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George Pál

 
Director: George Pal
  • Born: Feb 01, 1908 in Cegled, Hungary
  • Died: May 12, 1980 in California
  • Occupation: Director, Cinematographer, Actor, Writer
  • Active: '30s-'60s
  • Major Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy
  • Career Highlights: The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, Seven Faces of Dr. Lao
  • First Major Screen Credit: Ship of the Ether (1933)

Biography

Trained as an architect at the Budapest Academy of the Arts, Hungarian filmmaker George Pal had trouble securing work in his chosen profession in the late 1920s; to keep food on the table, he designed "art" subtitles for silent films. At the Berlin studios of UFA in 1931, Pal began designing sets, then cultivated an interest in stop-motion animation. Moving to Holland in 1933, Pal produced a group of animated puppet shorts for Phillips Radio of Holland. Reportedly, Pal's European career was cut short when he had the temerity to produce an anti-fascist allegorical short. Pal arrived in the U.S. in 1939 to lecture at Columbia University, where he was approached by representatives of Paramount Pictures, who were interested in releasing a series of Pal-produced animated one-reelers. Beginning in 1940, Pal was responsible for the Puppettoons series (also known as Madcap Marionettes), a lucrative property that won the producer a special Oscar in 1943. Seen today, the Puppetoons remain dazzling technical achievements, even though their storylines range from skimpy to bewildering. The best of the Puppetoons include John Henry and the Inky-Poo, Tubby the Tuba, and the "Jasper and the Scarecrow" series. After filming a special animated sequence for the 1947 feature film Variety Girl, Pal and Paramount parted company. He became an independent producer with the 1950 Jimmy Durante comedy The Great Rupert, in which Durante costarred with an animated squirrel. Pal's next project, the slow-moving but visually exciting science-fiction endeavor Destination Moon (1950), won an Academy Award for best special effects. Back at Paramount in 1951, Pal inherited two unproduced sci-fi properties from Cecil B. DeMille. The resultant films, When Worlds Collide (1951) and War of the Worlds (1951), added two more special-effects Oscars to Pal's mantle. Curiously, his first non-fantasy Paramount production, Houdini (1953), was utterly unconvincing in recreating Houdini's legendary illusions (that "jump cut" as Houdini saws his wife in half is particualarly offensive). Pal's remaining Paramount productions were equally disappointing, but he made up for his past missteps with his first directorial assignment (which he also produced), MGM's Tom Thumb. This imaginative musical comedy not only won Pal his fourth Oscar, but also happily revived his "Puppetoon" concept, now smoother and more convincing than ever. Oscar number five was bestowed upon the special effects for Pal's The Time Machine (1960), which falters in the dramatic scenes (he never was comfortable directing people) but excells in its vision of the future. The cheapjack Atlantis the Lost Continent (1961) was next, followed by the Cinerama "special" The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), which had as its main attractions a screenful of Pupppetoon elves and a fire-breathing dragon. Many of Pal's fans consider 1964's Seven Faces of Dr. Lao his finest work. Unfortunately Lao was a bit too rareified to succeed at the box office, and it would be a decade before Pal would direct his next -- and last -- film. Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975), a serviceable adventure romp, was weakened by post-production efforts to "camp" the material (e.g. adding an animated gleam to the hero's eye). The failure of Doc Savage prevented Pal from raising the necessary funds for his proposed series of science-fiction films in the late 1970s. As one fan has noted, Pal may have been too nice a guy to survive in the sharktank Hollywood of the era. Nonetheless, the George Pal legend has endured long after his death in 1980. Devotees are referred to two recent retrospective films, the semi-documentary Fantasy World of George Pal (1986) and the compilation feature The Puppetoon Movie (1987). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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Wikipedia: George Pál
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George Pál

George Pál in 1979
Born György Pál Marczincsák
February 1, 1908(1908-02-01)
Cegléd, Austria-Hungary. now Hungary
Died May 2, 1980 (aged 72)
Los Angeles, California
Other name(s) Julius György Märczincsák
Years active 1934–1975
Spouse(s) Zsoka Pal (1930–1980) (his death) 2 children

George Pal (February 1, 1908May 2, 1980), born György Pál Marczincsák, was a Hungarian-born American animator and film producer, principally associated with the science fiction genre. He became an American citizen after emigrating from Europe.

He was born in Cegléd, Austria–Hungary, the son of George Pál Sr. and his wife Maria. He graduated from the Budapest Academy of Arts in 1928. From 1928 to 1931, he made films for Hunnia Films of Budapest, Hungary.

In 1931 he married Zsoka Grandjean, and moving to Berlin, founded Trickfilm-Studio Gmbh Pal und Wittke, with the UFA Studios as its main customer from 1931 to 1933. During this time, he patented Pal-Doll (known as Puppetoons in the USA).

In 1933 he worked in Prague; in 1934, he made a film advertisement in his hotel room in Paris, and was invited by Philips to make two more ad shorts. He started to use Pal-Doll techniques in Eindhoven, in a former butchery, then at villa-studio Suny Home.

He made five films before 1939 for the British company Horlicks Malted Milk. He left Germany as the Nazis came to power. In 1940, he emigrated from Europe, and began work for Paramount Pictures At this time, his friend Walter Lantz helped him obtain American citizenship.

As an animator, he made the Puppetoons series in the 1940s, then switched to live action filmmaking with The Great Rupert in 1950. He was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1944 for "the development of novel methods and techniques in the production of short subjects known as Puppetoons".

He is best remembered as the producer of landmark science fiction films in the 1950s and 1960s, four of which were collaborations with director Byron Haskin. His background with the whimsical Puppetoons set the foundation for the imaginative production designs for his films during this period.

He died in Beverly Hills, California of a heart attack at the age of 72, and was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California. The Voyage of the Berg, on which he was working at the time, was never completed.

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1722 Vine St. In 1980 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founded the "George Pal Lecture on Fantasy in Film" series in his memory.

Contents

Live action feature films

Unreleased, unfinished, or projected films

Bibliography

Gail Morgan Hickman. The Films of George Pal (South Brunswick, NJ: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1977) ISBN 0498019608

External links


 
 
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