Filmography: UPA's Man On The Land 1951

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 7 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great cartoons to study.

Our server is maxed out right now, so the movie file may take a while to load. Check back a little later and it will be a lot smoother. You've already got the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive in your bookmarks... Right?


We received a surprise in the mail today from Archive supporter James Tucker- a DVD of great fifties industrial films, including UPA's groundbreaking Man On The Land. This film includes animation by Pat Matthews, Grim Natwick and Art Babbitt, but animation isn't the primary attraction here. It's the drop dead brilliant layouts by Director Bill Hurtz, Associate Director Art Heinemann and background artists Bob Dranko, Boris Gorelick and Paul Julian (among others). Just about every setup in this film is strong enough to be an illustration in a book. Check out the depth and lighting in these backgrounds. They may be painted flat, but they sure aren't composed flat. If this sort of design sensibility was applied to a cartoon with vivid characters, humor and entertainment value, wouldn't it be incredible? (Like this!)





















This is a large file, so allow yourself some time before clicking on the link.

Man On The Land (UPA/1951)
(Quicktime 7 / 16 minutes / 35 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

It's great folks like James Tucker that make sure that cartoons like this aren't lost and forgotten. We all owe him a big thank-you for sharing his film collection with us at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.

If you found this article to be interesting, see also... John Sutherland's Rhapsody of Steel, Artzybasheff's Machinalia, The Alvin Show Pilot Storyboard, Jules Engel's Alvin Show Color Keys, UPA Done Right, Early 50s UPA Model Sheets, Herb Klynn The Shrimp, and Grim Natwick's Post UPA Commercials.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Update: John Sutherland's Rhapsody of Steel

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 7 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great cartoons to study.


We received a surprise in the mail today from Archive supporter, Kevin Kidney- a DVD of John Sutherland's landmark industrial film, Rhapsody of Steel. For more information about this great film, see our previous post.


This is a very large file, so allow yourself some time before clicking on the link.

Rhapsody of Steel (Sutherland/1959)
(Quicktime 7 / 22 minutes / 50.5 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

If you found this article to be interesting, see also... John Sutherland's Rhapsody of Steel, Artzybasheff's Machinalia, The Alvin Show Pilot Storyboard, Jules Engel's Alvin Show Color Keys, UPA Done Right, Early 50s UPA Model Sheets, Herb Klynn The Shrimp, and Grim Natwick's Post UPA Commercials.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Filmography: John Sutherland's Rhapsody of Steel

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see the bonus reason on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts featuring animation art.


Today we scanned a read-along storybook adaptation of John Sutherland's industrial film, Rhapsody of Steel (1959). Sutherland's studio was very influential in the mid-1950s, employing some of the best designers in the business. This film is no exception. Legendary stylists Eyvind Earle (Sleeping Beauty, Pigs is Pigs) and Maurice Noble (Duck Dodgers, How The Grinch Stole Christmas) collaborated on Rhapsody of Steel, and you can see evidence of both their hands everywhere in these pages. (Earle in the landscapes and textures, Noble in the bold primary and secondary colors...)

Time Magazine said of this film...

Rhapsody of Steel, a 23-minute animated cartoon that cost $300,000, is one of those rare industrial films with enough specific quality and general interest to play the commercial circuits. In the next few months it will be shown as an added attraction in several thousand U.S. movie houses. Made by former Disney Staffer John Sutherland, Rhapsody sets out to tell a sort of child's history of steel from the first meteor that ever hit the earth to the first manned rocket that leaves it, and most of the time Moviemaker Sutherland proves a slick entertainer and a painless pedagogue. Unhappily, the music of Oscar-Winning Dmitri Tiomkin, who is probably the world's loudest composer, bangs away on the sound track like a trip hammer. But the picture's pace is brisk, its tricks of animation are better than cute, and the plug, when the sponsor slips it in on the final frame, is modestly understated: "A presentation of U.S. Steel."

I have included a Quicktime of Rhapsody of Steel at the bottom of this post, and you can find many other John Sutherland fIlms at Archive.org. This book suffers from little tiny pictures and oceans of white space, so I've enlarged a bunch of the pictures so you can see them better.























Courtesy of Archive supporter, Kevin Kidney, here is a video of the film for you to view...

