Best Animated Short - 1962

So, if I actually bothered to plan out my hiatus I should have taken it here, since this would have been my 50th review and that meant I could have finished the fifth decade, worked on my rankings of my favorite Oscar nominated films from 1962-1971, taken a nice two month break, and then started fresh on the final three decades. Alas, my excessive travels led to my queue running out and with juggling interviews and the History of Animation course I just didn't have time to work on the last three reviews before embarking of the nightmare that is the PE exam retake. So now here we are, finally finishing off the fifth decade of reviews five months after we started.

Anyways the last Oscar review introduction worked well so we'll continue to do it here.

So 1962 was dominated really by one film in particular: David Lean's 3 and a half hour epic Lawrence of Arabia. The stirring tale of the adventures of Thomas Edward Lawrence is recognized as one of the defining masterpieces in cinema today, as it was 50 years ago. Despite its massive running time, Lawrence of Arabia more than doubled the box office receipts of the second highest grossing film of 1962, the three hour WWII epic The Longest Day. Both films eventually received nominations for Best Picture, with Lawrence of Arabia once again besting its competitor, getting 10 nominations to The Longest Day's 5. The other Best Picture nominations went to The Music Man (6 nominations), the remake of Mutiny on the Bounty starring Marlon Brando (7 nominations), and To Kill a Mockingbird (8 nominations). Of those five only Lawrence of Arabia and To Kill a Mockingbird secured corresponding Best Director nominations.

When Oscar night rolled around, it was obvious that Lawrence of Arabia was going to dominate as well. It took home all of the technical awards it was nominated for: Best Color Cinematography and Art Direction, Best Editing, Best Substantially Original Score, and Best Sound. It was not nominated for Best Color Costume Design, allowing George Pal's part live action/part stop motion film The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm to take the award. George Pal would be somebody we'll be seeing a lot in the next several reviews. The Black and White technicals went to The Longest Day for Cinematography, To Kill a Mockingbird for Art Direction, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane for Costume Design. The Longest Day also won for Best Special Visual Effects and The Music Man won for Best Adapted Score. The titular song from Days of Wine and Roses won Best Original Song.

Things went smoothly for Lawrence of Arabia until the screenplay and acting Oscars. For all of its success, Lawrence of Arabia lost Best Adapted Screenplay to its main competitor To Kill a Mockingbird. The Italian comedy Divorce Italian Style won Best Original Screenplay in a lineup that included zero Best Picture nominees. Egyptian actor Omar Sharif, making his English language film debut, was nominated Best Supporting Actor in Lawrence of Arabia. However, he lost the Oscar to veteran actor Ed Begley for Sweet Bird of Youth. Another young actor, Peter O'Toole, played the title role in Lawrence of Arabia, getting a Best Actor nomination for his work, but he lost the Oscar to veteran actor Gregory Peck, who finally won in his fifth try. I'm sure it was felt that O'Toole would have many future opportunities to win an Oscar. And indeed he has, getting nominated 8 times, all in the Best Actor category, and all eight times resulting in watching somebody else claim the Oscar, from Rex Harrison to Cliff Robertson to John Wayne to Sacheen Littlefeather to Robert DeNiro to Ben Kingsley to Forest Whitaker. Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke took home Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively for The Miracle Worker, with the latter defeating 9-year-ol Mary Badham for To Kill a Mockingbird.

Still, despite these losses, there really were no doubt as to the final outcome once the last two categories came around. Lawrence of Arabia had five Oscars, and only To Kill a Mockingbird had won as many as three. And to nobody's surprise, David Lean captured his second Best Director Oscar, and then Lawrence of Arabia was named Best Picture.

However, there was one category whose result seemed in doubt. And that is what we'll be focusing on: Best Animated Short.

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The Hole

Two men toil away in a pit at a construction site. One of them tries to pass the time by singing, but he is interrupted by his co-worker who is either working on his jackhammer or trying to engage his partner in a spirited conversation. Their conversation touches on many subjects from the St. Bernard's Waltz to insurance. Eventually they settle on the nature of accidents and how a small thing may inadvertently lead to a nuclear apocalypse. It's something that hangs over their heads, just like a large piece of construction equipment. The Hole is a film by John and Faith Hubley, the husband and wife animation team that we've seen before several times. Many of their films deal in some way with the human condition, and The Hole is one such example. It deals specifically with the threat of nuclear warfare that most Americans had to deal with throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. The Hubleys did so by inviting actors George Mathews and Dizzy Gillespie (who would later work with the Hubleys again in the Oscar nominated Voyage to Next) and having them improve a dialogue on the subject while assuming the role of construction workers. The final conversation was edited together and put to animation. It was an ambitious endeavor, but in this case I feel that the improvised dialogue may have been detrimental to the film. Sure, Mathews and Gillespie had a good rapport between each other, but at the same time their conversation seems random and disjointed. One minute they're talking about accidents and they next they're talking about dancing. Furthermore, the two can get so long-winded that I didn't really care about what they were saying anymore. There is probably some deep message in what they're saying regarding the fallacy of fail safe procedures, but it was obscured by the fact that it plays out like two construction workers talking about something they know nothing about. And on extension, the ending that was supposed to be powerful in some way winds up feeling rather anti-climactic. The animation seems typical of most Hubley movies. It's fairly simple and crude, but with a lot more stylistic flair than one might expect. They also included a lot of quiet visual humor. Maybe I'm completely off base of what the Hubleys were trying to achieve with The Hole, but whatever I think it is, it doesn't really work.
Where Can I Watch It?


