised artwork you can see on animated commercials and industrial films of the ‘50s, and not just from the United States.

Here’s a nice example in a 1959 commercial film for British Petroleum called The Key to Efficiency. When you think of British animation, Halas and Batchelor come to mind. This short was made by someone else. The designs are derivative of UPA but I quite like them. Frank Cordell’s score matches the action quite well.

I have not been able to find much information about this cartoon but this blog has intelligent readers who may know something.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Tune in Tomorrow

They tried to save network radio. It was a lost cause.

Since the late 1920s, people wanted television in their homes. It took some time to perfect it. After the war, there was a steady stream of stations signing on. That brought advertising money. Advertising money that had been going to radio. The big-time network shows started disappearing because there wasn’t the money to pay for them.

NBC, CBS, ABC and Mutual had all kinds of capital tied up in their radio networks and they didn’t want to see that collapse. CBS’ reaction was a publicity campaign to tell everyone that radio still had lots of listeners and there would be even more—and all willing to buy products advertised on radio.

To get its point across, CBS commissioned UPA to make several animated promotional films. The first, More Than Meets The Eye, was made in 1952 to describe the impact of the human voice in advertising. The second, in 1953, was It's Time for Everybody, and dealt with the changing patterns of daily life in the U.S. CBS claimed it had been seen by nearly a quarter of a million business and professional people.

The third was Tune in Tomorrow, previewed for newsmen on Thursday September 30, 1954 before being shown to advertising, business and broadcast industry groups. It looked ahead to where radio would be in 1960. The release, according to Broadcasting magazine of Oct. 4, 1954, coincided with new nighttime programming offering Monday through Friday runs of newsman Allan Jackson, commentator Lowell Thomas, Tennessee Ernie Ford, The Choraliers, Edward R. Murrow, Mr. and Mrs. North, Amos 'n' Andy Music Hall, and Mr. Keene, Tracer of Lost Persons.

Psychic, CBS was not. Mr. Keen needed tracing himself in 1955 when CBS told him to get lost. 1960 saw the last of the big-time evening shows on the network; the venerable Amos and Andy didn’t even have a sponsor when they were taken off the air on November 25th. The sainted Murrow was unwelcome and gone, too.

Since someone will mention this if I don’t, CBS had a later relationship with UPA when it put The Boing Boing Show on the air in 1956. That's even though the network owned a cartoon studio (Terrytoons) at the time.

Let’s look at Tune in Tomorrow. The cartoon (not this version) has been cleaned up and released on one of Steve Stanchfield’s fine Thunderbean discs, with commentary by Mike Kazaleh and Jerry Beck. I haven’t heard what they had to say about the cartoon, but I understand it was directed by Bobe Cannon. Broadcasting helpfully tells us “Narration of ‘Tune in Tomorrow’ was by John Cone and Harry Marble, sound direction by Gordon Auchincloss and music adaptation by Bernard Herrmann.” What it doesn’t say is the voice at the start and at the end is that of Tony Marvin, among the people fired by Arthur Godfrey. In the 1960s, he ended up on Mutual doing top-hour news, which is about all the networks were airing.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Industry on Parade

It’s all straightforward. The caricatures to the right are of Warner Bros. animation artists Abe Levitow and Bob Doerfler. They’re dressed as a moose and squirrel. Bill Scott wrote Warners cartoons. He produced Rocky and Bullwinkle. Therefore, he got the idea for the moose and squirrel series because he worked with Bob Doerfler, who drew the caricatures.

Unfortunately, there are people who did what I just did there—connect dots and make assumptions and post on the internet. They declare their “research” as factual animation history.

What has this got to do with Industry on Parade, you ask?

Look at the picture to your left. It is a frame from an episode of Industry on Parade (if you click on the picture, it should take you to the episode). To be specific, it’s a frame of Bob Doerfler. He must be the Warners guy, right? They have the same name, and both are artists. He’s the age of a guy who would be in the Chuck Jones unit in the ‘40s. And a lot of Warners people went on to other types of art after working in animation.

Yes, I was about set to connect the dots on this and post it. But then I paused a minute. They don’t really LOOK the same, do they? Is it possible there were two Bob Doerflers who were artists around this time?

