commercial animation &Layout & Design &UPA 16 Apr 2012 04:59 am
The Man on the Flying Trapeze – pt.1
- The new UPA dvd 3-set comes in three separate categories: there are the Great films, the Good films, and the Bad films. Definitely, one of the Bad films is The Man on the Flying Trapeze. It seems to want to be either The Dover Boys or Rooty Toot Toot, and it’s most certainly neither. The film is just poorly plotted. There are some interesting transitions and some interesting set pieces. I give credit for that to the designer.
The designer is Paul Julian who also did the backgrounds, and his work, as far as I’m concerned, is brilliant. I decided to pull frame grabs of this film to highlight the beautiful design and background work of Julian. It’s taken a very long time, and I’ll have to break this post into two. I just can’t get it all done in one day. But I hope you can see the excellence of Julian’s work.
1Just a brlliant title card.
2
A slow pan down over the credits.
Left to right stoppng on the main title.
Then continuing into the scene.
4
5
The player piano sets the mood for the entire film.
A ragtime score, piano leading, with little consequential dialogue.
6
7
The guy just fades on, in place, ready to throw the dart.
8
9
10
Pan left to right with the Trapeze Artist.
Slow pan left to right with the audience.
Again pan left to right with the Trapeze Artist.
14
15
16
17
Beautiful trees remind me of the scene in The Dover Boys
where the villain pulls the heroine away from the tree.
18
19
20
21
We pan with the bicyclist.
23
The man from the trapeze passes our hero . . .
24
. . . who spins out of control.
25
A beautiful Julian house and a great new color scheme
for this section of the film.
26
27
28
Taking advantage of the new colors to . . .
29
. . . separate the interiors from the exteriors.
30
31
32
33
34
35
to be concluded next week.
on 16 Apr 2012 at 8:11 am 1.Mark Mayerson said …
While the design in this cartoon is noteworthy, I found the animation weaker and the cartoon not as much fun as the Fleischer Popeye version from the ’30s.
on 16 Apr 2012 at 9:26 am 2.Michael said …
You’re definitely right, Mark. The Fleischer cartoon is a good one. I remember it being good looking as well. (I’ll have to go back and take another look.)
on 16 Apr 2012 at 9:41 am 3.Thad said …
I actually kind of like this cartoon, though I readily admit it’s not a gem of any sort. Count me as another who prefers the Fleischer Popeye version, and even that short bit with the song found in the Famous Screen Song Circus Comes to Clown animated by Johnny Gent (ending with Blackie the Lamb gunning down the man on the flying trapeze).
on 17 Apr 2012 at 9:21 am 4.Grant said …
Nice backgrounds, but I find they often DO distract from the characters—not that anything moving in this cartoon is particularly interesting.
on 17 Apr 2012 at 12:49 pm 5.Stephen Worth said …
I can’t really tell what’s going on in the backgrounds. The colors are arguing too loudly. Stuff that should be receding is leaping forward and stuff in the foreground is falling into the distance.
on 17 Apr 2012 at 1:03 pm 6.Stephen Worth said …
I wish that there was a DVD set of the UPA NY commercials and industrials. The things I’ve seen from UPA NY are more interesting than the theatricals. I just got my DVD set, but I haven’t watched it yet. I’ve been all the way through the UPA cartoons in chronological order in the past a couple of times and it was a very tough row to plow. I’m looking forward to the Mr Magoo set. Those consider the audience a little better than the one shots. But the music! Leo Salkin told me that the choice of music at UPA often sabotaged the films. They thought they were being avant garde, but in reality they were adding a soundtrack of fingernails on a chalkboard to a film that might have been watchable otherwise. It’s ironic that they spent such a large amount of money on the music in UPA cartoons.
What I’d really like to see is a restored DVD set of The Alvin Show. Format Films had all the style of UPA and none of the off-putting pretension. Plus, it did it on a minute fraction of the budget.
on 14 Jun 2012 at 8:26 pm 7.Chris Sobieniak said …
We all would like a DVD of “The Alvin Show” Stephen! Someone out there should listen to us!
I recall this cartoon looking really terrible on VHS when it showed up on a collection of UPA shorts nearly 30 years ago. It’s nice to at least finally see them in the best possible way today than what appeared to be release prints spliced together on a reel and run through the telecine unit without much care.