Icarus Montgolfier Wright

On the eve of a historic flight to the Moon, Jedediah Prentiss, the astronaut making that historic flight, sleeps at night. Despite his slumber his mind was active, thinking about the epic journey ahead of him. His dream self begin questioning the banality his own name and his desire to find a more ambitious name more suitable to go down in history. As he continues dreaming, he thinks about the titans in the history of human flight that came before him. Can their legacy help him find a new name? Icarus Montgolfier Wright had a fairly interesting history. It was a short story written by the late, great American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. Shortly afterward he turned the story into a screenplay for an animated short film directed by veteran UPA animator Osmond Evans. The story (and by extension the film) is a celebration of the triumphant history of human flight. Set on the night of August 22, 1970 (missing the actual moon mission by just over a year and a month), it tracks the thought of an astronaut as he thinks about three famous figures of human flight: Icarus, the Greek mythical character that took to the skies with wax wings but ventured too close to the Sun; the Montgolfier brothers, the French brothers that had the first real flight with their hot air balloon; and the Wright brothers, the men behind the first manned airplane flight at Kitty Hawk. It could be a rather standard affair, but being a Ray Bradbury story Icarus Montgolfier Wright is marked by high levels of tension the entire way through. The script features several repetitious sentences that when spoken expertly by narrator James Whitmore fills the viewer with a sense of mystery and dread. The animation and music also contributes to this tense feeling. The film is constructed largely of paintings by artist Joe Mugnaini, who worked frequently with Bradbury. His art is full of bold lines and shadows that seem reminiscent to the haunting images of UPA's legendary The Tell-Tale Heart. While the film is mostly still images, it has a strong sense of movement achieved through camera work that includes numerous pans, tilts, and dissolves. The vivid soundtrack also lends to the air of nervousness that permeates the film. I never really figured out how it was possible to make a celebration of human achievement into something that felt like a thriller, but at the same time I also expect nothing less from Ray Bradbury.
Where Can I Watch It?
For the longest time, Icarus Montgolfier Wright was one of the hardest films to watch. It was pretty common in the 1960s, but then eventually went out of print. It was rarely seen for decades until animator Mike Kazaleh restored a 16mm print he had received as a gift from Herbert Klynn, the film's executive producer, and then posting it on YouTube in 2011.


Now Hear This

A large red devil missing a horn walks around looking for his missing body part. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world an elderly British gentleman with hearing difficulty comes across a strange cone-shaped contraption. After close inspection he decides it would make a better hearing trumpet than his old worn down thing. However, he soon finds himself thrust into a strange world of bizarre sounds and experiences, along with a mysterious man in a pink suit. Warner Bros. is one of the titans of the golden age of studio animation. Their characters have gone down in history as some of the most iconic characters in all of entertainment, and the ringed opening sequences of their Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series are instantly recognizable decades after they were first introduced. However, by the early 1960s the Warner Bros. Studios was on its last legs. Perhaps influenced by the changing tides in animation, director Chuck Jones created a new opening to the Looney Tunes series, one defined by more limited and abstract animation and more discordant chords. It was fairy off-beat, but it was nothing compared to the film chosen to be the first film with the new titles: Now Hear This. The titles hinted at the chaos that would ensue, as letters from the title march together accompanied by strange sound effects. The rest of the film is just as surreal and screwy. There is some semblance of a plot, but that seems just a way for Jones to see how much utterly random visual and audio elements he can fit in the span of six minutes to torture the main character and the viewers along with it. We hear an ant that sounds like a train. We see an egg grow legs and play a trombone. And the backgrounds play along as well with abstract geometric shapes. The level of randomness felt a lot like another surreal film we had seen, the Yugoslavian film Tup Tup, which came a decade later. The animation has also progressed to reflect the style of the times. The characters are fairly well designed, but the backgrounds are minimal and usually used for effect. Sound effects are prominent in the film, but I found most of them to be grating. Now Hear This was an interesting foray into the surrealistic realm, but I personally found it too annoying. I'd take the controlled chaos of Chuck Jones's masterpiece Duck Amuck over the utter randomness of Now Hear This any day.
Where Can I Watch It?
It's not available in its entirety on YouTube or any other video site that allows for embedding, but it is available for free on the Turner Classic Movies website, so head over there and watch it.

