UB Iwerks gets a biography!

[Jack]

Animation Blast.com, just read the news section! (http://www.animationblast.com/)



Jack:D

[Sogturtle]

Yak (and all)~

I've already been reading Ub's biography "The Hand Behind The Mouse" (co-written by his youngest grand-daughter Leslie). And I hate to be negative... but tain't good. A piddling TOTAL of 59 pages (out of 229 actual pages of text) is devoted to Ub's wonderful "decade of decadence" away from the Disney clan... The 10 years where he and his associates created marvelously funny and macabre little films, even as D*sn*y grew more and more bland. She takes grandpa Ub to task for his films of the Thirties (more mega-ugly political-correctness)... The very films EVERYONE ELSE hails as classics!! There's one small section of pictures with nothing special amongst them (we get to see author Leslie as a baby in Ub's arms...). To be fair it actually has a couple of small pieces of NEW animation info but otherwise it hews the line that D*sn*y was the greatest. She of course likes to credit Ub with everything in the silent era, which is nice but not true. And she then totally whitewashes the non-forgiveness given him by Walt for quitting and then returning 10 years later (Roy was more forgiving). Ohhhhh and the publisher of this tome is... Disney!!!

[Nelson]

Even if this book is good or not, it's finally great to see a biography on the greatest animator in the history of animation...

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by Nelson
Even if this book is good or not, it's finally great to see a biography on the greatest animator in the history of animation...

Nelson~

You are absolutely right, Ub is WAAAAAAAY overdue for a biography. Friz Freleng once said that everything he knew about animation he learned "from Ub or from Hugh". I had high, high hopes for this book, and it's very sad that this ranks as something like a "stop-gap" measure. The authors clearly idolize Ub but have failed to create a really fine biography of a great, great person. The facts appear to be ESSENTIALLY right, but it is soooo sparse in so many ways. Besides having only one (very tired) photo of Ub's early production staff, it also VERY CONSPICUOUSLY omits any and all drawings and artwork (no frame blow-ups even) that Ub (or his staff) worked on at his own studio. (C'MON Leslie Iwerks, even I have Ub artwork and I'm not even family!!!). In fact the only animation artwork at all is an Ub Mickey Mouse storyboard from"The Kactus Kid". But this is just the insult... The real injury is FAILING to include a COMPREHENSIVE FILMOGRAPHY with any and all known credits for Ub's gazillion-and-one films (or a filmography at all!!!). For a book co-authored by an insider, this is (at best) a very mediocre biography. A great shame his sons didn't write this critter, at least they knew him first-hand.