A Christmas Accident (1912)

Run Time: 15 minutes. Studio: Edison. Director: Harold M. Shaw. Writers: Bannister Merwin, Annie Eliot Trumbull. Main Cast: Williams Wadsworth, Mrs. William Bechtel, Augustus Philips, Ida Williams, Enda Hammel.


Today if you mention the Edison studio to most film buffs, they will associate it with very early pre-D.W. Griffith cinema, with films such as The Kiss, Fred Ott's Sneeze, The Great Train Robbery. However the Edison studio was still making films at the same time D.W. Griffith was making his mark at Biograph studios. Under the influence of what Biograph and Griffith were doing, the Edison films were becoming increasingly more sophisticated. The studio adopted many of the film making innovations Griffith was pioneering and made some of their best films during this period. With this being December I feel it is a good time to look at a Christmas-themed short from Edison at this time.

In this short a kindly family lives next door to a seemingly grumpy old man named Mr. Gliton (William Wadsworth) and his wife (Mrs. William Blechtel). The family is poor but happy and looking forward to Christmas. Mr. Gliton doesn't seem too happy about the upcoming holiday and remains his grumpy self, even getting into arguments with the family. Mr. Gliton orders roast beef but it is accidently given to the family next door. Mr. Gliton yells at the family for taking his roast beef. Soon things get worse for the old man as his dog dies. Again this causes an argument between him and the family. With their lack of money the parents of the family are sad they can't get the children much for Christmas. All this ends up leading to a heartwarming finale that never fails to make me smile.

What may immediately strike those only familiar with Edison's pre-Griffith films is the pure narrative sophistication here. This film incorporates a lot of different plot elements and works them all towards a perfectly constructed ending. Despite this film being over 100 years old there is nothing here to date it. It remains just as charming as it was when it was first released. The story is so beautifully put together and completely timeless that the short feels as if it could have been made yesterday. There is nothing primitive in the filmmaking here. Every second of film is used to its full and best advantage. The heartwarming ending is just as effective and moving now as it was then and I am sure it will bring a smile or perhaps even a tear to your eye.


This film was directed by Harold M. Shaw, who had just begun his film career earlier in 1912 with an Edison short called The Governor. Though he got his start at Edison, he would spend very little of his career there as by late 1913, he was directing shorts for London Film Co. Christmas Accident wasn't the only Christmas film Shaw made as in 1914 he directed one of the many film versions of A Christmas Carol for London Film Co. Around 1915, African Film Productions was looking for American talent for better distribution to American and British audiences. AFP found two directors to bring over with Harold M. Shaw and Lorrimer Johnston. This lead to Shaw directing what some consider to be South Africa's first feature film Der Voortrekkers released in 1916. He followed this with two more South American features with The Rose of Rhosida (in 1917) and Thoroughbreds All (released in 1919). His film career would end in 1924 and he would pass away in 1926. Because of this he never made a talkie. Though his work is little remarked upon today, he was a consistently good director and his films are still delightful to anyone willing to watch them. William Wadsworth, who played Mr. Gliton was an extremely prolific actor, who spent most of his career making shorts for Edison. Mrs. William Bechtel (born as Jennie Cecilia Ahlstrom), who played Mrs. Gliton was also very prolific (though not as prolific as Wadsworth), and also spent most of her career making short films for Edison.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
https://thebioscope.net/2012/02/26/the-bioscope-guide-to-south-africa/


   

Caught in a Cabaret (1914)

Run Time: 30 minutes. Studio: Keystone Studios. Directors: Mabel Normand, Charlie Chaplin. Writers: Mabel Normand, Charlie Chaplin. Main Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Alice Davenport, Chester Conklin, Edgar Kennedy. Cinematographer: Frank D. Williams.







Some of you reading this blog may be familiar with a story about what happened during the making of the Keystone comedy short Mabel at the Wheel. This short was directed by Mabel Normand (who also starred in it) and featured Charlie Chaplin as the villain. Chaplin wanted to improvise his own comedy bits but Mabel reminded him she was the director and not him. This lead to a fight. Eventaully Chaplin went to Mack Sennett (the studio boss) and told him about what was happening. Sennett's answer was that Chaplin had to do as the director stated whenever being directed by someone else, but as well as those films he would now be able to direct some of his own films. With this Charlie went and finished the film Mabel's way. What is rather interesting is this never caused any riff between Chaplin and Normand. They were friends off set and would work together on set. In fact one of the best films either of them made for the Keystone studios was one they co-directed and wrote.

