Our Consulting Historian J.B. Kaufman will be hosting an exciting presentation in the heart of Hollywood, in conjunction with Turner Classic Movies at the TCM Classic Film Festival (April 28-May 1).
The TCM Classic Film Festival is drawing near, and I for one am particularly excited about a program that The Walt Disney Family Museum is presenting there. As some of you know, the TCM Festival will be held in Hollywood from April 28-May 1. In collaboration with New York’s Museum of Modern Art, we of the WDFM are presenting a program of the very earliest animated cartoons in Walt Disney’s career—some of them “lost” films that today’s Disney fans have never seen before.
On Thursday, April 28 (and at an encore performance on Sunday, May 1), I’ll introduce a program of the Laugh-O-grams—silent cartoons produced by a very young Walt Disney in Kansas City in 1921-23. I’m excited about this presentation for several reasons. For one thing, I’m very happy that The Walt Disney Family Museum is working with TCM. I’m a big fan of TCM myself; I think they’ve done a wonderful thing by cultivating a community of classic-film enthusiasts.
This festival, now in its second year, extends that mission by bringing many of those enthusiasts together in Hollywood, to view a great selection of classic films on the big screen—and not on just any screen, but on the screens of historic theaters like the Egyptian and Grauman’s Chinese. What a marvelous showcase for Walt—who did, after all, produce more than his share of classic films, and who will have a major presence at this year’s festival. And what better place for film fans to discover, or rediscover, these delightful cartoons that launched his career.
Too, the selection of films in this program is exciting in itself. Over the years, several of the Laugh-O-grams have been considered “lost” films—but within the last year, miraculously, all of the missing titles have been rediscovered. Two of those newfound films will be included in our short program: Goldie Locks and the Three Bears and Jack the Giant Killer.
These films, presumed missing for decades, were discovered (thanks to the intrepid research of David Gerstein and Cole Johnson) hidden in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Many casual film fans, and Disney fans, will be getting their first look at the Laugh-O-grams in this program—but even hard-core enthusiasts of Walt’s silent films will be seeing these two precious finds for the first time. Musical accompaniment will be provided by the well-known silent film pianist Ben Model. It promises to be a memorable program. I’m hoping to see you there!
J.B. Kaufman is a writer and film historian on the staff of the Walt Disney Family Foundation, and has published extensively on topics including Disney animation and American silent film. He is author of South of the Border with Disney and co-author, with Russell Merritt, of Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney and Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series. He has also contributed to the Griffith Project and other series at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy. On June 25, J.B. will host a presentation on anatomy and the art of Bambi at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.