Rhapsody of Steel (Sutherland/1959)
(Quicktime 7 / 22 minutes / 50.5 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

Here's a great post by Michael Sporn on Eyvind Earle.

If you found this article to be interesting, see also... Artzybasheff's Machinalia, The Alvin Show Pilot Storyboard, Jules Engel's Alvin Show Color Keys, UPA Done Right, Early 50s UPA Model Sheets, Herb Klynn The Shrimp, and Grim Natwick's Post UPA Commercials.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Biography: Lu Guarnier 1914-2007

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.



Michael Sporn reported today that animator, Lu Guarnier passed away on December 29th. (Read his post here.) He writes...

Tissa David told me that the UPA studio was one long space that was divided into cubicles. She called them “stalls” like horses would occupy at a racetrack. Grim Natwick, Tissa and Jack Schnerk shared the end corner cubicle. The only one who had his own space and the only one to have a window was Lu Guarnier.

Here are the studio gag drawings relating to Lu's window...

















If you enjoyed this post, see... Grim Natwick Exhibit: The Modern Era (UPA and beyond), UPA Model Sheets, Grim Natwick's Post-UPA Commercials, UPA Done Right

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

2007 Review: 2 Grim Natwick

As the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive completes its second year in operation, it's time to review the accomplishments of the past year. Here's a countdown of the ten most important subjects we've covered in 2007. See if your list matches mine. (View the complete list.) Click on the links to read more on this topic.



NUMBER 2: GRIM NATWICK

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is pleased to present an exhibit of material from the collection of legendary animator, Grim Natwick. If you are in the area, stop by to see the exhibit.

Grim Natwick is undoubtedly one of the most influential animators who ever lived. His career spanned the entire history of animation- from its earliest days in New York to Richard Williams' Cobbler and the Thief in recent times. Grim worked at many of the major studios- Hearst, Fleicher, Iwerks, Disney, Lantz, UPA, Jay Ward, Melendez and Richard WIlliams. He animated in every style, but was able to maintain his own personal flavor, regardless of whether he was animating for modern studios like UPA or cartoony ones like Fleischer. If one had to define the single element that set his animation apart, it would have to be that his characters always seemed to have a genuine spark of life.

Grim was a friend of mine. I spent many entertaining afternoons with him on his porch, listening to his memories of "the old days". Grim remembered everything. I once mentioned the name of an assistant animator he worked with at Fleischer. Grim not only recalled working with him more than half a century before, he remembered his bowling scores! When Grim passed away at the ripe old age of 100, his family asked me to organize his artwork. Whenever Grim left a studio, the contents of his desk was emptied into boxes and sent off to his storage locker in Missouri. When all of the boxes arrived for sorting at his apartment in Santa Monica, I was astonished to find thousands and thousands of drawings- amazing examples from a career that spanned more than 75 years.


The drawings that were most precious were the gag drawings and caricatures that grew on the walls of the studios like leaves on a tree. There were also many important sketches documenting Grim's thought process- the roughs that were usually thrown in the trash after a job was completed. These are the drawings that make up this exhibit. I hope this exhibit gives you a clear idea of who Grim Natwick was as an artist and as a person. -Stephen Worth

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THE ONLINE EXHIBIT CATALOG

• Introduction: Grim Natwick's Scrapbook


• Part One: Grim's Early Years In New York (Hearst/Krazy Kat/Fleischer)
• Anatomy Studies
• "Swing, You Sinners" (1930)
• "Mariutch" (1930)


• Part Two: The Golden Age of Animation (Iwerks/Disney/Lantz)
• Disney's Offer
• Natwick on Iwerks
• Iwerks Model Sheets


• Part Three: The Modern Era (UPA and beyond)
• UPA Model Sheets
• Post-UPA Commercials


• Part Four: The Greatest Animator Who Ever Lived (Studio Gag Drawings and Caricatures)

---

Assistant Archivist, Joseph Baptista views the exhibit.
GRIM NATWICK'S SCRAPBOOK
An Exhibit Presented By The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506
Now Showing, Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

Follow this series of posts over the course of this coming week. I think you'll be amazed at the versitility and creativity of this great artist. Stop by and see the exhibit soon.

Many thanks to the Walter Lantz Foundation for providing the facilities for this exhibit, and to the Walt Disney Animation Research Library for providing the mattes.

Go To Number 1 on the list of Top Ten Subjects of 2007

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
,

Stumble It!

