Tweet Guardian: Long-lost Walt Disney cartoon reel found on a shel

[silentfilm]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov ... NETTXT9038
Long-lost Walt Disney cartoon reel found on a shelf in Herefordshire
Only known copy of Hungry Hobos, a five-minute film showing Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, to be auctioned after archive discovery

A precious long-lost cartoon film featuring a rabbit that was the forerunner to Mickey Mouse has been discovered on a shelf in an archive in rural England.

The only known copy of Hungry Hobos starring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was found at the Huntley Film Archives in Herefordshire, where it had probably languished for decades.

It is creating great interest among cartoon enthusiasts and is being put up for auction in Los Angeles next month.

Oswald was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in 1927. Hungry Hobos – or Hoboes, as it is sometimes spelled – was made in 1928 and was one of a series of about 26 titles.

Later Disney and Iwerks transferred many of Oswald's traits to Mickey Mouse.

No one knows how the five-minute Oswald cartoon came to be sitting on a shelf at Huntley Film Archives, which specialises in social history films.

Amanda Huntley, who runs the company, said a colleague stumbled upon it and out of curiosity searched its name on the internet and realised it was a lost classic.

The Hungry Hobos film shows Oswald and his friend Peg Leg Pete on a train. Hungry, they rob a chicken of her egg.

Huntley said: "There are a lot of lost films out there. It's amazing that they get lost but they do.

"This was made in 1928 and has been in our collection for decades. We specialise in social history films and not animation.

"But my colleague took the film from the shelf and Googled it – I don't really know why.

"We quickly realised it was one of the great lost films. We posted the news on specialist web forums and everybody was very excited.

"It is significant because it is Disney but also because the character was the prototype of Mickey Mouse.

"Disney developed many characters and they changed over time and Oswald has the characteristics of Mickey Mouse – he looks similar even though he's a rabbit.

"How we ended up with the film, I don't know. It was probably collected by my father who started the company and it has been sitting on our shelves for decades.

"We have decided to sell it because it is not really what we specialise in and we can use the money to preserve other films we have."

Stephanie Connell, from auctioneers Bonhams, said: "Hungry Hobos is an incredible find, a lost masterpiece and a cartoon with a unique and vital place in animation history."

The film is now expected to fetch up to $40,000 (£25,000) when it goes under the hammer at Bonhams' entertainment memorabilia auction in Los Angeles on 14 December.

I have written a piece about this situation on my blog...if interested, have a look-see at:
http://cartoonsonfilm.blogspot.com/2011 ... oited.html

Best,
Tom

The Disney geek within me is so excited to hear this news!

It once again goes to show that in the world of "lost" titles, who know's what is where??

The Disney geek within me is so excited to hear this news!

Several of us animation historians are excited, but this emotion is darkly clouded by worry and disappointment. The results of this sale could do more harm than good for future lost film discoveries. Have a look at my blog post.

[Mike Gebert]

So Tom-- I read your blog post but never quite got why it had you worried. Is it just fear that it will inflate prices out of reach of collectors, or something else?

So Tom-- I read your blog post but never quite got why it had you worried. Is it just fear that it will inflate prices out of reach of collectors, or something else?

Mike, that's more or less it. The final section of my post addresses my concern more specifically. Those of us who actively seek these films and are involved in preserving them work with far less amounts of money and this includes large archives as well. The low monetary return on preserving and distributing these things simply does not justify trading these films at exorbitant sums; and doing so could cut new finds off to the actual preservation/distribution community.

I heard a short piece on this on NPR this morning, and it bothered me a little that the film was discovered in an archive, and was going to be put up for auction. I would have thought that preservation and publication should have been a higher priority. But maybe they know that Disney has deep pockets, and are counting on them winning it and preserving it on their own dime...

I would have thought that preservation and publication should have been a higher priority. But maybe they know that Disney has deep pockets, and are counting on them winning it and preserving it on their own dime...

Right on, Rodney. However...one thing I point out in my blog post is that Disney has indeed preserved several Oswald cartoons from other sources on their own dime, sometimes paying in the ballpark of $2-4k to obtain certain titles...but usually only in the hundreds. This was only done as a mad dash effort to obtain more for the DVD set that came out a few years back and theses prices still seem high and over-the-top to those of us who work with this genre of film. The point that it's deep-pocketed Disney still shouldn't justify Bonhams' estimate and I don't think Disney will satiate it, either.

Tom, I posted a response on your blog but I don't think it took. But the gist of it was that you should put in a symbolic bid of $99, suggesting to the seller what the true worth is. And who knows, maybe if you're the only bidder they'll give it to you for that. I'm totally convinced that the popular myth of unique film prints of films being worth millions stems from a 1966 Batman episode in which a film collector, played by Francis X. Bushman, exults over the fact that his film collection is worth a fortune and the world's major museums are engaged in a bidding war over it.

[silentfilm]

http://www.bonhams.com/eur/auction/19431/lot/4342/

This film sold for $30,000. Let's hope the only bidder was Disney. It certainly sets a bad precedent.

Look for 16mm prints of Castle Films cartoons to show up an an auction house near you.

Well, Disney was the buyer:
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/03/epic-mickey-2/
Here's the part specifically about Hungry Hobos:
"Having finished with a walk through the game demo, Spector tells me the story of “Hungry Hobos,” a 1928 cartoon that was considered to be lost forever until a few months ago, when it was discovered in a British film archive. It was sold at auction for $31,250.
The buyer, Spector now said, was Disney. Spector was the 5th person inside the company to watch the recovered film, and Disney had agreed to premiere it at an Epic Mickey event in Austin, Texas later in the month. After swearing me to secrecy, Spector let me be one of the first people outside of Disney to watch the reclaimed “Hungry Hobos.”

It was a simple premise: Oswald and Peg-Leg Pete were dressed up as tramps, riding the blinds on a train and looking for something to eat. Like many of the early Oswald cartoons — Disney’s first attempts at commercial animation — the animators simply reveled in the idea of being able to bring impossible things to life.

There was a level of comic violence that’s since been stripped away from children’s entertainment. Fed up with the inability to get a chicken to lay eggs, Oswald pulls the bird’s head off and reaches inside it to extract them. With no fire pit to use, Pete sets Oswald’s behind ablaze and cooks on it. To escape the long arm of the law, they pose as a hurdy-gurdy team, creating a musical box that beats animals over the head when cranked, causing them to squawk and yelp.

“Hungry Hobos” is a truly epic find, a fascinating and very funny example of the earliest days of Disney. When will you get to see it? Epic Mickey contained some Oswald shorts as bonus features, so I asked Spector if “Hungry Hobos” might make it into the new game this fall.

“No comment.”

I hope Disney will find a way to get this cartoon out there to see for those of us who don't play video games.

Like many of the early Oswald cartoons — Disney’s first attempts at commercial animation

I understand the desire to keep the narrative of history simple, but what does this make of the Laugh-o-grams? Of the "Alice in Movieland" series?

Bob

Like many of the early Oswald cartoons — Disney’s first attempts at commercial animation

I understand the desire to keep the narrative of history simple, but what does this make of the Laugh-o-grams? Of the "Alice in Movieland" series?

Bob

History continues to be reinvented according to the knowledge bases of these 'people in charge.' Being that he has only largely worked with Oswald on the project, of course there is nothing to say for Laugh-O-Grams or Alice Comedies.