We’re fortunate today that there are sites you can go (if you pay) to dig up information from old newspapers, city directories and government records. They’re not complete, but they’re better than scrolling endlessly through microfilm on the off-chance you’ll find something (which is how I did research 40 years ago). U.S military draft cards are among the items you can find, and here is one for Bob Doerfler. The key information here is his birthdate and location, middle name and mother’s name. From this we can hunt down other records and peer through newspaper clippings for matching information. In Doefler’s case, we learn his father Edd (with two ‘d’s) was an insurance agent. Doefler went to University High School in West Los Angeles where he was involved in a poster club. At Santa Monica City College, he was a club that went on sketching expeditions and created props for school plays. The 1940 Census gives his occupation as “new worker,” and we find him in the 1942 City Directory working for Schlesinger, though he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in January that year.

It’s unclear whether he was working for Warners when he returned from the war (he was wounded in the Marshall Islands in 1944), but in the 1954 directory for Whittier, California, his occupation is a draftsman for “North Am,” while a year later he was an electrical engineer.

From the U.S. Death Index for California, we discover he died in San Diego on Feb. 27, 1982.

Now, the Bob Doerfler with his sketch pad in the 1956 Industry on Parade segment reveals he was employed as a designer for the International Silver Company of Meriden, Connecticut. Fortunately, the archives of the local paper are available to search and we discover that a Robert L. Doerfler, Sr., born in Meriden in 1916, died in Florida on October 22, 2004. The obit reveals “He was a designer for International Silver Co. with over 30 years of service.”

So, yes, there were two Bob Doerflers who liked to draw.

This is a short lesson to be as thorough as possible if you’re doing research.

Now, on to Industry on Parade.

This may be my favourite pro-corporate propaganda TV series. Here’s Variety from October 25, 1950:

National Assn. of Manufacturers has launched a video newsreel program, “Industry on Parade,” for use by TV stations. Reels are being made available cuffo to 50 stations, on an exclusive basis, and may be used as a sustainer or commercial. Vidpix run 13 minutes, allowing time for local bankrollers, and two 40-second segments can be deleted if more commercial time is needed. NBC-TV news department is lensing the subjects (such as U. S. arms production, new synthetic yarns, innovations in furniture manufacturing, etc.) on assignment from the NAM. G. W. (Johnny) Johnstone, NAM radio-TV director, has taken on A. Maxwell Hage, former Mutual news editor, to work on the project.

One of those 50 stations was WNBT New York, which popped it in a 1 p.m. time slot on Oct. 28th.

At one time, there were all kinds of filler shows on television to eat up time during the daytime on weekend instead of running a test pattern. Industry on Parade were put together just like a newsreel—a title card followed by silent footage edited together, with voiceover narration and stock music. In between its salute to various companies (NAM members, one suspects), there were right-wing messages about high taxes on business, federal government interference and how the Commies wanted to destroy what made America great (free enterprise). The series was well-written and expertly edited. As a bonus, it used the Filmusic library composed by Jack Shaindlin. There were hundreds and hundreds of cues, some later heard in the background of the earliest Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Here’s one that’s a snapshot of life in the 1950s. First, we see a company that is so good to its workers, it prints a company magazine. In fact, it helps explain the American Way of Life to people in other countries. Of course, since the boss is giving a free magazine, he’s your friend. No need for one of those unions.

Next, the story of the largest ink producer in the U.S. We’re reminded America is “the best read, best informed nation on Earth.”

Ah, but the show breaks for a warning. The American dollar has been devalued! Why? Too much spending by the U.S. government (read "Democrats"). Taxes are unfair (read "businesses are overtaxed"). Sound money means a strong and free America! Cut to a waving flag.

Next, a look at the main competitor to Dixie Cups. We see how Lily Cups are made. Just throw them away after using them once! And there’s something new called “take out food.” I quite like the opening cue, which is among the hundreds not in my Langlois collection.

Well, today there’s no need for a company magazine with the internet, meaning no need for ink. And the Lily Cup people ended up getting bought as part of a leveraged buyout by Morgan-Stanley. Take out food is still around, but how did they order it back then without a delivery app on their phone?

The internet will tell you the series ran on television until 1960. It has episodes in colour labelled from the 1950s, even though you’ll easily spot 1963 model cars and 1964 hair styles in them.

It seems we have a way to go when it comes to "research."

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: How To Avoid An Accident

Mike Wallace lulls us into a false sense of security and then—WHAM!!! He hits us with what he really wants to get across?

