Wladyslaw Starewicz was a pioneer of stop-animation animation. Exactly one hundred years ago, in February 1924, his short film Frogland hit US theatres. What did American audiences make of this innovative movie featuring a pondful of animated frog puppets?
Find out in the latest edition of my cinema history column Animation Time Machine, only at Animation Magazine. Here’s an extract to whet your appetite:
American reviewers immediately fell in love with this innovative stop-motion film. Moving Picture World called it “… an exquisite exemplification of the plastic art … In detail it is so perfect that gazing at the film one is actually impressed that live frogs are enacting the roles.”
The Film Daily positively gushed: “Russian Refugees in Paris, known as the Russian Art Society, have made one of the most interesting novelties to come to the screen. It is claimed that it took nearly two years to complete this short subject and it can readily be believed upon viewing the offering. It consists of the genuinely artistic miniatures of frogs with a highly imaginative background representing the frogs’ domain at the bottom of a pond. The lighting, the movements of the carefully constructed frogs and the colorful settings are indeed extraordinary.”
Glowing reviews, to be sure. But how did Frogland go down with American audiences who, in that very same month, were splitting their sides at Felix Crosses the Crooks, in which their favorite cartoon feline teamed up with a friendly elephant to foil some dastardly bank robbers?
Just how appealing was Frogland to the great American public? Read the complete article at Animation Magazine to find out!
Graham Edwards 