Filmkultúra: Essays: Hungarian Directors Of Photography In Hollywood

The "Little Cock" - the first Hungarian cartoon feature film

70 KByte
Gyula Macskássy had been obsessed with the idea of making feature films with cartoon techniques since the 1930es. The war and the political situation that followed, however, did not provide a favourable environment to fulfil his plans. During the short period after nationalisation, it seemed for a while that his team would be able to produce a cartoon tale, besides the "obligatory" commercials. The film was made in 1950. He wrote the script from the folk tale The Diamond Half-Penny of the Little Cock, and based on the script, the management of the News and Documentary Film Factory (HDF) gave permission to making a three-minute, approximately 80-meter "sample" cartoon movie. Since the expanding crew could not be housed on the premises of the Film Factory, the cartoon studio moved to former New York Palace. Here new cartoonists joined the team, including Gizi Vörös, Imre Gáspár, Ferenc Hont-Varsányi and Bea Kiss. Although their equipment was old and riff-raff, the required length of film was produced within only a couple of months. The experiment proved to be successful and the management of the Film Factory also found it satisfactory, so the project could continue. The team was further expanding, since cartoonists like György Várnai, László Réber, Tibor Csermák, Attila Dargay, Szabolcs Szabó, Miklós Temesi, Gréte Máday, Erzsébet Jedon and Andor László joined. In the late 1940es and early 1950es, observers of the contemporary party political system could be found at every workplace, particularly in communities with the opportunity to ideologically and spiritually influence the public. The task of these observers was two-fold: on the one hand they had to take care of the political education of the community (30-minute sessions of Szabad Nép, "cramming" courses, dissemination of propaganda material, etc.), while on the other hand, with continuous "vigilance", they had to suppress any statements not based on communist principles. Even Gyula Macskássy got a 27-year-old lady boss all of a sudden, who was appointed on the basis of her political reliability. The new boss soon surpassed her scope of authority and demanded to have a word not only in the ideological management of the studio, but in the arrangement of rather delicate artistic issues as well. It was not until the removal of Minister József Révai in 1953 that these political agents were withdrawn, including the "commissar" of the cartoonists as well. "The problem was that nobody knew how to make a cartoon. Not even Gyula. How can a character come alive and move? One of our colleagues managed to sneak a small roll of Walt Disney cartoon into the studio. After official working hours, all of us were watching closely how the four feet of the mule were moving simultaneously." Then we began to make sketches of the movements. Of course, 2 or 3 days later an "honest" lady colleague reported to the political department that we were watching American, imperialistic movies in secret. And the "buyer" colleague, who was in fact an excellent cartoonist, was immediately given the sack. This little "brick" carried on reporting, gaining good points for herself. If she could not clearly hear what we were talking about, she made it up. But Szabolcs Szabó was unable to keep his mouth shut; he was a Calvinist from Debrecen and if he insisted on giving his opinion, he did, and that could be heard even on the ground floor. We worked under incredible circumstances. We were even deprived of the stuffy loft of New York Palace, so we had to move to the depth of Józsefváros, to Koszorú Street. We simply called it Kosz ('kosz' means filth in Hungarian) Street. We had different problems, first of all, we had to share the place with the Tumbrel-drivers Trade Union, and our co-tenant was a tram conductor, who was regularly beating up his wife and his daughters or cats. Secondly, that summer was unbearably hot and we could not protect ourselves from the heat. We did not have good enough emulsion for powder paint and when we began painting Little Cock, the dried layer had chipped off by the time we wanted to start filming. We had tried everything, once we even had some oxbile brought in the slaughterhouse, but it did not work. We also tried to cool down the air with huge blocks of ice put in basins, and painted only in the coolness of the night (during the day half of the team were asleep in buck baskets, the other half went to the open air bath), but in vain. We were often weeping with sorrow and tension, because we just could not get anywhere. But we were lucky to be a team of friends that could help one another in everything. The truth is, though, that we could not boast an immaculate registration sheet, which was a big mistake then. For instance, Gréte Máday was brought up in Switzerland, she was a real aristocrat. Ferenc Hont-Varsányi had also worked there, making a lot of cartoons for the infamous Magyar Futár. Katika Andrássy was a baroness. Since only one out of 40 people had a telephone, it kept on ringing all the time. It was ringing, then a second later Kati stepped into our room: - My dear Ghéti! Tilifo! Then Gyuszi almost fell through the door and sat down to talk to Kati very seriously, saying: - Darling, it's te-le-phone! - Yes, yes, tilifo - repeated Kati. Poor Gyuszi, we were always turning the tables on him." (Attila Dargay)

