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Author
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Topic: Steamboat Willie
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted January 04, 2007 09:28 PM
This simple, primitive little cartoon is a milestone in the history of motion pictures. It shares the spotlight with other films like "The Great Train Robbery", "The Jazz Singer", "The Robe" and "Toy Story": all firsts of particular kinds.
Steamboat Willie is almost more of the answer to a trivia question (Name the first successful animated cartoon with sync sound...) than a real, remembered film. This is simply because so few people ever see much more of it than a couple of seconds of Mickey pulling the whistle cord up in the wheel house. Fortunately it is readily available in Super-8, so maybe our audiences can actually see it and see what the whole thing is actually like.
The animation style is actually more advanced than I'd expected it to be. Then again, Walt Disney and Ubb Iwerks had quite a few animated films under their belts by this time, and their technique had matured quite a bit. The synchronised sound and music gave them fits when they were making the film, but its great success basically put Disney on the map. There is no dialog as such: nothing more complex than "OOOOoooh!: or "Ayyy!!!" is ever said, but even this seems to work.
The interesting thing about the cartoon is by modern standards, it is actually cruel to animals. Examples include Mickey Mouse swinging a cat around by his tail and making music with a goose by grabbing his body and pulling his neck. (That's one BIG mouse!)You know and I know that it's "only a cartoon", but I have a feeling that if it was released in our time there would be picketing outside the theaters. How much this has to do with the very little of it we ever see on television I only can guess.
Derann's 200 footer of this is a nice little film. The sound and image are better then you should ever hope for from a film that was made when Herbert Hoover was in the White House. The image has a slight, slow flicker to it, but then again, if you want a perfect, stunning image, this is not the corner of the film universe you should be searching.
It is a black and white film printed on color stock, which may mean more as that stock fades, but at least for now, it's great to look at!
[ January 05, 2007, 12:10 PM: Message edited by: Steve Klare ]
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted January 05, 2007 10:20 AM
For trivia buffs, it should be noted that Disney once again stole the publicity away from Max Fleischer again! Max Fleischer produced a series in 1924 (a good four years before Disney's Steamboat Willie), called "phono Films: with fully synchronized sound! Max Fleischer also invented the "Multiplane Camera", which Disney would make famous later on with "The Old Mill", and, of course, Snow White.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted January 05, 2007 11:50 AM
I think the issue is that the "Phonofilms" system was too cumbersome and wasn't widely adopted by theaters. Deservedly or not, Walt Disney put something in the theaters that attracted people's attention, and also bumped up the standards by which cartoons were judged. Silent cartoons just didn't shine after this one came out. I read that following the opening of "Steamboat Willie", it became such a phenomenon that for a while people didn't care what the feature was, they really wanted to see this cartoon.
I think it's for the best anyway. I mean, think about it: you're sitting in front of the tube on a Sunday afternoon, and the camera zooms in on a huge sweaty man in a football uniform carrying his helmet:
Announcer: George Brutalman! You just won the Superbowl, what are you gonna do next?
George: I'm goin' to Max Fleischerland!
-Somehow it doesn't have the same ring to it!
However: Osi makes a point, so I'll edit my original post to include the word "successful". (Many people built "airplanes" before the Wright Brothers...and may they all rest in peace!)
I think the Jaws/Steamboat Willie crosstalk is appropriate. The summer JAWS came out people talked about nothing else either. Being that where I live we have ocean beaches, it was a double phenomenon. It was a really lean year for concessionaires on Jones Beach!
(Note: I live about 10 miles away from the real "Amityville"...but that's another story.)
Are we off topic yet?
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted January 05, 2007 09:44 PM
That, and actually, by printing it on colour stock, there is a slight difference to to the Black and White. I understand it also effects ever so slightly the contrast.
Also, of note: This was the third Mickey mouse cartoon. "Plane Crazy" and "The Galloping Gaucho" were made before "Steamboat Willie", but when the success of "Willie" caught them off guard, (as well as the success of it), they then re-released them with a synchronized soundtrack. If you ever get the chance to watch these earlier films, you'll notice that the action was not synchronized to go with a sountrack, so the sound doesn't work as well.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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James N. Savage 3
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1375
From: Washington, DC
Registered: Jul 2003
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posted January 06, 2007 05:34 PM
For older black and white releases, I agree with you Paul.
But in recent years there seems to have been a lot of progress with black and white stocks. For example, take a look at CHC's recent Porky Pig cartoon "Boom Boom". It even puts most of my b/w Blackhawk prints to shame.
On the other hand though, there has actually been progress on b/w printed on color stock as well. In older b/w on color prints, there was often a slight blue tint. But an excellent example of b/w on color is Derann's recent release of the "Future Generations / Runaway Railway" promo reel. The first half of the film is in color (stunning color, I might add), while the second half (Runaway Railway trailer) is black and white. And I tell you the truth, it truley looks like b/w stock! In fact, if I did'nt know that there is no splice in the reel, I would have thought R.R. was on b/w stock.
So, with that in mind, b/w on low fade color stock is alright ![[Cool]](cool.gif) .
Nick.
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