Self Defense...for Cowards

Prepare yourself for one of the most helpful lectures that you will ever have to survive in today's testosterone-driven society. In the increasingly aggressive world, people are always itching to get into a fight. However, those that are much more passive may get caught up in this mess to the detriment of their health and body. The standard social mores would no longer hold in these situations, so the standard coward must use these other valuable steps. A few weeks ago I reviewed How to Avoid Friendship on this space, the mock self-help documentary by Rembrandt Films teaching viewers how to wiggle out of excessive friendly folks. Well, now we have come to the precursor film in the series. This time instead of focusing on avoiding unprovoked friendliness in social settings, it tells us how to avoid unprovoked fistfights in social settings. It's certainly much more practical than the other film, since whoever in their right minds would want to get involved in a physical altercation? However, like its companion film, Self Defense...for Cowards from a rather crippling problem in that it's just not very funny. The film starts out all right with scenes of guys getting tossed out of bars after presumably losing a fight, and then we see our scrawny hero getting punched out after trying but failing to reason with his opponent. It's clear that reason won't work against men fueled by testosterone and alcohol, but then one of the strategies is to distract the person using psycho-analysis and then running away while the brute talks about his feelings. I understand the film was supposed to be in tongue-in-cheek, and that psychotherapy was huge in the late 1950s/early 1960s, but I couldn't help but get bothered by that. In my opinion this strategy seems much more likely to get a fist to the face than simple reason, but maybe it's just my aspirations to get into psychiatry cringing at the armchair psychology. Once again, the narration is covered by British actor Arthur Treacher, who does a decent job with the material at hand. The direction is handled by Gene Deitch, who makes good use of the faux-filmstrip look to offset the limited animation. Still, there isn't much one can do to salvage a comic film that isn't funny.
Where Can I Watch It?
This is also not available on YouTube or any other site that allows for embedding, but it is available to watch and to buy on the Rembrandt Films website.

A Symposium on Popular Songs

You are hereby invited to the lavish home of one of the greatest musical minds of our time, Ludwig von Drake, as he plays of us some of his greatest compositions from his illustrious career covering decades and genres of popular music. Get ready to rock out to ragtime hit "Rutabaga Rag," flapper song "Charleston Charlie," depression-era tune "Although I Dropped $100,000," crooner classic "I'm Blue for You," boogie-woogie swing song "Boogie Woogie Bakery Man," pop standard "Puppy Love is Here to Stay," and the modern rock ballad "Rock, Rumble, and Roar, Richard and Robert Sherman were born to the great songwriter Al Sherman, and they eventually followed their father into the wonderful world of songwriting. They now stand as among the most prolific composers in film history, mostly through their collaboration with the Walt Disney Studios. A Symposium on Popular Songs was one of their early chances to shine. Not only did they write all of the songs, but they also helped in writing the film's screenplay, although they went uncredited in that role. The film features seven original songs that are pay tribute to seven different genres of music from the first 60 years of the 20th century. These songs are all quite catchy and reflect on the original genres quite well. "I'm Blue for You" was the song I heard most often because it was the only one featured in Disney's Sing-a-long videos from the 1980s that I grew up with, but "Puppy Love is Here to Stay" has become my favorite. It's not only one of the catchiest songs in the film, but it also takes some mischievous shots at the wholesome American boy image of the 1950s. It's basically about a 14 year old boy that falls in love with a 10 year old and decides to become a delinquent so they can graduate high school together. Take that, societal norms! On the other hand "Bookie Woogie Bakery Man" has enough ugly Chinese stereotypes to make it the most distasteful for a person of Chinese heritage like me.The songs are animated with the stop motion animation that Disney had developed, largely through the efforts of animator Bill Justice, with the Oscar nominated Noah's Ark and the titles for The Parent Trap. The rest of the film between the songs are done in traditional animation featuring Ludwig von Drake, the bumbling genius created for television when the "Disneyland" TV series was upgraded to "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color." His tangents and malapropisms were delivered with great aplomb by voice actor Paul Frees, and keep these down periods entertaining. While the legacy of A Symposium on Popular Songs has become largely forgotten in recent years, it's still a solid part of the Disney lineup.
Where Can I Watch It?


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Well, that's another review done with. Of these five nominees, two of them stand out for me. Icarus Montgolfier Wright was a gripping celebration of human achievement and a great combination of art and literature, while A Symposium on Popular Songs was a wildly entertaining romp through musical history of the 20th century and an early showcase of the genius of Richard and Robert Sherman. It's a tough choice, and in the end while I liked A Symposium on Popular Songs more, I might have to give this one to Icarus Montgolfier Wright. It was a filmmaking tour-de-force, with its vibrant camera work giving the illusion of movement and the Ray Bradbury script. But both films are terrific

And then the Academy went and gave the Oscar to The Hole. Oh well, shows what I know.

My rankings (by quality)
Icarus Montgolfier Wright > A Symposium on Popular Songs > The Hole > Now Hear This > Self Defense...for Cowards

My rankings (by preference)
A Symposium on Popular Songs > Icarus Montgolfier Wright > The Hole > Now Hear This > Self Defense...for Cowards

Also, this finally marks the end of the ten-year period from 1962-1971. I'm going to do what I normally do after these ten-year periods and rank them by preference. Now in the past I've been posting them on Saturday and going back to the regularly scheduled review the Wednesday afterward, but I've only just got off my hiatus and I'm trying to rebuild my queue, so I'm afraid the rankings won't be coming until next week, and the 1961 review will be coming two weeks from now.