Charlie Chaplin made 36 films (35 shorts and 1 feature) for Keystone Studios, all released in the year 1914. These films for the most part do not have a great reputation among Charlie Chaplin fans. This was because Charlie Chaplin's sense of humor was quite different than the studio's. The studio specialized in films with an extremely fast pace, little story and lots of slapstick. While he did not need to take as much time as say Harry Langdon, Chaplin's films were at their best when he was allowed more time to take than the studio often allowed him to. There was also the fact that many of the Keystone film offered no motivation for characters to engage in slapstick. The fact a person was leaning over was good enough reason to kick their rear end or stab it with a pitchfork. Charlie Chaplin was really one of the first film artists to add motivation for slapstick humor and was at his best when the humor was properly motivated. I personally have a soft spot for these Keystone shorts. While I admit quite a few of them are not anywhere up to par with his later work, they are fascinating to a film buff like me. It is incredible to get to see an artist evolve his art as you can see in these early films. You can see mistakes being made and Chaplin learning from them.


This film may have a simple story but there seems to be more focus on the story than there is in other Keystone shorts of this era. The Tramp (played by Charlie Chaplin) is a waiter at a not too high class café, where drinking and suggestive dancing are the norm. However the Tramp meets Mabel (played by Mabel Normand), a beautiful and sophisticated high class woman. The Tramp realizes that he doesn't stand a chance with this woman however he gets an idea. He disguises himself as a Greek Ambassador. With this disguise he is able to go to a fancy garden party, hosted by her family.


With this film having a greater emphasis on story it also features more intertitles than the average Keystone short. Despite this though there is no lack of typical Keystone slapstick, including brick throwing, mallet to head action, and so forth. However with this film having more of a story the slapstick feels more motivated than usual and is actually pretty funny. It is fascinating today to see ideas done here in this early short that would later be employed in the later much renowned feature film, City Lights. In that film the Tramp would pretend to be a millionaire to impress a blind girl. This type of façade is also employed as a major story point here. However the big difference is in how the ideas are treated. In City Lights it is played for both comedy and drama. However here it is played only for comedy. There is little pity or empathy for the tramp Caught in Cabaret will try to get out of the audience. While these are probably just coincidences, they are still fascinating to see here and show the Tramp as more fully developed character than he was in most Keystone films. This film is a pure delight. The humor is pretty funny and the story does keep you interested from the beginning to the end. The performances are of course great and Charlie and Mabel have all of their usual charm. Along with our two main stars also of interest to today's film enthusiast is an early appearance by the great character actor Edgar Kennedy as the café owner. Kennedy would later be known as the master of the slow burn and appeared in numerous Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang shorts as well as his own series of short subjects. Probably his most famous role today is as the street vendor who gets the worst from Harpo and Chico Marx in Duck Soup. Here he is not playing the kind of role he would later be known for and it is fun to see him in a different type of role. He may here however go unrecognized by people watching the film today as he looked much different.      

Upon this film's release critics were very enthusiastic about how much they enjoyed the short. In a review in the New York Times Dramatic Mirror the reviewer wrote "...it is unwise to call this the funniest picture that has ever been produced but it comes mighty close to it". A reviewer in Bioscope wrote "Mr. Chaplin has a humor all his own, in which here he has the opportunity of indulging to the upmost, the result being amusing to the extreme". A reviewer for Moving Picture World was much more playful in his review stating "It caused so much laughter you couldn't hear what the actors was talking".


Resources UsedThe Films of Charlie Chaplin edited by Gerald D. Macdonald, Michael Conway and Mark Ricci
Keystone: The Life and Clowns of Mack Sennett by Simon Louvish
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0003758/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/412541/Caught-In-A-Cabaret/


-Michael J. Ruhland

The Monster (1925)

Run Time: 86 minutes. Studio: MGM. Director: Roland West. Writer: Roland West. Based on a play by Crane Wilbur. Main Cast: Lon Chaney, Gerutrde Olmstead, Hallum Cooley, Johnny Arthur. Cinematographer: Hal Mohr.