2007 Review: 7 Modern Animation

As the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive completes its second year in operation, it's time to review the accomplishments of the past year. Here's a countdown of the ten most important subjects we've covered in 2007. See if your list matches mine. (View the complete list.) Click on the links to read more on this topic.


From Early 50s Disney Christmas Cards February 10th, 2007
NUMBER 7: MODERN ANIMATION

Amid Amidi's great book, Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 1950s Animation stirred up a recent revival of interest in 1950s stylized animation. Just about every animation related blog had posts dealing with the subject. Back in May, a firestorm of controversy erupted around a fascinating series of articles on John Kricfalusi's blog, All Kinds of Stuff.


More than any other animator, John K is responsible for bringing stylized animation back to television. The Log commercials on The Ren & Stimpy Show and John's more recent commercials for Old Navy (pictured above) were masterful homages to what Amid terms "Cartoon Modern". But John's interest in the style isn't without criticism. His comments about the dominance of design over entertainment value in the theatrical cartoons of UPA resulted in one of the most stimulating and provocative discussions of animation theory in some time. The informed and impassioned arguments on both sides of the issue spilled over into Michael Sporn's Splog and Amid's Cartoon Brew.


My own volley in the battle over UPA was titled...
Design: UPA Done Right May 24th, 2007

Criticism of modern animation isn't without precident... Mark Mayerson posted a blistering analysis by one of the founders of the UPA style, Chuck Jones...


Chuck Jones On Modern Animation March 11th, 2007

Other posts this year that featured the modern style were...

• Story: Alvin Show Pilot Board September 21st, 2007


• Herb Klynn's The Shrimp February 25th, 2007

I'm sure there will be many more discussion of this interesting topic in the coming year.

Go To Number 6 on the list of Top Ten Subjects of 2007

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Exhibit: Grim Natwick's Scrapbook Index

Feel free to bookmark this page as a "jump page" to read the articles on Grim Natwick in order.

• Introduction: Grim Natwick's Scrapbook


• Part One: Grim's Early Years In New York (Hearst/Krazy Kat/Fleischer)
• Anatomy Studies
• "Swing, You Sinners" (1930)
• "Mariutch" (1930)


• Part Two: The Golden Age of Animation (Iwerks/Disney/Lantz)
• Disney's Offer
• Natwick on Iwerks
• Iwerks Model Sheets


• Part Three: The Modern Era (UPA and beyond)
• UPA Model Sheets
• Post-UPA Commercials


• Part Four: The Greatest Animator Who Ever Lived (Studio Gag Drawings and Caricatures)

Please help us spread the word about this exhibit. Tell your friends. Post about it to your blogs. Thanks!
.

Stumble It!

Exhibit: Grim Natwick's Caricatures And Gag Drawings

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.


Grim Natwick with his "kid assistant",
Chuck Jones (Iwerks/1933)

PART FOUR: THE GREATEST ANIMATOR
WHO EVER LIVED
Like most animators, Grim Natwick had a unique sense of humor. He was famous for his limericks, scribbled in on the margins of his animation drawings. Here are a couple of doozies by Grim...

I've broken my friendship with Babbitt
Because of his slovenly habit
Of eating out loud
And I've never been proud
Of his nibbling bones like a rabbit!

"It's true!" said the painter to the prude
"I sketch all my ladies in the nude
A dress is OK
For a window display
But on my girls, it wouldn't improve."

A nail sitting Hindoo said "I
Have perched here and gazed at the sky
Till I've punctured my hide
Fillagreed my back side
I'm damned if I've ever known why!"


Grim prized his studio gag drawings above all the others in his collection. He described how they came to be for me one day...

"At Lantz, we all worked very hard. But occasionally, we would need to take a break and have fun. One of us would draw a quick caricature of one of the other animators, or do a cartoon on a funny situation that had taken place. He'd tiptoe out into the hallway and pin it up on the board and sneak back to his desk. Pretty soon, someone else would come along and see the drawing and run back to his desk to answer the gag, pinning up their sketch on the board alongside the other one. By the end of the day, the board would be covered with funny drawings. We'd pull them all down and start all over again the next day."

THE ANIMATOR & HIS ASSISTANT
A Series Of Studio Gag Drawings From UPA NY (ca. 1955)
As an "animation historian", I've never been as interested in the dates and figures related to animation as much as the process- and how it felt to be a part of a golden age studio. These sketches give a clear indication of that, better than words could ever tell...











