[Original Photo Album from Animation Productions] de PAL, George - [ca. 1932]

np, [ca. 1932]. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Oblong 4to. Original screw-bound linen boards. With Pal's bookplate to front free end-paper and his ownership stamp to inside front and back covers. Containing 68 original B&W photos adhesive-mounted rectos only to 39 leaves plus some related scrap. Apparently complete. Binding lacking one screw. Else fine.

Academy Award-winning animator, producer, and director George Pal emigrated from his native Hungary in 1939 and went on to a successful and innovative Hollywood career. He is perhaps best remembered as the producer of several science fiction and fantasy films in the 1950s, including WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE and THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953). He himself directed TOM THUMB (1958), THE TIME MACHINE (1960) and THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM (1962). But before his emigration, he had a varied and successful career in Europe, where he developed the "Puppetoon" method. “Puppetoons” are a form of replacement animation in which a series of different hand-carved wooden puppets (or puppet parts) are substituted in each frame, rather than manipulating a single puppet, as in most stop-motion animation. It was for this technique he won an honorary Oscar in 1943 and these intricate, time consuming techniques are on prominent display here. The majority of the photographs appear to be production images and action stills from MIDNIGHT (1932), an early Pal advertising effort featuring dancing cigarettes, widely recognized as the first Puppetoon animation. A photograph titled “Heiraten und nicht verzweifeln” (“Spouses do not despair.”) precedes 16 photos of a different (though likely equally as early) household cleaning product film. Eight German press clippings on Pal and his methods additionally mounted to the final 6 leaves. A rich and handsome album, documenting at least several commercial animation projects undertaken by Pal before his emigration to the US, and likely produced for showcasing Pal’s early advertising shorts to perspective clients. Overall, an exceptional record of animation history and production.