It is October again and of course with Halloween, this is the perfect month to watch a scary movie. To me (and I am sure many other film enthusiasts) that means it is the perfect time to watch a Lon Chaney movie. While I like many of you love Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Unknown and many more of the most popular films he starred in, this month we are going to look at an often very overlooked movie starring The Man of a Thousand Faces. This is a horror-comedy called The Monster.

This movie was directed by Roland West. If some of you are not familiar with this name it may be because during his brief movie career (1916-1931). He only directed 12 films and over half of them are unfortunately currently lost films. Two of his movies however may be known by comic book buffs. These are The Bat and its sequel The Bat Whispers. Both of which played a part in inspiring the character of Batman. The Monster is the oldest of West's currently surviving films.


This movie was based off a stage play by Crane Wilbur. Crane Wilbur is quite a name himself in film history. My fellow short subject fans might know him for directing some 1930's Technicolor short subjects for Warner Brothers about the history of the USA. On the other hand horror movie buffs might know him for writing 1953's The House of Wax. My fellow country music fans on the other hand might be interested to know Crane Wilbur directed a 1951 film called Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison, which inspired Johnny Cash to write his song Folsom Prison Blues.

As mentioned before this film stars Lon Chaney himself. One of the things that Chaney is best remembered for now is his understated and often subtle way of acting. This is often attributed to his parents being both deaf and mute and because of this he needed to learn to communicate through pantomime. However in this film he is anything but subtle. He is over the top and very exaggerated in his movements. Since the character he plays is anything but subtle it works very well here. Still this holds an interest to film enthusiasts to see such a beloved actor use such a different acting style.

As this film starts Johnny Goodlittle (played Johnny Arthur) fights over a beautiful girl named Betty (played by Gertrude Olmstead) with his rival Amos (played by Hallam Cooley). Johnny being an amateur detective decides to investigate a disappearance at an asylum. When he gets there however he learns that the evil Dr. Ziska (played by Lon Chaney) has taken over the place. Dr. Ziska kidnaps Amos and Betty. Johnny, Amos and Betty struggle to find a way out of the asylum alive as they learn just how sinister Dr. Ziska really is.

Though I would be lying if I said this movie ranks among one of Chaney's best films, this movie is still a sheer delight, especially for my fellow film buffs. The comedy while not consistently laugh out loud hilarious is often pretty funny. Scenes like the dance hall scene or Johnny being drunk certainty make me laugh. The characters are very likable and always fun to watch, and the acting is fantastic. However the best thing about this movie in my mind is its sense of atmosphere. As soon as you enter the asylum, there is a feeling of dread. You just know things are going to get worse. The lighting and cinematography are perfect here and really accentuate the idea of something not being quite right.

At time critics were not very fond of the movie's combination of comedy and horror. However this is what this movie's current fans loves about the film.


-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/3040/The-Monster/

He Who Gets Slapped (1924)

Run Time: 95 minutes. Studio: MGM. Director: Victor Sjöström. Writer: Victor Sjöström, Carey Wilson, Marian Ainslee. Based on a play by Leonid Andreyev. Main Cast: Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, John Gilbert, Ford Sterling, Marc McDermott, Ruth King. Cinematographer: Milton Moore.



He Who Gets Slapped was a very important film in the history of movies. It was both the first movie to be released under the company name of Metro Goldwyn Mayer (or MGM for short). It is also the first movie for the studio headed by Irving Thalberg. Thalberg had received two titles at this time, first vice president and supervisor of production. Thalberg had previously worked at Universal which had made a lot of movies staring Lon Chaney. Because of this Thalberg brought Chaney over to star in this movie. Chaney would later remember his character in this film as one of his favorite characters he ever played.

Paul Beaumont (played by Lon Chaney) was once a very dedicated and brilliant scientist. However one day his assistant (played by Marc McDermott) claims Beaumont's ideas as his own and becomes the toast of the scientific community. To make matters worse he has also stolen the affections of Beaumont's wife. This causes the poor scientist to have a complete mental breakdown. He now sees life as nothing but a cruel joke. Because of this he joins a circus as a clown under the rather self-deprecating name "He Who Gets Slapped".  In this act no matter what he states it is swiftly answered with a slap to the face. At this circus he falls in love with a woman named Consuelo (played by Norma Shearer), who is love with Beazno (played by John Gilbert) a daredevil horseback rider at the circus.

