French postcard by Imp. Georges Lang, Paris, offered by Chocolats Tobler. Image: Walt Disney.
Timothy Q. Mouse is a Brooklyn-accented mouse in Disney's animated classic, Dumbo (Ben Sharpsteen, 1941). He becomes the guardian and mentor of Dumbo, the flying elephant.
Timothy is brazen, fearless, and shrewd in contrast to the soft and innocent nature of Dumbo. He has a New York accent and a rough, stereotypically Brooklyn personality, but he shows a sympathetic quality. Throughout the film, Timothy's primary goal is to make Dumbo happy and help him rescue his mother. Timothy is the much-needed protector in Dumbo's life, standing up for the saddened elephant when others attack him on account of his abnormally large ears. He cares for Dumbo and truly wants him to succeed in life. Not only does he acts as Dumbo's manager and motivator, but as his closest friend, and for a while, his only friend. With Timothy's determination, the duo manages to accomplish that Dumbo becomes a success. Because of their relationship and the absence of a paternal figure in Dumbo's life, Timothy has been cited by animation historian John Canemaker, as one of Dumbo's surrogate father figures. Bethany Cox at IMDb: "Dumbo for me is a mini-masterpiece, with beautiful animation, an inspiring message and the sweetest elephant on screen. Dumbo is an elephant born with big ears, but who cares? Timothy the Mouse is also memorable, a bit like Dumbo's conscience in a sense. For me, the highlight was Dumbo's dream, with the elephants dancing(a bit unrealistic but very imaginative), with ballet-like incidental music towards the end. I found the song "Elephants on Parade" catchy and I love how trippy the whole sequence is. In conclusion, I rejoiced when Dumbo conquered his fears when it looked impossible."
“Your ears! Just look at 'em, Dumbo! Why, they're perfect wings! The very things that held ya down are gonna carry ya up, and up, and up! I can see it all now: Dumbo, the ninth wonder of the universe - the world's only flying elephant!”
―Timothy Q. Mouse
After Dumbo (1941), Timothy had recurring appearances on the television series House of Mouse. He appeared with Dumbo, the crows, and the Pink Elephants and many other famous Disney characters. In The Stolen Cartoons, Timothy was the first of the house guests to question where is Mickey after Donald took charge of the club and was one of the first guests to leave alongside Dumbo. Timothy's most notable appearance is in Mickey and Minnie's Big Vacation where Donald and Daisy accidentally release the Pink Elephants and Timothy scares them away, saving the club. In Donald Wants to Fly, he, along with the Crows, unsuccessfully teaches Donald how to fly like the Elephants. In House of Scrooge, Timothy is forced to share his evening meal (one pea) with various other mice from Disney films, including Jaq and Gus, Bernard, Miss Bianca, and Ratigan. In Pete's House of Villains, he joins the others in saying "We want Mickey!". Timothy doesn't appear in the 2019 live-action remake of Dumbo, however, there is a homage to the character, an unnamed non-speaking pet white mouse of Milly and Joe, the son and daughter of Holt Farrier, the three of whom take the roles of best friends and father figure to Dumbo. The mouse is dressed like Timothy here and also has two other smaller mice along with him.
Sources: Bethany Cox (IMDb), Disney Fandom, and IMDb.
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French postcard by Imp. Georges Lang, Paris, offered by Chocolats Tobler. Image: Walt Disney.
Little Hiawatha (or simply Hiawatha is a little Indian hunter who hunts for the game. He is the hero of the Silly Symphony Little Hiawatha (David Hand, 1937).
In the short film Little Hiawatha, Hiawatha is first seen rowing in his canoe across the canoes across the falls of Minnehaha. Encountering a bluebird and a robin, he prepares to fire his arrow but the animals tell them not to hurt them. Upon passing through a whirlpool, Hiawatha arrives at a stop and falls on the water where the raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, and other woodland creatures laugh at him. Approaching the animals, Hiawatha tries to fire his arrow at them but they end up running away. Hiawatha sees strange animal tracks to which he sees a grasshopper he is about to hunt. Hiawatha attempts to take him down but the grasshopper fools him and later he chases a small rabbit. He attempts to take him down but instead shoos him away and due to his big heart, he spares the innocent rabbit. The rabbit is reunited with his family
Upon sparing the rabbit, Hiawatha breaks his arrow as the animals cheer for him that he will not harm any other animal he encounters. He accidentally discovers a bear cub alongside an adult bear which suddenly chases him across the woods. At the same time, three beavers notice that Hiawatha is in danger sounding the alarm to the woodland creatures. As Hiawatha is being chased, the raccoons, beavers, opossums, and other animals save him from the bear. He then returns to his canoe as the animals bid farewell to him.