"The studio on the fifth floor of New York Palace was a marvellous place. With equipment the world had not ever seen. There were no chairs, we were sitting on sugar boxes. One of our tools was an ironing board put on two chairs. Three of us were working on it, but we managed somehow. Of course, ever so often somebody had to jump up or started fidgeting, so we could never do a proper work. I will never forget our first film shooting, when we went to the Film Office. My responsibility was to drive flies from under the camera, which I found highly honourable, indeed. (The place had previously been used as a public kitchen and was favoured by flies.) Catering was another problem. Every day at noon two people grabbed the food carrier and headed off to Zugló for the lunch. I remember once it was my turn with a colleague Bandi László. We had to bring the greens in a ten-litre pot and Bandi held the sausage. We were standing at the tram station and I had to continuously shout: please, don't step into the greens of savoy! Bandi met there an old colleague of his who asked him, looking at the sausage in his hand: - Where do you work? - At the cartoon studio! - You must be kidding!" (Bea Kiss, key clean-up)

"I joined the studio in the autumn of 1951. That was when I graduated from college and somebody told me that cartoon production had recently begun in Hungary. I was really curious, I got the address and after a test draw I got the position I had always been interested in technology, which, I think, is indispensable for making cartoons. What was the level of technical equipment in the 1950es? Terrible, indeed. Looking back at those times, it was real fun. As if we were working on little old steam engines. There was something like a film projector, although now I know that it was a little over-exaggerating to call it a projector. But at least we could use it. I can also recall a huge chimney, the task of which was to draw the air from the bulb. Shootings were made in the factory, the HDF, which we were part of. That is where we had to take celluloids, where we recorded the material, then we watched the motion test on this ancient device. It was always such an event when the muster arrived. The whole company sat down together, we turned off the lights and watched the movie! Intellectual fidgeting, speculating and always wanting more were our characteristics that time." (András Cseh)

"Cartoonists had almost nothing. With brilliant masterwork, an engineer called Morvay worked out a system, using a camera mounted on a drawing desk, which could be used for recording frame by frame. This was the so-called Morvay-desk. Morvay's name became so well-known that later he also travelled to Cuba and set up the colour laboratory for the national television there." (István Kondor, retired chief film officer)

"It was really hard to solve the problem of the ink coming out of the tracer pen easily, but also remaining on the celluloid. Because either there was an ink that came out of the pen with ease, but failed to remain on the celluloid or the ink remained on the celluloid, but failed to come out of the pen." (Andor László painter - tracer)