CONCLUSION
Well... It says "conclusion" up there, so I better get to telling you why Grim Natwick was the greatest animator who ever lived. I don't know how many readers of this blog have had a chance to digest all of my articles from this week. It certainly has been very difficult to summarize a career as long and varied as Grim Natwick's. I had always intended to write a book on Grim, but the weblog may actually be the best format for telling his story.

Books on animation history are usually organized by studio. If you read Leonard Maltin's great book, Of Mice & Magic, Grim Natwick's name is sprinkled throughout six chapters. That might give you the idea that Grim was a marginal figure who moved around a lot. But when you read his life story chronologically- not inserted into six separate chapters- you realize that Grim's life story IS the story of the history of animation. The history of animation isn't the story of studios and characters- it's the story of the artists whose talents created the magic up there on the screen.

Grim Natwick was the greatest animator who ever lived. But I still haven't told you why yet!

Grim loved to tell long, convoluted stories that would inevitably ramble back around to his point. Here's a story like that...

ASIFA-Hollywood heard that Grim was in town and was celebrating a birthday, so we threw a party for him. As he was blowing out the candles, Grim announced that he was pleased to spend his 100th birthday in such fine company. Everyone in the room gasped. No one had any idea that it was Grim's 100th birthday. The room burst into applause. Antran Manoogian, the president of ASIFA-Hollywood drove Grim home after the party. In the car, Grim was uncharacteristically quiet and sheepish. He finally said, "Young man, I have a confession to make... I told everyone that I was 100, but I'm only 97." Antran laughed and promised Grim that ASIFA would throw him an even better party in three years- the best birthday party ever.

Antran kept that promise. when Grim turned 100, ASIFA threw a huge celebration at the Sportsman's Lodge in Studio City. Hundreds of people attended, including co-workers from every studio Grim ever worked with. Grim described it as "the most illustrious gathering of animators since Winsor McCay's testimonial dinner in the late 1920s". At the end of the evening an announcement was made for all of Grim's former coworkers and assistants to gather on the stage for a photo. Animator, Michael Sporn recently posted this photo...



Three of Grim's former assistants were chosen to address the audience that evening... Walter Lantz (Hearst), Chuck Jones (Iwerks) and Marc Davis (Disney). All three spoke of Grim's generosity and friendship. They credited Grim with teaching them their trade and inspiring them to become better artists. Those three men weren't alone in that. Dozens of other great animators... Bill Littlejohn, Irv Spence, Willard Bowsky, Berny Wolf, Tissa David, Shamus Culhane- too many to mention- all traced their own accomplishments back to Grim's example when they were just starting out. Grim's "kid assistants" went on to form the artistic core of every major animation studio in the United States.

Grim is the greatest animator who ever lived, not just for his own accomplishments, but for what he shared with the people he worked with. Animation was never just a job to him. It was his passion. He instilled that passion in his assistants, and those assistants went out into the world and became great themselves. Grim Natwick was the catalyst who made the entire history of animation possible. That's why he is the greatest animator who ever lived.

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EXHIBIT CATALOG: GRIM NATWICK'S CARICATURES & GAG DRAWINGS


Top Row: Caricatures of Grim (left to right) Self caricature* (ca.1926/Hearst) / Self caricature with assistant, Chuck Jones* (1933/Iwerks) / Caricature of Grim on studio outing to Catalina by Chuck Jones (1933/Iwerks) / Caricature of Grim in his fancy suit (ca. 1942/Lantz) / Caricature of Grim at his "studies in Vienna" possibly by Art Heinemann (UPA ca.1955)

Middle Row: (left to right) Two sketches depicting the love/hate relationship between Emery Hawkins and Grim Natwick* (ca. 1944/Lantz) / Bill Nolan at the Krazy Kat Studio* (ca. 1926) / Studio gag drawing (ca. 1959/Robert Lawrence) / Studio gag drawing* (ca. 1936/Disney)

Bottom Row: Tony Sgroi and "Bugs" Hardaway (ca. 1947/Lantz) / Manny Gould* & Sammy Stimpson* (ca. 1926/Krazy Kat Studio) / Bill Nolan with a cold* (ca. 1919/Hearst) / top: Dick Lundy* (ca. 1936/Disney) bottom: Freddie Moore* (ca. 1936/Disney) / Studio gag drawings* (ca. 1929/Fleischer) / Caricatures of Jack Carr* (ca.1923/Krazy Kat Studio)

* denotes a drawing by Grim Natwick

---

Assistant Archivist, Joseph Baptista views the exhibit.
GRIM NATWICK'S SCRAPBOOK
An Exhibit Presented By The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506
Now Showing, Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

Many thanks to the Walter Lantz Foundation for providing the facilities for this exhibit, and to the Walt Disney Animation Research Library for providing the mattes.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
,

Stumble It!

