George Pal Papers, 1937-1986

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Summary

Creators:
Pal, George
Language:
English.

Background

Scope and content:

Collection consists of material related to career of animator producer director George Pal. Includes correspondence, script materials, photographs, audio recordings, publicity material, clippings, and research and development materials. Contains material representing Pal's produced films, animated shorts, and unproduced projects. Includes materials for several projects including "Doc Savage" (1975), "Puppetoons," "Seven Faces Of Dr. Lao" (1964), "Time Machine" (1960), "War Of The Worlds" (1953), and "The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm" (1962).

Biographical / historical:

Pal was born in Cegled, Hungary, Feb. 1, 1908; graduated from the Budapest Academy of Arts with an architecture degree; began his cinema career in Budapest, then moved to Universum Film Aktien Gesellschaft (UFA) in Berlin where he became head of the animation department; moved to Paris and under the sponsorship of Phillips radio he began work on his first "puppet-toon," "The Ship of Ether"; he opened a studio in Holland (1930s) where he continued working on his "puppet-toon" concept which involved manipulating thousands of different interchangeable wooden heads, arms, legs, and bodies to produce a fluid and lifelike effect when filmed a frame at a time; in 1940, Paramount studio commissioned Pal to make a series of theatrical puppet cartoon short subjects, "The Madcap Models" and "George Pal Puppetoons"; he went on to feature films in 1950 with "The Great Rupert" and "Destination Moon," the first Technicolor science fiction film; the recipient of numerous awards including Academy Awards for Achievement in Special Effects and a special Award for the development of novel methods and techniques in the production of short subjects known as Puppetoons; died 1980.

Arrangement:

Arranged in the following series:

  1. Biographical miscellaneous
  2. Produced films
  3. Unproduced projects

Physical location:
Held at SRLF. Please contact the Performing Arts Special Collections for paging information.
Physical description:
36 boxes (16.0 linear ft.)

Access and use

Location of this collection:
A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
Contact:
(310) 825-4988
AskLSC@library.ucla.edu
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