"They had nothing, but they were working like mad all day and night. They did not have a private life. If something came to their mind, they were even willing to spend the night in the studio. Their fanaticism had to be respected, since that was a kind of heroic age. On the other hand, we also had to take the risk of a possible failure for them, since it was indeed risky to offer this money-consuming opportunity to a bunch of young people aged around 30, who do not even have any experience with films of this kind and length. Révai was a rather strict man, he was really tight-fisted with money. And although financial management was also very tough, if he saw great enthusiasm, he immediately created perfect conditions for operation. Of course, the Political Committee was also invited for the premiere of the cartoon, where Ernő Gerő remarked that The Diamond Half-Penny of the Little Cock had cost an enormous amount of money (the 425-meter cartoon cost a fortune indeed, 650,000 forints, which was an incredible sum then!), since for the same amount 4-5 Walt Disney cartoons could have been bought. It was very difficult to negotiate with Gerő, because he was a negotiator with a harsh character, but Révai defended the film. Luckily, even the Political Committee loved the film. At that time this panel saw every Hungarian film. For film-makers those were hard times, which Márton Keleti had an excellent expression for: 'the night of sweating backs'. The final decision had generally been made by Rákosi himself, just like in this case. He said that those cartoonist had been a rather talented lot, although it was obviously their very first film. But Révai was right and cartoon-making should be carried on! So the work of cartoon production could continue. Here I would like to return to the point of general risk-taking. All the cartoonists were regarded politically "unreliable". Between 1950 and 1953 a most diverse composition of staff worked together, including a baroness, a captain of the general staff, an officer of Horthy's army, etc. There had been a lot of discussions and disputes in the very beginning (we must not forget that we were in 1950, not long after the Rajk-trial), pointing out that the enemy had nestled into the film factory, especially into the News and Documentary Film Factory! Nevertheless, I was of the opinion that we should let these people work and we would see later how they managed. My confidence in Macskássy's talent involved all those working with him. Macskássy's personality and character had always been attractive to me, and I had also regarded him highly dynamic. What I loved about him was that he never wanted to be a Walt Disney imitator. Whenever we talked (unfortunately it did not happen too often, but we always talked for a while whenever he had applied for money), his strong determination to do something original always came forward, which was really unusual at that time. Today, however, when we talk about the Macskássy-school, it is all too natural. But there was something truly paradoxical about the fact that he expressed his wish of not wanting to become a Walt Disney imitator, but would rather be himself already back in 1950, when he had previously done nothing but commercials. Of course, he did not openly said it, but he had decided to walk along a so far unknown path and create his own unique style. I am really proud that Hungarian film making had begun to flourish then, which later led to the birth of masterpieces in cartoon production as well. I believe I, too, had a little, though very minor role in laying the foundations, which later we could continue to build upon. But it was more than just the foundation, since without it real construction may not have begun." (Miklós Szántó)

"Finally, Little Cock was completed and was shown at the cinemas as a supporting film to the movie From Lily of the Valley to Defoliation made by István Homoki Nagy. It all took place in 1951, and strangely enough nobody had ever remarked that 'wow, we've just seen the first Hungarian cartoon feature film!' " (Attila Dargay)