A “60 Minutes” episode? Not in this case. We’re talking about a 1949 industrial film called How to Avoid An Accident. At first, it looks like Wallace is narrating an ordinary road safety film. But no! The answer to the title of the film is simple—buy General Tires.

The ten-minute short was made in Chicago, where Wallace was working in radio, by Wilding Productions of Chicago, Detroit and Hollywood, which got into the movie business in 1914 with silent slide films. They were a top industrial film firm for quite a number of years.

This is a great movie for fans of late ‘40s cars and low-budget effects. Stupid children run into the street. Scrrrreeeech!!! Cut to horrified people. Cut to the child lying on the road. Dead? Injured? You decide. All the fault of those non-General Tires. It’s a serious situation but handled with pure cinematic hokum.

Even more hilarious is when a 1949 Dodge Custom Coupe is hit by another car and slides. The car is simply a cut-out drawing that’s pushed into the background of a still photo of a residential intersection. Maybe even cheesier is a shot of a 1947 Pontiac that serves to avoid a car. Cut to another shot. The Pontiac is now a cut-out picture overtop of a photo of a bridge. Decidedly cheesier is a photo of a damaged car swirling after being hit by a train. Each is accompanied by a newspaper with Wallace intoning the shocking headline. These must have been clichés, even in 1949.

We also get a 1949 Ford (which hits a child, see above), what looks like a 1948 Chevrolet and tests using 1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan.

I did like the double-exposure effect where a billboard turns into the children who are on it (see left).

Chicago was the headquarters for two educational film companies at the time: Encyclopaedia Britannica and Coronet Instructional Films. Wallace did some narration work for the latter. He would soon be in New York, pushing Elgin American compacts on You Bet Your Life.

Anyway, I won’t spoil the rest of this short. Have a look.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre—Electric Home of Tomorrow

In 1957, power companies and manufacturers joined forces to come up with the Live Better Electrically Medallion Home programme. It was promoted as making new homes meet basic electrical appliance, housepower and lighting standards in exchange for a bronze certification medallion. It was actually an attempt to get people to buy more and more electric appliances and thus use more power (and be billed for it, of course).

One of the companies that jumped on board was Westinghouse, which came up with a number of short films to tell us all about the wonderous House of Tomorrow.

To be honest, Tex Avery’s animated The House of Tomorrow released at the start of the ‘50s is more fun than this short, but we do get Betty Furness reading cue cards and the Capitol Hi-Q library in the background. Furness was a long-time Westinghouse paid shill, but she tells us she’s just “covering stories.” Right.

Unfortunately, a search through Business Screen magazine didn’t reveal any clues about this film, such as who produced it and when.

Regardless, I’m pretty much a sucker for anything from the ‘50s that looks into gadgetry of the future that’ll make our lives so much cheerier. There’s never a mess anywhere. And we have a housewife with TWO strings of pearls!

Since you’ll want to know, the first cue as the visitors walk toward the ranch house (and isn’t hubby excited when he walks inside!) is TC-435 Light Underscore by Bill Loose and John Seely. When the camera pans over the “entertainment centre” and to the “weather control centre” is that a balalaika mounted to the wall?), we hear TC-431 Light Activity (Loose/Seely). The “home planning centre” is revealed to us with C-8 Domestic Suburban (Loose), while appetisers cook in the oven with C-3 Domestic Children (Loose) in the background; you may remember it from several Yogi Bear cartoons. The ultra-modern slide projector, tape recorder and home movie system are explained with C-9 Domestic Suburban (Loose) enhancing the visuals. Anyway, that’s enough.

Have a look below.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre—Emergency Numbers

Yes, times have changed. Here’s a short cartoon to prove it.

Today, we just programme emergency numbers in our cell phone. In 1984, you could bash in a window with one of those brick phones—if you owned one. Likely you had a phone button phone (more modern than those old dial things) and emergency numbers listed at the front of a nearby phone book.

This 1984 National Film Board animated short from Oscar winner John Weldon involves a cat and dog fight that also reminds us to keep emergency numbers close to our telephones.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: Emergency Numbers

Log Driver’s Waltz may be one of the most popular cartoons to come out of Canada, but that’s not what this post is about.

That cartoon was the creation of John Felix Weldon, a mathematics grad from McGill University in Montreal who won an Oscar in 1979 for the short Special Delivery. But that’s not what this post is about, either.

Weldon spent 33 years at the National Film Board, worked on more than 50 films and animated more than 20. One of them is was Emergency Numbers, made in 1984.