Source: Disney Wiki and IMDb.
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Vintage French postcard. ELD (Ed. Le Deley). GPL. Photo Bert. Stage play Chantecler by Edmond Rostand, Lucien Guitry as Le coq/ The Rooster, i.e. Chantecler.
Lucien Guitry (1860-1925) was considered the preeminent French actor of his day. For many tears, he played opposite Sarah Bernhardt. He also appeared in silent films like Tosca (1908) and Ceux de chez nous (1915). He was married to Jeanne Desclois and Renée de Pont-Jest, and his son was the well known actor-writer-director Sacha Guitry.
Chantecler is a play in four acts by Edmond Rostand, written in 19101. It was first performed on 7 February 1910 at the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre. The lead roles were played by Lucien Guitry, Jean Coquelin, Félix Galipaux and Madame Simone.
A cockerel, Chantecler, reigns over a barnyard, so convinced of his importance that he imagines his crowing will make the sun rise. But the arrival of a pheasant hen turns his life upside down, revealing love to him in such a way that he forgets to crow. But when the sun came out, Chantecler became the laughing stock of all domestic and wild animals, especially the owls, creatures of the night who hated him and forced him to accept a public fight with another cock. The fight takes place in the guinea fowl's literary salon. After a near-death experience, Chantecler defends the barnyard against the threats of a sparrowhawk, thereby regaining some of his prestige. Unjustly neglected, but understanding that vanity is stronger than love in the cock, the pheasant nevertheless sacrifices herself for him and goes to meet a hunter in his place. A shot is fired, but it is the golden-voiced nightingale who is mortally wounded. The rooster's hoarse crow alone will continue to celebrate the dawn.
Opposite the proud coquerel Chantecler, there is the vile Merl, representing the cynical city slicker, intrigue, jealousy and cowardry; the presumptuous Guinea Fowl; the loyal and friendly dog Patou; the Pheasant, representing female Beauty and the Modern Woman; the vain and stupid Peacock; the fragile and magic Nightingale; and the creatures of the night like the Toads (ugly and powerless, a critique by Rostand of theatre critics) and the Night Birds like the Owls (who hate the coquerel as they can only live during the night and he disturbs this).
After a long break after his successes of Cyrano de Bergerac and L'Aiglon, expectations were very high, even more so as Rostand took years to finish the preparation for the play, which involved over 70 characters and over 195 costumes. Rostand himself designed the sets & costumes, but almost crashed over the enterprise. When the play finally premiered on 7 February 1910 at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, despite a star cast with e.g. Lucien Guitry as Chantecler and Jean Coquelin as Patou, the audience was deluded and even felt insulted, as Rostand sharply criticised the hypocrisy, jealousy, intrigues, and presumptuousness of life in the city, opposed to the countryside. The audience felt criticised itself. Moreover, audiences were not accustomed to see the famous actors dressed up as animals, and some felt Guitry's performance was not his best. A revival in 1927, with Victor Francen as Chantecler, was better received. Afterward, the play would be revived in and outside of France several times, while the Broadway version already took place in 1911, with Maud Adams starring.
A curious case of afterlife is told on English Wikipedia: "In June 1960, Disney told the Los Angeles Times that, following the release of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, two animated projects were in development, which were Chanticleer and The Sword in the Stone. Around that same time, Disney's elder brother Roy O. Disney attempted to persuade him to discontinue their feature animation division, as enough films remained to make successful re-releases. The younger Disney refused, but, because of his plans to build another theme park in the United States, he would approve only one animated film to be released every four years. Chanticleer was developed by Ken Anderson and Marc Davis, who aimed to produce a feature animated film in a more contemporary setting. They visited the Disney archives and decided to work on adapting the satirical tale after glancing at earlier conceptions dating back to the 1940s. Anderson, Davis, Milt Kahl, and director Wolfgang Reitherman spent months preparing elaborate storyboards for Chanticleer. Following a silent response to one pitch presentation, a voice from the back of the room said, "You can't make a personality out of a chicken!" When the time came to approve either Chanticleer or The Sword in the Stone, Disney remarked that the problem with making a rooster a protagonist was, "[you] don't feel like picking a rooster up and petting it." "
In 1992, Rostand's story of Chantecler was loosely adapted into the American animated film Rock-a-Doodle, directed by Don Bluth, and set in Tennessee 1957. Here the Grand Duke of Owls concocts to have Chanticleer ridiculed as he forgets to crow at the rising sun after a fierce battle, so the rooster leaves for town to become a singer. Meanwhile, the night birds set their hungry eyes on the farm birds... The film was no critical nor box office success. Yet, it would be more successful during its home video release. Voices were by e.g. Glen Campbell (Chanticleer) and Christopher Plummer (the Grand Duke of Owls).
