8mm Forum: Steamboat Willie

This is topic Steamboat Willie in forum 8mm Print Reviews at 8mm Forum.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000165

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on 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 ]

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 67) on January 05, 2007, 07:53 AM:

Oh...forgot to say that even though my scope of Jaws is turning a bit, I wouldn't part with it for anything. I also picked it up for only 220 dollars about 7 years ago at the Columbus Cinevent. What a bargain. Each year it is one of the requested features we show by the pool in the summer. It's rather unnerving to be floating around the pool during one of the shark attacks.

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on January 05, 2007, 10:04 AM:

Gary,

I missed the segue........is there a scene where the shark gobbles up Captain Pete?

Doug

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on 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.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on 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?

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on January 05, 2007, 03:43 PM:

Steve
Excellent review one of my favourite Derann prints a milestone in animation that introduced Mickey Mouse to the public in New York on the 18th November 1928.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on January 05, 2007, 04:13 PM:

Steve, I too have this little gem from Derann and yes I know what you mean about the slight slow flicker. I just thought I would add that the segment of this that was included in the 400 ft Disney release "Mickey Mouse the First Fifty Years" also has this very same flicker suggesting that its down to origination etc and not the final Derann release.

I agree with you that it's got superb image and sound quality when you think of how long ago this was actually made.

Kev.

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on January 05, 2007, 05:19 PM:

Thanks for the excellent review. I had been thinking about buying this cartoon, most notably, for its importance in the evolution of animation.

But, now I am wondering, why is it on color stock? All of the b/w super 8 cartoons that I have purchased in the past several years have been on real b/w stock, so why would Derann chose color film stock for this historically significant black and white cartoon?

Any ideas? [Roll Eyes]

Nick.

[ January 05, 2007, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: James N. Savage 3 ]

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on January 05, 2007, 06:30 PM:

Good point you make. In the Disney release I mentioned marking Mickeys 50 yrs it was tinted.

Kev.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on January 05, 2007, 06:47 PM:

I would imagine when you are printing films in mixed batches of many different titles, it's cheaper to keep everything on the same print stock so you don't have to stop and change film for the relatively small fraction of the films that are black and white. (...and also have different emulsions to process and maybe even destroy though cross-confusion.)

-Just a nice continous, simple process.

I can't say what it will look like many years from now, but right now it's very nice.

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on January 05, 2007, 09:39 PM:

That is a good point Steve.

I just would have thought, since "Steamboat Willie" is such a classic, that it would have been worth the extra effort to print it on b/w stock.

The last few cartoons I have gotten on black and white stock have been STUNNING! Perfect contrast and sharp as a pin.

I guess Derann have their reasons though.

Nick.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on 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.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on January 06, 2007, 05:48 AM:

Printing B/W on colour stock has become the norm these days for the few prints that are released in Black and White.

The labs are geared up for printing and processing Colour stock and don't have the facilities to process B/W film anymore.

To keep a film processing machine in "Control" you have to keep a steady run of material going through it or you would have to put fresh chemistry in the processor each time which is a costly business. So you can see that it just isnt financially viable keeping these processes going anymore for the small quantity of B/W film used these days. I'm sure also the labs can make better use of the space that would be otherwise occupied by a redundant processing machine.

B/W film stocks are just as expensive as Colour stocks and in some cases more so.

A good B/W rendition can be achieved on Colour stock and now these stocks are low fade they should remain like that for years to come.

Somebody said to me a short time a go that to have a yellow or green line down a B/W print if it got scratched didn't look very nice but my argument to that was don't let it get scratched.

Kev.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 06, 2007, 01:46 PM:

Actually Kev, I usually prefer black and white printed on color stock. There is usually much better definition and contrast than on B/W stock which often seems to have washed out 'grey on white' prints. The only problem is color balance, some B/W prints on color stock can have a slight greenish or sepia tint if the labs are not diligent.

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on 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]

.

Nick.

UBB.classic^TM 6.3.1.2