We hope you enjoy it. The very short cartoon is today’s entry in Tralfaz Sunday Theatre.

The Unmerry Story of a Hollywood Christmas

The festive part of the festive season may not have been so, well, festive, in the city where there’s tinsel all year round.

True, stars and their families celebrate Christmas-time with a tree and gifts and parties and the various trappings we’ve come to know. In fact, Hollywood Boulevard was annually transformed into Santa Claus Lane with lights, decorations and a huge parade. Jack Benny was involved in the parade one year, as you shall see.

But something was wrong.

National Enterprise Association columnist Paul Harrison wasn’t in the Christmas spirit when he penned this jaded column that appeared in papers starting December 16, 1939. The Los Angeles climes didn’t make things feel like Christmas. And, in his mind, Hollywood’s holiday season was a whole lot of fakery. He doesn’t point it out in his column, but Benny, Andy Devine and some real horses were wrapping up shooting on a movie called Buck Benny Rides Again around the time his journey down Santa Claus Lane was taking place. Benny’s appearance in the parade was merely a film publicity stunt, a parade designed by merchants to attract customers to stores along the route.

HOLLYWOOD
BY PAUL HARRISON
NEA Service Staff Correspondent
In some ways, this doesn't seem much like the Christmas season. It's more like a fiesta sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, staged by the major studios and directed by Busby Berkeley. The star in the east is a Neon sign on a hovering blimp. Technicolor cameras guard the manger. Holy music comes to you by courtesy of the Upsy-Daisy Brassiere Co.

One trouble is that the “season” begins, by commercial decree and with a big parade, on the day following Thanksgiving. That made it Nov. 24 this year. It is almost as difficult to sustain a mood of sentimentality for a full month as it is to drive along Hollywood Boulevard when the traffic lights are obscured by lines of large tin Christmas trees.
The premiere pageant invariably includes several floats covered with cuties, along with swing bands, military bands and drum-and-bugle corps. You can't play "Jingle Bells" on a bugle. And you are not reminded of peace-on-earth, unless ruefully, while watching a mounted, uniformed troop flourishing unsheathed sabers. But for an ultimate discordant touch, I nominate the spectacle of Jack Benny astride a stuffed horse followed by Andy Devine with a shovel.
SANTA BETRAYS SLIGHT ACCENT
After the first, big parade, the Santa Claus float moves up and down the boulevard each evening unattended except by a couple of motorcycle cops. This month the whiskered saint betrays an accent as he shouts greetings into a microphone—“Folks, dis is de toiteenth year dat I been ridin' down Sandy Claus Lane . . ." In decoration and illumination, his huge conveyance looks faintly Japanese, but pure Hollywood is the blowing device which erupts every few seconds and showers the float with bleached-cornflake snow.

Of course the local weather, distressingly dry and enervating at this time, conspires against a Christmasy feeling. In previous years the shouts of newsboys could be depended on for a helpful touch. "Big Blizzard Sweeps Through East!" they'd holler. But the war has forced those stories off the front pages.
There are no sleds in the toy departments, and skates are for the refrigerated rinks. Only local ski slide is a slope covered with pine needles. The palms that line the avenues are dusty and brittle, though now and then some citizen will decorate one with colored lights in observance of the season.
In dozens of vacant lots, Christ mas-tree merchants sell dispirited little firs and spruces that have been tracked in from the mountains, many of them across the desert from Arizona. When a tree begins to droop and lose its luster, the merchants take a tip from movie prop men end spray them with bright paint. Besides misery green trees, there are pink, blue and platinum blond ones. In an uppity store here is a tree painted jet black and decorated with pearl ornaments. It'd give you the shudders.
POOR RICH KID CAN'T WATCH TOYS
In any town lucky enough to have seasons, the nip of winter enhances a grateful sense of snugness for people who have clothes and food and homes. Tingling cold is a reminder or others' needs, and a stimulant to human sympathy. But in Hollywood the street crowds seem to feel that the hot sidewalks are enough to keep Salvation Army kettles boiling. And the perspiring bell-clanging Santa Clauses, lifting their whiskers now and then to mop their faces, give little more than comic symbolism to charity.