Sources: English and French Wikipedia.
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Spanish postcard by Dümmatzen, no. 90. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Anita Page in Our Blushing Brides (Harry Beaumont, 1930).
Beautiful Anita Page (1910–2008) was one of the most popular leading ladies of Hollywood during the last years of the silent screen and the first years of the sound era. According to MGM, she received the most fan mail then and her nickname was "the girl with the most beautiful face in Hollywood".
Anita Page was born Anita Pomares in New York in 1910. After the birth of her brother Marino, the family moved to Astoria, a neighbourhood in the New York borough of Queens. Here she spent her childhood with her neighbours, Betty Bronson's family. Bronson debuted in Peter Pan (Herbert Brenon, 1924), after which her family moved to Hollywood. However, they returned briefly to the East Coast to film A Kiss for Cinderella (Herbert Brenon, 1925). They stayed at the Plaza Hotel and invited the young Page. Page herself had wanted to be an actress since childhood and this was noticed by Bronson. She gave her advice by sharing her own experiences of breaking through as an actress and offered her the role of an extra in A Kiss for Cinderella. Page accepted the offer. Her one-day stay at the studio led to more bit parts in Love 'Em and Leave 'Em (Frank Tuttle, 1926), which starred Evelyn Brent and Louise Brooks. An assistant advised her to take dance and acting lessons so that she "might one day grow into a star". After taking dance lessons from Martha Graham and acting lessons from John Murray Anderson, she met John Robert Powers, and Page was hired as one of his "The Power Girls". One day, he sent her to an audition at the Pathé Studio. She got a role in the short film Beach Nuts (1927). Bronson introduced her to agent Harvey Pugh. He arranged a screen test and soon Page was offered a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Page was cast opposite William Haines in Telling the World (Sam Wood, 1928). The film became a huge success, immediately getting Page noticed. Her next film, Our Dancing Daughters (Harry Beaumont, 1928) opposite Joan Crawford became a major success and caused a huge rise in popularity for both of them. After Lon Chaney saw Page in Our Dancing Daughters, he asked Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to cast her in his new film, While the City Sleeps (Jack Conway, 1928). She then acted opposite Ramon Novarro in the romantic drama The Flying Fleet (George W. Hill, 1928). Her success in MGM's first highly publicised musical Broadway Melody (1929) opposite Bessie Love paved the way for a smooth career in sound cinema. After the film was released, it became a huge success. Broadway Melody (1929) became the first sound film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. It was one of the first musicals to feature a Technicolor sequence, which sparked the trend of colour being used in a flurry of musicals that would hit the screens in 1929–1930. Page also sang several songs, including the popular hit 'You Were Meant for Me', purposely written by Nacio Herb Brown for her. It would remain her theme song.
In the early 1930s, Anita Page had a busy career in American films opposite actors like Buster Keaton, John Gilbert, Walter Huston, Robert Montgomery, and Clark Gable with whom she was romantically involved. When not working on films, she was busy with studio photographer George Hurrell creating publicity shots. She was one of his first subjects, and her photograph was his first to be published. After Garbo, she was the actress who got the most fan mail and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini supposedly kept proposing to her. At the age of 23, Page suddenly quit filming when her contract expired in 1933. She retired as she was denied a pay rise. Nacio Herb Brown, the composer of her song 'You Were Meant For Me', became her husband in 1934 until Page shortly after the wedding discovered he was a bigamist. She made one more film, the low-budget drama Hitch Hike to Heaven (Frank R. Strayer, 1936), and then retired fully from acting. In an interview in 2004, Page said the reason was she had refused sexual favours to MGM producers Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer, after which Mayer made sure she was banned from any studio. She married Navy pilot Lieutenant Hershel A. House in 1937. They lived in Coronado, California, until he died in 1991. They had two daughters, Linda and Sandra. From 1996 on, after sixty years of absence from cinema, she played in various low-budget horror movies such as Witchcraft XI: Sisters in Blood (Ron Ford, 2000). She loved her old films, did many interviews, and always answered her fan mail. In 2009, Anita Page died in her sleep at the age of 98 in her Los Angeles home where she had lived with long-time companion Randal Malone. She is buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery in San Diego.
Sources: Wikipedia (English and Dutch), the Anita Page website
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Vintage German postcard. Ross Verlag, No. 4793/1, c. 1929-30. Terra/ United Artists. Possibly referring to Bell's German late silent film Phantome des Glücks (Reinhold Schünzel, 1929), a Terra production, in which Bell plays the dancer Marisa.
Danish actress Karina Bell (1898-1979) was one of the most popular stars of the Nordisk Films Kompagni in the 1920s. She also appeared in German and Swedish films.
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