This is a fantastic movie. The setting is hugely absorbing, the characters very well defined, the story engaging, and the performances fantastic. While the cruelty the world keeps dealing our main character could easily have come off as forced and mean spirited, it feels completely real here. This is because the characters and the setting are completely believable. While the main character is often an object of pity here, we feel much more for him as well. We admire who he was and what he had done before subjecting himself to the torture that became his life throughout this movie. This makes us feel all the more for him, and understand the tragedy of the story to a much greater extant. It is also worth noting that the fact that he is simply a pawn to the cruel hand of fate, is shown cinematically as a laughing clown spinning a globe. Not only is fate pilled up against him, but it is laughing at him as well. It is a clown with a cruel sense of humor that simply tortures our hero because it can. This is a brilliant image that sums up this film perfectly, without any dialogue but rather just the power of the cinematic medium. Overall this is just a fantastic movie that ever silent film fan needs to see.

The movie had a budget of $172,000 (and was shot in 37 days) and earned back $349,000. The film did very well with critics with a review in the New York Times even saying "For dramatic value and a faultless adaptation of a play, this is the finest production we have yet seen."

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Usedhttp://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/196/He-Who-Gets-Slapped/articles.html

Poor Papa (1928)

Run Time: 5 minutes. Studios: Universal Studios, Winkler Productions Director: Walt Disney. Writer: Walt Disney. Producers: Charles Mintz, George Winkler. Animators: Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harmon, Les Clark, Friz Freleng, Ben Clopton, Norman Blackburn, Rollin "Ham" Hamilton.







Now probably anyone who reads my blogs knows I am a huge fan of Walt Disney. I am not only in love with Walt's popular feature films, but also his obscure ones, his theatrical cartoon shorts, his TV programs, and of course Disneyland itself. Being a huge fan of Walt, it is only natural that I have a special fondness for his early work. This is not only because I get to watch him evolve as a filmmaker, but because I also get to see him work as an actual film director (something he would not do much in his later career). Now with all this it should come as no surprise, that I am one of the many devotees to the great character of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (it is so cool I can say one of the many now as I couldn't before Disney regained the rights to the characters).

Before making his first Oswald cartoon, Walt Disney was making a series of shorts known as the Alice Comedies. This series was a reversal of what the Fleshchier Brothers had done with their Out of the Inkwell cartoons. In the Out of the Inkwell shorts, the animated Koko the Clown would enter into the real (live action) world. In the Alice Comedies a live action Alice, would enter an animated world. Walt had felt this series had run its course and wanted to make a fully animated series. For this series he created a rabbit known as Oswald.

Poor Papa was the first Oswald cartoon made but the 21st released. This was because Walt's distributors at the time (Universal and Charles Mintz) did not care much for the film. In one letter Mintz laid out four reasons for not liking the film. The first was that he felt the animation was too jerky, the second was that too much action was repeated, the third was he didn't like the character of Oswald because as he put it, "he has no outstanding trait", and lastly that the film just centered around gags with not enough story. Walt responded in another letter. He disagreed with the first point stating that maybe Mintz had watched the film at the wrong speed. On the third point he stated that Oswald was never supposed to have a recognizable trait, but rather his personality was meant to be stressed through his whole manner of acting. On the fourth point Walt said that he couldn't in the amount of time given for a one reel short film, make much of a detailed story and still make the audience laugh. Walt continued by stating that all the gags did in fact revolve around the storyline.

In this cartoon Oswald deals with a massive problem. The storks are constantly bringing him babies (a big problem for rabbits as you know) until it just becomes too much for poor Ozzie to handle. Oswald then decides he needs to take action.

Despite Mintz's objections this is an excellent cartoon. The humor is fast paced and quite funny. There are some imaginative ideas in the comedy such as Oswald's way of cleaning the young rabbits. The character animation here is fantastic and the characters really come to life through it. Even the small rabbits have slightly different personalities all displayed expertly through great animation. Though Oswald here is a bit of a different character than he would later become (he is definitely older and less energetic), he is still a great character that is very relatable and full of personality.

