Comments on: Charley Bowers: the film genius no one's ever heard of

Charley Bowers: the film genius no one's ever heard of

Gucky — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:44:03 -0800

"Highbrow critics talk in ornate polysyllables about the ingenuity and art of the German filmmakers. If they condescended to witness the nonsensical genius of a Charley Bowers comedy they could drool dictionaries." Educational Pictures Press Book for THERE IT IS, January 23, 1928

Charley Bowers is a genius of silent film and animation that never got the level of attention of his peers Buster Keaton or the Fleischer Brothers. You'll have to search hard to find him in film literature. But watching his work—as a bird lays a Ford Model T or a scruffy ghost tortures a Scotsman and his insect sidekick—you can see the inspiration for the later sight gags of Ernie Kovacs, the visual non sequiturs of Looney Toons, the cut paper trickery of Terry Gilliam and surrealist Andre Breton citing one of Bowers' shorts as the most influential film of 1937.

Bowers' early life is unknown, with claims about his childhood full of fanciful stories of kidnapping, losing his father and being raised in the circus as a tightrope walker. But what is known for sure is that he went from a career as a cartoonist to turning Bud Fisher's Mutt and Jeff comics into animated cartoons as his first major foray into film making. (Although the Winsor McCay-like AWOL shows he was exploring the medium outside of Mutt and Jeff early on.) He then began to experiment with a mix of live action and stop motion, perfecting the "Bowers Technique" of incorporating the two. His films were never widely popular, he tried doing animation for other filmmakers and then retired to write and illustrate children's books. Most of his films had been lost to time and flammable film stock. However, in a tale that sounds more FORGOTTEN SILVER than fact, a film archeologist bought a box of films marked simply "Bricolo" from a gypsy and through research discovered that Bricolo and Bowers were one in the same. A DVD box set was released (sadly out of print in the US, but still around for those in Europe – or with a NetFlix account) and you can now find his work on YouTube and even like him on Facebook.

By: Segundus

Segundus — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 01:51:57 -0800

Great post, Gucky. Hard to understand how stuff like this can sink out of view, but marvellous that YouTube makes it easy to access a new audience, something that probably would never have happened otherwise.

By: LiteOpera

LiteOpera — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 02:08:45 -0800

What's this guy's obsession with birds eating stuff that isn't food? I mean it does look pretty cool but, ferserius, what the hell?

By: Hoopo

Hoopo — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 03:08:29 -0800

This is my new favorite thing.

By: dumdidumdum

dumdidumdum — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 04:17:34 -0800

Wonderful! Thanks for that. For my MA dissertation I've been reading up on silent era animators and Bowers is conspicuously absent from a lot of histories. He is mentioned in Donald Crafton's Before Mickey - IMO this book is a must for any early animation enthusiast. A related endeavour is the Bray Animation Project - a labour of love bringing together the films and ephemera relating to the pioneering animation studio. I like this website particularly because it sheds light on the archives who house the films, giving access to the process of preserving moving images and making obscure material available. I wonder where master prints of Bowers' work reside?

By: IAmBroom

IAmBroom — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 04:23:39 -0800

LiteOpera: dunno, but from ostriches to goats (and tiny, nervous fish who even eat the credits), truly omnivorous animals became a staple of cartoons.

By: h00py

h00py — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 05:29:24 -0800

This is amazing. I love it.

By: hippybear

hippybear — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 05:48:04 -0800

I have the "bird laying a Model T" piece on a VHS I purchased probably over 20 years ago as one piece in a "weird animation" collection. I think Bambi Vs. Godzilla was also on there, along with quite a few other bits. Interesting to have some better background on where that came from and who created it. Thanks for posting!

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 05:56:03 -0800

Oh. My. God. I am instantly a HUGE Charley Bowers fan. Thank you so very much for this post.

By: immlass

immlass — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 06:16:21 -0800

I love early film and animation and I'm not sure I've ever heard of this guy. Thanks for the post; I'll be checking the links out.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 06:16:26 -0800

"There It Is", with the comically bizarre bespectacled man that moves stiffly through the house doing strange things, it's just... so great. And the stop-motion animation is excellent. When the bagpipes get up and walk away... the little bug in the matchbox... Then the phone moving up and down, and Bowers jumping on and off it... god, it's all just so damn creative, I'm really just dumbstruck that this guy is not as famous as Chaplin and Keaton. You know what else is cool? How much screen time the black actor gets, and how the "blackness" (that is, the expected "steppin-fetchit-ness") is not ridiculously overplayed in the usual racist manner of the day. That's a revelation, really, and gives me immense respect for the newly-discovered Charley Bowers. Gucky, this is one of the best MeFi posts to come down the pike in a long time, IMHO. And I look forward to exploring all these links. Again, thanks so much.

By: mynameisluka

mynameisluka — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 08:38:45 -0800

Ha, hippybear! I thought I was the only person in the world who owned Weird Cartoons. I won it at an elementary school auction a long-ass time ago.

By: Trurl

Trurl — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 09:53:34 -0800

A post worth waiting 6 years for. Awesome work.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 10:03:18 -0800

You know what else is cool? How much screen time the black actor gets, and how the "blackness" (that is, the expected "steppin-fetchit-ness") is not ridiculously overplayed in the usual racist manner of the day. That's a revelation, really, and gives me immense respect for the newly-discovered Charley Bowers. He spends the entire film cowering with a wide-eyed a-scairt look, and his one line contains the word I'se. Seems pretty standard to me. And then there's the whole Scots-are-cheap thing throughout. Which isn't to put down Bower's work on the whole--I just think describing it as some kind of progressive breath-of-fresh-air might be overstating things just a tad.

By: Guy_Inamonkeysuit

Guy_Inamonkeysuit — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 14:18:23 -0800

I thought I knew a lot about film and animation, but there are obviously some gaps in my knowledge. However, now I know Charley Bowers and one gap is filled. Thank you!

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 15:43:37 -0800

He spends the entire film cowering with a wide-eyed a-scairt look, and his one line contains the word I'se. Seems pretty standard to me. i disagree. Sure, he's playing a guy who's scared of the bizarre character, but no more so than anyone else in the film. I find the performance far less stereotype-like than most any other black part I've seen in any other movie from the period. And, like I mentioned, there's the amount of screen time he gets, which again, to me, makes him seem much more like just another player in the comedy, as opposed to "the black character" in the comedy. The fact that he actually comes and sits down on the sofa with the two white characters, for example, just after his first appearance in the film is already, for the time, rather remarkable. In general he is presented essentially as equal to the other characters in a way that is very rare for the period. As far as the use of vernacular (I'se), well, if that is inherently racist, then virtually any movie representation in American film history is de facto racist, outside of performances from, say, Sydney Poitier and a relative handful of others. By that definition, then, you'd have to accuse, say, Quentin Tarantino as a racist director for the way Samuel L. Jackson speaks. For example.

By: kinnakeet

kinnakeet — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:03:36 -0800

This is a super post. Thanks so much!!!! I just watched "There It Is" and I'm dumbfounded. How could someone so innovative drop out of sight? Yet another instance where I stand in awe of the Internet's ability to raise the dead.

By: Gucky

Gucky — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:05:49 -0800

That was my reaction, kinnakeet. I had to do an extra hour of research just to make sure it wasn't a modern retro-looking gag.

By: Dr. Wu

Dr. Wu — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:31:29 -0800

Just thought I'd add that the about-to-be-published anthology Funny Pictures: Animation and Comedy in Studio-Era Hollywood contains an essay by Rob King on the films of Charley Bowers. (Full disclosure: I have an essay in the book, as well.)