A beautifully produced post-war film for the Navy by UPA is today’s short!
A little Thunderbean news:
Thunderbean is humming right along, working on finishing sets and special discs. Im especially happy that the Rainbow Parades, Volume 2 set will be out soon, and the long out of print Mid Century Modern 2 set is coming back into print this month. I can’t wait to get the projects that are cooking finished, and we’re having fun getting the finishing touches on quite a few things.
Today’s film: The Sailor and the Seagull (1949)
Right now we’re in a holding pattern on the ‘Cartoons for Victory’ Blu-ray edition, while waiting for several keys films to be scanned. We’ve have been working to finish all but those four films, and as of a few days back we’re almost finished with the set other than the films we’re waiting for.
Becca, one of our restoration folks, just finished cleanup on the HD scan of The Sailor and the Seagull. The film was featured some years back on the DVD “More Cartoons for Victory”. We still have to steady the film a little more and fix a few small things
It’s a beautifully animated short, produced by UPA and directed by John Hubley. In the film, a Seagull plays devil’s advocate in helping ‘Mc Ginty’ understand the benefits of life in the Navy vs. the civilian world.
UPA must have bid low on making these well-produced films since it was stated by more than one of the principals of the company that the first time the studio was profitable was the Ford commercials produced the same year as this short. I wonder if there was an ongoing contract through the late 40s with UPA for these films.
The animation by Bob Cannon in this short sort of harkens back to the animation he did in some of the Private Snafu cartoons at Warners. Each of these films is much, much better animated than what one would think would be needed for these particular types of films.
Funny enough, one of the cameras that UPA bought from Oxberry (number 6!) is sitting in the basement here at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan. I wonder if this short was shot on this animation stand.
The US national archives provided this scan to us, from the Kodachrome A/B rolls. It’s nice to see the short in HD and super clean. Let us know what you think of this little film.
Have a good week everyone!