Exhibit: Grim Natwick In The Modern Age

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.

PART THREE: GRIM NATWICK AND MODERN ANIMATION


It's important to keep in mind Grim's age when you look over his career. When he animated Snow White, he was one of the oldest artists at the Disney studio- 49 years of age. When his former assistant from Iwerks, Stephen Bosustow convinced him to join UPA in 1950, he was sixty. Most animators of his generation were thinking of retirement, or coasting on their past accomplishments until their pensions came through... but not Grim. He dove into the stylistic revolution of UPA with both feet. Grim animated on the early Magoo cartoons, as well as one-shots like "Rooty Toot Toot" and "Gerald McBoing Boing". In the early 50s, he was sent to New York as the keystone animator for UPA's East coast office, where he animated many commercials and industrial films for the company, along with his assistant Tissa David.


When UPA NY shut its doors, Grim worked at various New York commercial studios like Ray Favella and Robert Lawrence Productions. He animated on the first television cartoon series, Crusader Rabbit, and later took in work from Jay Ward and Bill Scott on the George of the Jungle program. He freelanced for Melendez and Duane Crowther's Duck Soup Producktions, eventually settling in with director, Richard Williams. He animated on Raggedy Ann & Andy and travelled to the UK to teach while working on Cobbler & the Thief. He continued to draw into his early 90s, until his failing eyesight made it difficult.

One afternoon, as I sat with Grim on his front porch, he casually mentioned that he had been told that there were machines that animated- computers. He wondered aloud "how they manage to get the machines to hold a pencil" and expressed an interest in finding out more about it. So I called my friend Charlie Gibson, who was a partner at Rhythm & Hues in Hollywood. I arranged for Grim to take a tour of their studio the following week.

When we arrived, we found the entire staff of R&H standing in the lobby waiting for us. Charlie showed Grim their machine room and demo reel, and sat him down at a workstation to see how wireframe characters are posed. After a few minutes working with the mouse, Grim leaned back in his chair and said, "I've seen some amazing things here today that I never would have imagined possible. I don't pretend to understand everything I've seen, but I have a basic idea of what you do here. I have just one question to ask you... When I animated Snow White or Mickey Mouse, I had certain tricks to put the personality of the character across... a gesture, the raising of an eyebrow, a bit of acting... How do you do that sort of thing with your computer?"

The room went silent. Charlie paused for a moment and replied, "Well, Grim, you just put your finger on the thing we struggle with every day... Computer animation is still very new. We're constantly learning as we go. To answer your question, we study classic cartoons to learn those secrets from great animators like you."

In the space of an afternoon, Grim had gone from "How do they get the machines to hold a pencil?" to putting his finger on the main issue facing CGI animators. He was truly a remarkable man.

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EXHIBIT CATALOG: GRIM NATWICK IN THE MODERN AGE


Top Row: A Selection Of Natwick Animals (left to right) Chicken character designs from "Solid Ivory"* (Lantz/1947) / Lion doodle (after Jones' "Inki & The Lion")* (ca. 1947) / Tiger studio gag drawing* (ca. 1944) / Character design for Lantz Wartime cartoon (ca.1943) / Concept for children's book* (ca. 1947)

Middle Row: 1950s Commercials (left to right) Character design (ca.1959) / Self caricature of layout artist Art Heineman (UPA ca.1952) / Studio gag drawing depicting an animator being replaced by children cutting out paper dolls (UPA ca.1952) / Model drawing of Bert Piels (Piels Beer) by Tissa David from Grim Natwick animation (UPA ca. 1955) / Model drawings from unknown commercial by Tissa David from Grim Natwick animation (UPA ca.1955)