This morning I watched a couple of raggedy kids with noses flattened against the window of a department store toy display. But then appeared a far more pathetic figure—a third boy, this one in a limousine that drew up at, the curb to let a woman alight. The youngster flattened his nose against the car window and tried to see the animated toys. He couldn't get out. His wealthy father and second stepmother are afraid of kidnapers.
On Christmas morning, he'll have plenty of toys, and a governess and a bodyguard to help him play with them. His dad and the blond dish whom he calls "mother" will he up at Late Arrowhead with their gang.

Now, Tralfaz Sunday Theatre brings you the aforementioned parade-promoted film: Buck Benny Rides Again.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: The Light in Your Life

One of the busiest industrial studios in the 1940s and ’50s gets no notice from animation fans today. It was Raphael G. Wolff studio at 1714 North Wilton Place, not all that far from the old Warner Bros. cartoon studio. For a time Earl Klein was Wolff’s art director after leaving the Chuck Jones unit and the musical director was a chap named Hoyt Curtin.

Ray Wolff was an advertising photographer from Chicago who came to Hollywood and opened a photographic business in 1937. He somehow expanded into advertising films. His studio made hundreds of shorts for businesses. Some included animated portions. One (of many) of them was made for General Electric in 1949 and called The Light in Your Life.

Business Screen magazine devoted two pages of its May 5, 1949 edition to this film (“Thirty types of lamps are featured,” we’re told). It would appear G.E. (who would later use Mr. Magoo as its spokescartoon) wanted to be represented by an animated character like many other businesses of the day and came up with J. Lumen Lightly. He co-stars with nine-year-old Eilene Janssen, an MGM contract player who was crowned Little Miss America of 1948. She later recalled G.E. sent her on tour with the film along with her mother, her pianist and her marimba. Eilene continued acting until 1980 (she had a recurring role on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet on TV). I can’t tell you who is playing the Cliff Arquette-ish Lightly. I thought it might be Earle Ross.

The story owes something to Alice in Wonderland and, to a small extent, Tom and Jerry cartoons where the black housekeeper is seen from neck down. Jonathan Boeschen located the print below on-line.

There’s virtually no biographical material about Wolff on-line. An obituary article was written in the South Pasadena Review of Monday, February 21, 1972. Oddly, it doesn’t make a direct mention of his career in industrial films; it focuses on art instead. And it avoids mentioning he was six-foot-five.

Raphael Wolff Died. Funeral Held Feb. 16
Funeral services for Raphael G. Wolff, Sr., well-known Southern California artist, were held at the Wee Kirk O’ The Heather, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Wednesday noon, Feb. 16. Interment Forest Lawn, Glendale.
Wolff was born in St. Louis, Mo., June 3, 1901. He was a sickly boy and, at the age of 14, was given only one year to live. With this in mind and to enjoy that short period of time, he and a friend went to the head waters of the Missouri and floated down of the Gulf of Mexico. [Note: Wolff was 22 and with two other friends according to contemporary newspaper reports).
Later, with his health restored, Wolff came to California and became a noted photographer for advertising, eventually entering the scenic art field, doing backgrounds for television advertising spots. At one time, his studio employed 85 artists.
Ray’s father was a noted artist around the turn of the century, but the son didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps.
About ten years ago, Wolff sold his studio and business, and began the study of art, painting with oil colors. He developed rapidly and soon was taken into many of the leading art groups. He was a member of the California Art Club, the Valley Artists Guild, the San Gabriel Fine Arts Association, and just recently was voted a member of the Artists of the Southwest, Inc. He had been active in the Business Men’s Art Institute and had served on its board of directors. He had won many ribbons and honors.
Ray was a member of the William D. Stephens Masonic Lodge No. 698, F. and A.M. and the Masonic Press Club, Los Angeles.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre – The Front Line

In 1956 Capitol Records, under the supervision of John Seely and Bill Loose, put together a library of stock music cues called “Capitol Hi-Q” designed for use in industrial films and television shows. We’ve written about it extensively in this post on the other blog.

You’ll hear it in the earliest Hanna-Barbera cartoons, on the original Gumbys and, infamously, on six Warner Bros. cartoons which gave credit to Seely, though he composed few of the cues. It provided one of the themes for The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and The Donna Reed Show (the theme for Dennis the Menace written by Loose and Seely was a Sam Fox cue). And it seems to have been very well used by industrial producers.