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70 KByte	Gyula Macskássy had been obsessed with the idea of making feature films with cartoon techniques since the 1930es. The war and the political situation that followed, however, did not provide a favourable environment to fulfil his plans. During the short period after nationalisation, it seemed for a while that his team would be able to produce a cartoon tale, besides the "obligatory" commercials. The film was made in 1950. He wrote the script from the folk tale The Diamond Half-Penny of the Little Cock, and based on the script, the management of the News and Documentary Film Factory (HDF) gave permission to making a three-minute, approximately 80-meter "sample" cartoon movie. Since the expanding crew could not be housed on the premises of the Film Factory, the cartoon studio moved to former New York Palace. Here new cartoonists joined the team, including Gizi Vörös, Imre Gáspár, Ferenc Hont-Varsányi and Bea Kiss. Although their equipment was old and riff-raff, the required length of film was produced within only a couple of months. The experiment proved to be successful and the management of the Film Factory also found it satisfactory, so the project could continue. The team was further expanding, since cartoonists like György Várnai, László Réber, Tibor Csermák, Attila Dargay, Szabolcs Szabó, Miklós Temesi, Gréte Máday, Erzsébet Jedon and Andor László joined. In the late 1940es and early 1950es, observers of the contemporary party political system could be found at every workplace, particularly in communities with the opportunity to ideologically and spiritually influence the public. The task of these observers was two-fold: on the one hand they had to take care of the political education of the community (30-minute sessions of Szabad Nép, "cramming" courses, dissemination of propaganda material, etc.), while on the other hand, with continuous "vigilance", they had to suppress any statements not based on communist principles. Even Gyula Macskássy got a 27-year-old lady boss all of a sudden, who was appointed on the basis of her political reliability. The new boss soon surpassed her scope of authority and demanded to have a word not only in the ideological management of the studio, but in the arrangement of rather delicate artistic issues as well. It was not until the removal of Minister József Révai in 1953 that these political agents were withdrawn, including the "commissar" of the cartoonists as well. "The problem was that nobody knew how to make a cartoon. Not even Gyula. How can a character come alive and move? One of our colleagues managed to sneak a small roll of Walt Disney cartoon into the studio. After official working hours, all of us were watching closely how the four feet of the mule were moving simultaneously." Then we began to make sketches of the movements. Of course, 2 or 3 days later an "honest" lady colleague reported to the political department that we were watching American, imperialistic movies in secret. And the "buyer" colleague, who was in fact an excellent cartoonist, was immediately given the sack. This little "brick" carried on reporting, gaining good points for herself. If she could not clearly hear what we were talking about, she made it up. But Szabolcs Szabó was unable to keep his mouth shut; he was a Calvinist from Debrecen and if he insisted on giving his opinion, he did, and that could be heard even on the ground floor. We worked under incredible circumstances. We were even deprived of the stuffy loft of New York Palace, so we had to move to the depth of Józsefváros, to Koszorú Street. We simply called it Kosz ('kosz' means filth in Hungarian) Street. We had different problems, first of all, we had to share the place with the Tumbrel-drivers Trade Union, and our co-tenant was a tram conductor, who was regularly beating up his wife and his daughters or cats. Secondly, that summer was unbearably hot and we could not protect ourselves from the heat. We did not have good enough emulsion for powder paint and when we began painting Little Cock, the dried layer had chipped off by the time we wanted to start filming. We had tried everything, once we even had some oxbile brought in the slaughterhouse, but it did not work. We also tried to cool down the air with huge blocks of ice put in basins, and painted only in the coolness of the night (during the day half of the team were asleep in buck baskets, the other half went to the open air bath), but in vain. We were often weeping with sorrow and tension, because we just could not get anywhere. But we were lucky to be a team of friends that could help one another in everything. The truth is, though, that we could not boast an immaculate registration sheet, which was a big mistake then. For instance, Gréte Máday was brought up in Switzerland, she was a real aristocrat. Ferenc Hont-Varsányi had also worked there, making a lot of cartoons for the infamous Magyar Futár. Katika Andrássy was a baroness. Since only one out of 40 people had a telephone, it kept on ringing all the time. It was ringing, then a second later Kati stepped into our room: - My dear Ghéti! Tilifo! Then Gyuszi almost fell through the door and sat down to talk to Kati very seriously, saying: - Darling, it's te-le-phone! - Yes, yes, tilifo - repeated Kati. Poor Gyuszi, we were always turning the tables on him." (Attila Dargay) "The studio on the fifth floor of New York Palace was a marvellous place. With equipment the world had not ever seen. There were no chairs, we were sitting on sugar boxes. One of our tools was an ironing board put on two chairs. Three of us were working on it, but we managed somehow. Of course, ever so often somebody had to jump up or started fidgeting, so we could never do a proper work. I will never forget our first film shooting, when we went to the Film Office. My responsibility was to drive flies from under the camera, which I found highly honourable, indeed. (The place had previously been used as a public kitchen and was favoured by flies.) Catering was another problem. Every day at noon two people grabbed the food carrier and headed off to Zugló for the lunch. I remember once it was my turn with a colleague Bandi László. We had to bring the greens in a ten-litre pot and Bandi held the sausage. We were standing at the tram station and I