Resources Used

Oswald The Lucky Rabbit The Search For The Lost Disney Cartoons by David A. Bossert.

The Farmer's Wife (1928)

Run Time: 129 minutes. Studio: British International Pictures. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Writer: Eliot Stannard. Based on a play by Eden Phillpotts. Main Cast: Jameson Thomas, Lillian Hall-Davis, Gordon Harker. Cinematographer: Jack E. Cox.


Good Evening. I feel it is safe to assume that at least some of the people who read my blogs are fans of Turner Classic Movies. I certainty am. In fact TCM makes up a huge portion of my TV watching time, and why not, it is a channel that shows movies with the pure respect they deserve, it gives you insight into the history of the movie, and the whole channel feels very welcoming. One thing this channel is doing this month is something I am very excited for. Every Wednesday and Friday of July TCM will be showing many Alfred Hicthcock movies and there will even be an online class accompanying it.

Like many film buffs I am a huge fan of Hitch. He has directed many movies that are highly deserving of the classic status they have received. Movies like Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, The Birds and North By Northwest are certainty great examples of the cinematic art form and no one loves these movies more than I do. However I also have a huge fondness for Hitch's early British movies too. Despite these not receiving the same amount of attention many of these are fantastic movies in their own right and my silent film of the month is no exception.

The Farmer's Wife is a very different movie for Alfred Hicthcock. In fact if you were to miss the opening credits, it would be very hard to tell that Hitch had anything to do with it. This movie is a nice sweet little romantic film, and a fairly straightforward adaption of Eden Phillpotts' play. With Alfred Hitchcock directing there are some brilliant little cinematic touches but nothing specifically Hitchcockian. At this time Alfred Hicthcock was not yet known as a suspense director. Even though Hitch had already directed a fantastic suspense movie with The Lodger, he was at this time directing a huge variety of different styles of movies. However looking at many of these films, shows that Hitch was not only a brilliant suspense director, but a great director of any type of movie.

Farmer Sweetland's (played by Jameson Thomas) wife has past away leaving him very lonely. He is looking for a new wife, but his attempts don't go very well. Helping him find a new wife is his housekeeper Minta (played by Lillian Hall-Davis), who has strong feelings for Sweetland that she keeps secret

This is a delightful movie. The characters are very well defined, likeable and relatable. Before becoming much of the all out comedy this movie will become as it goes along, this film gives you time to know each of these characters. This makes the comedy all the more effective and the movie feel all the more real. Speaking of the comedy, it is really good. Many of Sweetland's failed attempts to find a wife are very funny. Also helping to make this movie delightful is the visual filmmaking. One image that continuously is shown is that of an empty chair. Sometimes when Farmer Sweetland gets lonely he looks at the chair his wife used to sit in and sees it completely empty. This image tells us more than any words ever could. It makes us fully understand what the farmer is going through and puts us in his shoes. When he is looking for a new wife he sometimes imagines one of the women he wants to marry in the chair. However that image quickly fades away and all we see is the chair. Again these simple images show us more than we could ever be told in words and truly show the power of film as an art form. In fact when interviewed by François Truffaut years later Hitch said that this movie inspired him to make what he called "purely cinematic pictures" that would mostly center around visual story telling. Though Hitch did feel this movie still had too many intertitles.

One may notice the name of  Louie Pounds in the credits. This is in fact the only film she appeared in, though she was a huge star on stage and was especially popular in Gilbert and Sullivan musicals. She plays a delightful performance here as Widow Windeatt.

This movie plays on TCM on July 5th at 8:15 pm western time and 11:15pm eastern time.

Resources Usedhttp://www.tcm.com/this-month/article.html?id=650695%7C651448
The Alfred Hitchcock Encyclopedia by Stephen Whitty.
Truffaut-Hitchcock by François Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock

-Michael J. Ruhland

Snow White (1916)

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Run Time: 63 minutes. Studio: Famous Players/Paramount. Director: J. Searle Dawley. Writer: Winthrop Ames. Based on a play by Winthrop Ames. and a book by The Brothers Grimm. Producer: H. Lyman Broening. Main Cast: Marguerite Clark, Dorothy G. Cumming, Creighton Hale, Lionel Braham, Alice Washburn. Cinematographer: H. Lyman Broening.