One example is in the training film, The Front Line, produced in 1965 by Fred A. Niles Communications and funded by Reader’s Digest in co-operation with something called the Super Market Institute. It’s a nice little time trip to the days when my mother could pay $20 for a week’s groceries, and supermarket chains had different sized paper bags in slots at the end of the checkout counter (They stopped using paper bags to save trees and the environment, and switched to plastic. We know how well that’s saved the environment).

There’s a little bit of humour with a dyspeptic shopper in this industrial short, which won an Honorable Mention at the 1966 San Francisco International Film Festival. But it’s chock-full of Capitol Hi-Q goodness. The opening and closing theme is PE-283 Bright Beautiful by Phil Green, Ken Thorne and Geoff Love, a trio of English composers who worked for EMI. Green wrote a lot of stock music on his own. A partial list of cues:

6:20 – TC-430 Happy Day (Loose and Seely, the Donna Reed theme)
7:44 – GR-63 The Giraffe (Green)
7:56 – TC-431 Light Activity (Loose and Seely)
9:33 – TC-437 Light Activity (Loose and Seely, a Yogi Bear cue)
11:02 – PE-289 Whistling Boy (Green-Thorne-Love)
11:39 – TC-436 Domestic (Loose and Seely, a Yogi Bear cue)

Checkout counters at supermarkets have changed since this film was made (as lines get clogged by people whose debit cards don’t work) and, of course, so has background music. Hi-Q continued to add albums until the late ‘60s and finally discontinued it. But it’s still around and turns up in the most unexpected places if you like industrial films of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s.

My thanks to Tim Lones for inadvertently suggesting this Sunday Theatre entry.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre – The High Sign

Today, we present Buster Keaton’s great 1921 short for Metro, “The High Sign.” It was still playing in New York City a year later. Variety’s review:

THE HIGH SIGN
Buster Keaton's latest Metro twin reeler is the comedy relief at the Capitol this week. Eddie Cline collaborated with the star on the story and direction, producing an interesting slapstick comedy.
Keaton has but to continue at the present rate and he will become a valuable adjunct to any film program. His stuff is original, and always consistent with the story thread he maintains. No haphazard bits for him, always ringing them in legitimately.
A secret society is out to blackmail August Nickelnurser for $10,000 or inflict capital punishment on him. Keaton is engaged by the victim as the bodyguard and by the secret society as their emissary in carrying out the death threat. He decides to protect him and double-cross the "dirty dozen" that comprise the Buzzards. A cross section of a house with numerous trap-doors and secret exits makes for some fast rough and tumble work, Keaton eventually annihilating the would-be assassins.
That old timer, Al St. John, is alloted a bit in the comedy. He is the only familiar in the support. St. John at one time was also Fatty Arbuckle's running mate in the corpulent comedian's two-reel output, later doing some feature work on the Fox Sunshine lot. He ought to be taken in hand by someone. He suggests untold possibilities.
Outside of that the comedy is all Keaton. The star predominates and to good purpose. Abel.

Exhibitors Herald revealed the woman in the film is Bartine Zane.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre – V For Victory

Time for a short message to buy Canadian War Bonds. This brief cartoon was made by Norman McLaren for the National Film Board in 1941. It features a symbol of the letter “V” in Morse Code (three dots and a dash), the letter “V” itself and a stick man. It was drawn on the 35-mm. film stock itself.

The music is “The Thunderer” by John Philip Sousa.

Tralfaz Sunday Theatre – Your Blue Chip Market

Several companies used the name “Criterion Films.” One was set up by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in 1935. We suspect the company responsible for the following commercial film was the Criterion Films started in Seattle in 1949. Ex Disney employee Vern Witt was hired as a cameraman at that time, as was Curt Roberts of KING to handle scripts and promotions.

Standard Oil bankrolled a picture in 1951 showing the sights of Seattle. This one from 1954 touts the wonders of Los Angeles. The only credit on it belongs to Robert Tobey, a union film photographer starting in 1928 who originally worked for Technicolor in Boston before moving to Hollywood. He died in 1973. But you should recognise the uncredited narrator on this as the glorious Marvin Miller.

The film was made for the Los Angeles Herald-Express. “On the way home in the late afternoon, people have the leisure to buy and read their favourite evening paper, the Herald-Express,” Marvin tells us. Alas, television would soon make the evening paper as obsolete as the streetcars you can also see in this film.

Unless you’re a fan of Marvin’s—and he employs a nice bubbly read in this—or scenes of 1950s Los Angeles, I doubt you’ll be able to watch the whole thing.