Bottom Row: Studio Gag Drawings Self caricature by Bill Melendez (ca. early 60s) / Studio gag drawing depicting Bill Scott explaining to a West coast animator how to dress like an East coast animator (UPA NY ca. 1952) / Three studio gag drawings by Bill Scott depicting the relationships between Grim Natwick, John Hubley and Scott (UPA NY ca. 1952)

* denotes a drawing by Grim Natwick

Next Chapter: THE GREATEST ANIMATOR WHO EVER LIVED (Studio Gag Drawings & Caricatures)

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Assistant Archivist, Joseph Baptista views the exhibit.
GRIM NATWICK'S SCRAPBOOK
An Exhibit Presented By The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506
Now Showing, Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

Many thanks to the Walter Lantz Foundation for providing the facilities for this exhibit, and to the Walt Disney Animation Research Library for providing the mattes.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
,

Stumble It!

Exhibit: Grim Natwick- Golden Age Animator

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.

PART TWO: GRIM NATWICK IN ANIMATION'S GOLDEN AGE


In California, Walt Disney had seen some of Grim Natwick's animation of Betty Boop in "The Bum Bandit" and sent his brother Roy to New York to convince him to join them in Hollywood. Ub Iwerks had just left Disney to form his own studio, and an experienced animator was sorely needed to take his place. Roy Disney made Grim a remarkably generous offer, but Grim wasn't sold on going to work for the Disney brothers. He spoke to his friend Ted Sears on the West coast and was advised that Walt Disney was just a businessman- Iwerks had been the real creative core of the studio. So Grim decided that Iwerks' new studio was the place for him.


Click to read Disney's offer to Grim.
Several of Grim's former assistants and co-workers from Hearst and Fleischer were already working for Iwerks. Grim phoned Ub and offered his services, agreeing to work for less than half what Roy Disney had offered him. When Grim arrived at Iwerks, he was so accustomed to leading the crew of young animators, he hit the ground running. Ub had lost interest in animation at this point, and willingly handed over the day to day direction of the cartoons to Grim, while he focused on tinkering in his workshop behind the studio.

At Iwerks, Grim got the opportunity to direct, making a clear mark on films like "Jack Frost", "Room Runners", "Stratos Fear" and "Aladdin's Lamp". But he always loved a challenge. When Grim heard that Disney was planning a feature length cartoon based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, he knew he had to be a part of it. Ub offered him a full partnership in the studio to entice him to stay on, but money wasn't Grim's primary concern. Animation was. Grim reluctantly said goodbye to his friends at Iwerks and joined the Disney studios.


Grim's first animation for Disney was the female lead in "Cookie Carnival". He received great praise from Walt for his work, and was assigned the female lead in the upcoming feature, Snow White to animate. Grim was given some of the studio's top assistants to work with- most importantly, Marc Davis, Les Novros and Jack Campbell. By the end of the picture, he had animated over 120 scenes, with six assistants working under him, producing as much as 35 feet of finished animation a week!

Grim's tenure at Disney was not without turmoil, however. Ham Luske had been promised the character of Snow White before Grim arrived at the studio, and he considered Grim's assignment to be an incursion on his territory. Although Luske had the directing animator credit on the film, he had little direct interaction with Natwick's unit. There was considerable tension on the lot between Walt's boys- the animators who had been with Disney for years- and the East coast animators who had been hired for the feature. Grim paid no mind to it, focusing on his work, but the bad feelings would eventually boil over.

Grim's assistant, Jack Campbell showed promise and wanted to animate, so he was allowed to move to Luske's unit as an animator. There are three Snow Whites in the finished picture... Luske's, Campbell's and Natwick's. Luske's girl is doll-like and close in style to the female leads in the Silly Symphony series (the scene with the bluebird in the forest is a good example), Campbell's girl showed a strong influence of rotoscope (the scene at the wishing well). Natwick's Snow White is the most lifelike and alive (the sequences where she investigates the Dwarf's cottage, the house cleaning scenes, the dancing scenes and the "Someday My Prince Will Come" sequence).


While Grim was putting in many hours of unpaid overtime, Dave Hand, the director, had promised a him bonus if the picture was a hit. But when the bonus checks went around, Grim was passed over, despite the fact that he was one of the key animators on the film. He contested the oversight with the paymaster and requested a copy of the draft to make a list of the scenes he had animated. He was disgusted to find that Luske's name had been substituted for his own on scenes Grim himself had animated. When Max Fleischer called to invite Grim to join him at his new studio in Florida, Grim left Disney without a second thought. The paymaster had arranged for a token bonus, but Grim didn't even bother to pick it up.