had to continuously shout: please, don't step into the greens of savoy! Bandi met there an old colleague of his who asked him, looking at the sausage in his hand: - Where do you work? - At the cartoon studio! - You must be kidding!" (Bea Kiss, key clean-up) "I joined the studio in the autumn of 1951. That was when I graduated from college and somebody told me that cartoon production had recently begun in Hungary. I was really curious, I got the address and after a test draw I got the position I had always been interested in technology, which, I think, is indispensable for making cartoons. What was the level of technical equipment in the 1950es? Terrible, indeed. Looking back at those times, it was real fun. As if we were working on little old steam engines. There was something like a film projector, although now I know that it was a little over-exaggerating to call it a projector. But at least we could use it. I can also recall a huge chimney, the task of which was to draw the air from the bulb. Shootings were made in the factory, the HDF, which we were part of. That is where we had to take celluloids, where we recorded the material, then we watched the motion test on this ancient device. It was always such an event when the muster arrived. The whole company sat down together, we turned off the lights and watched the movie! Intellectual fidgeting, speculating and always wanting more were our characteristics that time." (András Cseh) "Cartoonists had almost nothing. With brilliant masterwork, an engineer called Morvay worked out a system, using a camera mounted on a drawing desk, which could be used for recording frame by frame. This was the so-called Morvay-desk. Morvay's name became so well-known that later he also travelled to Cuba and set up the colour laboratory for the national television there." (István Kondor, retired chief film officer) "It was really hard to solve the problem of the ink coming out of the tracer pen easily, but also remaining on the celluloid. Because either there was an ink that came out of the pen with ease, but failed to remain on the celluloid or the ink remained on the celluloid, but failed to come out of the pen." (Andor László painter - tracer) "They had nothing, but they were working like mad all day and night. They did not have a private life. If something came to their mind, they were even willing to spend the night in the studio. Their fanaticism had to be respected, since that was a kind of heroic age. On the other hand, we also had to take the risk of a possible failure for them, since it was indeed risky to offer this money-consuming opportunity to a bunch of young people aged around 30, who do not even have any experience with films of this kind and length. Révai was a rather strict man, he was really tight-fisted with money. And although financial management was also very tough, if he saw great enthusiasm, he immediately created perfect conditions for operation. Of course, the Political Committee was also invited for the premiere of the cartoon, where Ernő Gerő remarked that The Diamond Half-Penny of the Little Cock had cost an enormous amount of money (the 425-meter cartoon cost a fortune indeed, 650,000 forints, which was an incredible sum then!), since for the same amount 4-5 Walt Disney cartoons could have been bought. It was very difficult to negotiate with Gerő, because he was a negotiator with a harsh character, but Révai defended the film. Luckily, even the Political Committee loved the film. At that time this panel saw every Hungarian film. For film-makers those were hard times, which Márton Keleti had an excellent expression for: 'the night of sweating backs'. The final decision had generally been made by Rákosi himself, just like in this case. He said that those cartoonist had been a rather talented lot, although it was obviously their very first film. But Révai was right and cartoon-making should be carried on! So the work of cartoon production could continue. Here I would like to return to the point of general risk-taking. All the cartoonists were regarded politically "unreliable". Between 1950 and 1953 a most diverse composition of staff worked together, including a baroness, a captain of the general staff, an officer of Horthy's army, etc. There had been a lot of discussions and disputes in the very beginning (we must not forget that we were in 1950, not long after the Rajk-trial), pointing out that the enemy had nestled into the film factory, especially into the News and Documentary Film Factory! Nevertheless, I was of the opinion that we should let these people work and we would see later how they managed. My confidence in Macskássy's talent involved all those working with him. Macskássy's personality and character had always been attractive to me, and I had also regarded him highly dynamic. What I loved about him was that he never wanted to be a Walt Disney imitator. Whenever we talked (unfortunately it did not happen too often, but we always talked for a while whenever he had applied for money), his strong determination to do something original always came forward, which was really unusual at that time. Today, however, when we talk about the Macskássy-school, it is all too natural. But there was something truly paradoxical about the fact that he expressed his wish of not wanting to become a Walt Disney imitator, but would rather be himself already back in 1950, when he had previously done nothing but commercials. Of course, he did not openly said it, but he had decided to walk along a so far unknown path and create his own unique style. I am really proud that Hungarian film making had begun to flourish then, which later led to the birth of masterpieces in cartoon production as well. I believe I, too, had a little, though very minor role in laying the foundations, which later we could continue to build upon. But it was more than just the foundation, since without it real construction may not have begun." (Miklós Szántó) "Finally, Little Cock was completed and was shown at the cinemas as a supporting film to the movie From Lily of the Valley to Defoliation made by István Homoki Nagy. It all took place in 1951, and strangely enough nobody had ever remarked that 'wow, we've just seen the first Hungarian cartoon feature film!' " (Attila Dargay)
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115 KByte