Friday, January 15, 2010

Rapsody of Steel 1959



A long lost treasure from 1959. I remember seeing this in grade school on those old reel projectors. Click on the title to view the MOV.

8 comments:

MrGoodson2 said...

Great little short. Longish. Teacher could smoke a cigar down in the lounge with this number.

Made me wistful for a mindset in America that is lost and will never be recovered.

Tom Carroll said...

Makes me thing of "Why Man Creates" or something like that ... a collection of shorts that explored creativity. I remember one short had everyone crossing the street on a green light, then the light said STOP, then it said TURN, and READY, and as it went: ONE TWO ONE TWO, everyone did jumping jacks in the crosswalk ... maybe I've said too much.

Rickart said...

Wow! I've never seen this one before, at least that I can remember.

Impressive art direction. I saw Jeff's buddy Maurice Noble in the credits, and if I'm not mistaken, I saw that it was made by the fellow who ran Filmation.

This was not a cheap production.

MrGoodson2 said...

I noticed Maurice Noble as well Rick. At first I thougt it was going to be very limited and shortcut filled on the animation. But they got around to some really thought through character movement in a number of spots.

Rickart said...

Yes, and the idea and execution of having steel object materialize just when they where needed was quite compelling.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget Eyvind Earle's great looking background & design in this.
Ellis you should know seeing he did the KRAFT SUSPENSE THEATER intro your so fond of. (which is cool, regardless). Funny how I found this. The score by famed composer Dimitri Tiomkin was put onto cd so I looked it up and rediscovered this lost treasure. Wonderful!

Anonymous said...

Oh. if you don't know Dimitri Tiomkin is – High Noon, Lost Horizon, Duel In The Sun, Red River, High Noon, Strangers On A Train, I Confess, It’s A Wonderful Life, Portrait of Jennie, The Thing from Another World, The High and the Mighty, Dial ‘M’ For Murder, Giant, Friendly Persuasion, Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, Rio Bravo, The Unforgiven, The Alamo, The Sundowners, The Guns Of Navarone, and many others.

Deane D said...

Wow! I don't remember seeing that one either. We usually got the Disney ones with Jiminy Cricket.

I do remember seeing "Why man Creates". That was very creative and I'd love to see it again.