Animation &Errol Le Cain &Independent Animation &Richard Williams 04 Sep 2010 07:35 am
The Sailor & the Devil
- There was a documentary about Richard Williams that I saw many years ago on PBS. It made me an ardent enthusiast of Williams’ work, and I followed his trajectory over many years. Eventually, I worked with him.
The show was called The Creative Person: Richard Williams and was made in 1966. Within the show was a very small section about one of Williams’ artists, Errol LeCain. He was given the task of making a film 
by himself. As Williams explains, this would teach him all the aspects of animation filmmaking and the studio would gain a short film in the end.
The film was called The Sailor and the Devil. This is probably the only film done by the Williams Studio that I haven’t seen. It’s still not on YouTube. Hans Bacher gave some color images on his site, one1more2time3, a year ago. Wanting more, I went back to the special and made frame grabs of some of the film, and I’m posting them here.
Dick was so young, as was Errol LeCain. He went on, of course, to become a world-class children’s book illustrator and the original designer of the backgrounds for the ill-fated Cobbler and the Thief.
Errol LeCain
A glimpse at the storyboard on the wall.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
Another shot of LeCain.
on 04 Sep 2010 at 4:11 pm 1.Jason said …
A-Mazing stuff! I want to see this too!
on 27 Mar 2011 at 9:12 am 2.Sue van Straten said …
I saw Sailor and the Devil in about 1970 in South Africa. Ever since then I have tried to obtain a copy of this incredible cartoon, but it seems it cannot be found.Does anyone know where one can either purchase or download it??
Sue
Francistown
Botswana