Looking back on the situation many decades later, Grim felt that perhaps he should have swallowed his pride and stayed on with Disney to work on Fantasia and Pinocchio. Gulliver's Travels wasn't Natwick's best work. He didn't have the support of talented assitants like Marc Davis, and the application of the rotoscope was much more limiting than it had been at Disney. But after the political struggles at Disney, the Fleischer Studio felt like home, and Grim enjoyed the company of his co-workers.


Grim Natwick Concept Drawing
For "Flies Ain't Human" (1941)
One afternoon, Max Fleischer visited Grim in his office and asked him to animate a sequence of Betty Boop for "old time's sake". He explained that Betty had been a great asset to the studio, but the series had run its course, and this was to be the final Betty Boop cartoon. (The cartoon in question was most likely "Musical Mountaineers".) Max expressed his appreciation and offered to make a gift of the character to Grim upon the completion of the film. Not knowing anything about the legalities of transferring ownership of a property, Grim did nothing about it. But years later, he read in the trades that the rights to Betty Boop had been sold by the Fleischers to King Features Syndicate for a great deal of money. Grim sued, but he had nothing in writing and lost the case. Although some writers have tried to belittle Grim's contribution to the creation of Betty Boop, saying that his part was minimal, history bears out the fact that the character was 100% the creation of Grim Natwick.


World War II made it difficult to find work as an animator, but Grim's old friend Walter Lantz was producing animated training films for the War Department. Grim returned to Hollywood to work for Lantz, where he had the opportunity to reunite with longtime friends like Shamus Culhane and Dick Lundy. In fact, Grim picked up his lunchtime game of horseshoes with storyman "Bugs" Hardaway right where they had left it when he left Iwerks ten years earlier! Lantz's friendly, family atmosphere appealed to Grim, but he didn't become complacent. He reinvented his style to suit the brash, slapstick style of animation at the time, and succeeded in creating some of the finest animation ever produced at Lantz.


Lantz Animators in 1944 (Back Row: Paul Smith, Grim Natwick, Sidney Pillet, Bernard Garbutt Front Row:Les Kline, Shamus Culhane, Pat Matthews, Dick Lund, Emery Hawkins)
Grim's earliest work at the studio included "Take Heed Mr. Tojo" starring Hook, and "Enemy Bacteria", one of the most successful Wartime training films. His great animation for Dick Lundy and Shamus Culhane stood out in films like "Who's Cookin' Who", "Bathing Buddies", "Ski For Two" and "Solid Ivory". In his autobiography, Walter Lantz cited Natwick as the best animator he ever had the pleasure of working with.

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EXHIBIT CATALOG: GRIM NATWICK GOLDEN AGE ANIMATOR


Top Row: (left to right) Girl doodles* (ca. 1936) / Snow White Animation Rough* / Left: Character designs from "Funny Face"* (1933) Right: Animation drawing from "Stormy Seas"* (1932) / Studio gag drawing from Iwerks / Tracings from Natwick Animation of Wally Walrus from "The Beach Nut" (1944)

Middle Row: (left to right) Girl doodle (ca. 1936) / Girl doodle (ca.1940) / Studio gag drawing depicting Ub Iwerks as a boy playing hookey from school* / Studio gag drawing for Art Turkisher* / Character designs from "Enemy Bacteria"*

Bottom Row: Character design for Miss X from "Abou Ben Boogie"* (1944) / Caricature of Lantz Ink & Paint girl / Character designs (ca. 1940) / Character design for "Sliphorn King of Polaroo" (1945) / Animation drawing from "Abou Ben Boogie"* (1944) / Animation drawing from "Who's Cookin' Who?"* (1946)

* denotes a drawing by Grim Natwick

Next Chapter: GRIM NATWICK IN THE MODERN AGE (UPA and beyond)

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Assistant Archivist, Joseph Baptista views the exhibit.
GRIM NATWICK'S SCRAPBOOK
An Exhibit Presented By The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506
Now Showing, Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

Many thanks to the Walter Lantz Foundation for providing the facilities for this exhibit, and to the Walt Disney Animation Research Library for providing the mattes.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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