Anyone who reads my blogs knows that I am a huge Disney fan. Because of this often times when a classic fairy tale is brought up it is the Disney version that first comes to my mind. However these stories existed long before Walt touched them and they even had film adaptions before then. Some of these film adaptions even were huge influences on the Disney movies. One of the most clear example of this is the 1916 silent version of Snow White. Now some of my fellow Disney buffs may have heard of this movie. Walt Disney had in fact seen it as a teenager and legend goes that it inspired him to make his own film version of the classic fairy tale. Still this movie has more than that great story behind it. It is also a delightful film in its own right.

Though this film was obviously inspired by the Brothers Grimm's classic story, it had an even more direct and recent piece of source material. This was a 1912 play based off of the story. That play was written by Winthrop Ames, and starred Marguerite Clark, who also were the writer and star of this film adaption. So in many ways the point of this movie was simply to bring that stage play to the screen. Considering the differences between the stage and the silent cinema there naturally needed to be some changes made. The most obvious of these was to eliminate song numbers and very dialogue heavy scenes. However interestingly more scenes were added starring the Huntsman. These scenes revolved around him being locked in the tower as a prisoner. Also in adapting it for film, director J. Searle Dawley employed some more cinematic techniques. For instance in this version of the story the Witch (a separate character from the Queen) wants Snow White's heart to help with a potion to get herself her. When she is given a pig's heart instead her head grows pig's tails instead of hair. On stage the actress simply ducked off stage real quick and put on a head cap. Here the pig's tails appear to slowly fade in on her head, accomplished by a dissolve shot (Searle Dawley later remembered doing this on a set with crowded extras in 1916 made this a very difficult technical challenge).

The film interestingly begins with a brief prologue involving Santa Claus leaving a bunch of dolls at a little girl's house. This dolls become real people and then our story really begins. A Queen wants a beautiful child and gets one in Snow White (played by Marguerite Clark). However when this Queen passes away, the king remarries. The new Queen (played by Dorothy Cummings) is an evil and jealous woman who hates Snow White. When the King dies there is no one to protect Snow White from this evil woman. Snow White now has to work in rags as a maid, but this isn't all that is planned for her. The jealous Queen conspires with a witch (played by Alice Washburn) to get rid of Snow White. In return for helping the Queen, the Witch wants Snow White's heart. The Queen hires the huntsman (played by Lionel Braham) to take care of Snow White. However the huntsman can't do it, and gives the queen the heart of a pig instead. Snow White hides out at a house of dwarfs, who promise to help her, however they can. The Queen learning that the huntsman has failed her, decides to kill Snow White herself.

What really makes this film work is Marguerite Clark's performance as Snow White. In this era of such stars as Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish, it was common for grown women to play the part of little girls. Though Clark turned 33, the year this film was released, she plays the part so well you completely believe she is about 10 or 12. There is just a great sense of innocence to this performance. This is best shown in the scene with the huntsman. She clings to the huntsman and is simply so excited to be with him. She acts like the two are going to play games with each other. When the huntsman says what they are really out there for she easily assumes that he is joking. In a lesser actress' hands this could have felt very forced but here it comes out naturally. Later when she goes into the dwarfs cottage she not wanting to impose knows that if she only takes small bites from each plate, they can't possibly be mad at her. Clark does that so delicately that it gives that small moment extra charm to it.

However if there is something this film is lacking in, it is a real sense of danger. While the Disney film wasn't intended for kids (in fact in Britain, it got an adults only rating because of how scary the witch is), the play this movie was based on and even to a certain extant this movie itself was aimed primarily at children. Because of this the villains don't feel as threating as the Queen in the Disney version (being aimed mostly at adults) could. While this silent film is quite good, this does result in the Disney movie being even better.      

While Walt Disney's film is easily the superior version, this little movie has such a sweet and simple charm to it will still delight today's modern audiences.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.jbkaufman.com/movie-of-the-month/snow-white-1916
The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney by Michael Barrier