To start: Danish Cartoon
History
The cartoon
"Fyrtøjet":
The management and the
creative staff
No attempt should be made here
to give an exact description of the people who made up the day-to-day
management of the company Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S during the production
of the feature-length film "Fyrtøjet". These are only a few
preliminary personal impressions of the persons in question, impressions which,
however, can to a certain extent be documented and which are elaborated to a
greater extent in the biographies of the persons in question. In this section,
for some of the most prominent cartoonists and animators, links have been added
to a discretionary selection of the scenes and characters for which they have
been responsible. However, due to the limitation of only having to show a total
excerpt of 10 minutes of the film, we have unfortunately had to limit
ourselves, which means that no clips of the great work are shown, as several of
the animators mentioned in this section also performed.
The director
As previously mentioned, Allan
Johnsen (1908-83) was the director of Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A / S. Both
before and after the war, he was a manufacturer and wholesaler in the textile
industry, but due to the conditions during the occupation, he had to
temporarily find other employment. As an avid sportsman, especially in the
sport of rowing, he was in 1938 co-founder and chairman of Skovshoved Roklub.
As a specialist in textile manufacturing,
Allan Johnsen wrote several books on this subject, including the first actual
textbook for tailors. It was, as already mentioned, one of these books,
"Fra Dyreskind til Celleuld", which in 1942 brought him together with
advertising cartoonist and illustrator Finn Rosenberg Ammitsted, and which
initially led to the production of the first Danish feature film
"Fyrtøjet". It was thus a pioneering work of film historical format,
the creation of which, on the basis of my personal experiences as an employee
of the film, I will, to the best of my ability, continue the attempt to portray
both here and in what follows.
When, in November 1952, I had written and
personal contact with Johnsen on a particular occasion, to which I shall return
later, he told me at my inquiry a little about what had been his background
during the occupation. As former officer in the temporarily disbanded Danish
army, he was obliged to offer resistance to foreign domination, and in this
connection he and some other resistance fighters had set up what he called the
"Gentofte group". In this resistance group there were men who later
had to "go underground", as it was called when you had to stay hidden
from the Danish authorities, i.e. the police, and for the enemy, viz. the
Germans or more specifically the Gestapo.
Going underground would first and foremost
mean that you changed your appearance and attire, got new, forged identity
papers and that you left your previous address and possibly lived in shifts
with reliable friends and acquaintances. However, when the Danish police were
arrested by the Germans on 19 September 1944 and most of them sent to
concentration camps in Germany, there were some who managed to escape before
the arrest. The escaped police officers consequently went underground, and
several of these, exactly four, were employed as employees of Dansk Farve- og
Tegnefilm A/S, to which I will return later.
A couple of these officers were also
members of the Gentofte group, and that was a contributing reason why Johnsen
took them under his protection. Allan Johnsen was also active in connection
with the dangerous evacuation of the Danish Jews to Sweden, during which it was
a matter of helping and rescuing as many of these as possible, who were lucky
enough to escape the German Jewish action on October 2, 1943 and the days
after, where they had to hide from benevolent, non-Jewish friends and
acquaintances.
During the occupation, Allan Johnsen, who
was always very discreet about his private life, divorced his first wife, and
he then married his fifteen-year-younger office lady and secretary, the then
21-year-old Gerda, called "Tesse", with whom he In 1946 had a
daughter, called "Petitesse". In 1943, however, it was Johnsen's then
secretary, Mrs Vinge, who on the aforementioned morning locked Otto Jacobsen
and me into Johnsen's office.
Despite the critics' restrained reception
of "Fyrtøjet", which had its Danish premiere in the Copenhagen cinema
Palladium on May 16, 1946, Allan Johnsen had not lost the desire to produce
long cartoons or cartoons at all. On the contrary, he had blood on his teeth,
as they say, and a few years later he applied for state cultural aid for the
production of a new feature film, "Klods-Hans", which was again based
on one of H.C. Andersen's well-known fairy tales. The State Film Committee
initially allocated DKK 10,000 for the preparatory work, and later DKK 100,000
for the production of a pilot film, i.e. a representative selection of some of
the film's scenes, which should convince investors that the company and its
staff of employees mastered the task.
The film "Klods-Hans" was close
to being put into actual production in 1950, but when the pilot film at the
presentation to the film committee did not fall out to the members' liking, it
ended up withdrawing its promise of state aid. Johnsen then tried to find other
ways to finance the production, but failed, after which the project was
definitively abandoned in 1952. However, he managed to get the committee to
cover part of the deficit the company had incurred as a result of the failed
project. It should be added that Johnsen had not calculated any salary for
himself, on the contrary. He and his wife Gerda had to move out and sublet
their beautiful villa in Gentofte at some point, and even move into a rented
apartment, where they lived for 5 years, until they could again afford to live
in the house. (See more about the "Klods-Hans" film in the section:
The feature film "Klods-Hans").
After the unsuccessful attempt to pile the
production of the feature film "Klods-Hans" on its feet, Allan
Johnsen then concentrated again on the industry, which he probably, despite his
experience, knew better than the cartoon industry, and for many years after he
still were manufacturer and wholesaler of textile products. However, at one
point he moved his office from the stately building in Frederiksberggade 10, to
the somewhat more modest property in Vestergade, where the restaurant
"Gold Digger" was housed on the ground floor. He probably retired in
the late 1970s and devoted himself to his private and family life. Allan
Johnsen died on April 25, 1983, aged 75, leaving behind his wife Gerda, whom he
called "Tesse" and his daughter Elisabeth, whom he called
"Petitesse".
The screenwriter
Peter Toubro (1915-93),
mag.art., Who was mainly responsible for the screenplay for the film
"Fyrtøjet", I actually do not know much about his data and fate. I
only know that he was mag.art. and a good acquaintance of Allan Johnsen and
Henning Pade. When I tried to get in touch with Toubro in writing in 1985, in
order to obtain some information about himself and his career, if possible,
including not least about his time with "Fyrtøjet", he did not
respond to my repeated inquiries. He lived at the time on Frederiklundsvej in
Holte.
Several years after "Fyrtøjet",
I met Peter Toubro when he gave a film lecture at the Alexandra Theater, which
was about the Flemish painter Hieronimus Bosch (1450-1516). But apart
from a friendly and recognizable nod to the greeting, I did not get to talk to
him on that occasion.
Peter Toubro worked as a kind of director
on "Fyrtøjet", however in collaboration with Finn Rosenberg, Børge
Hamberg and Bjørn Frank Jensen. Especially from the autumn of 1944, he spent a
certain number of hours daily at the drawing studio in Frederiksberggade 28,
where he fiddled around and followed what the various artists were doing.
However, he was so discreet that his presence, at least in the beginning, did
not acquire the character of a kind of control. Later, in 1944, when Johnsen
and the shareholders thought that production was going too slowly, a kind of
"control clock" was introduced, which the cartoonists had to turn
every time a drawing was finished, so that one could see that how many drawings
the individual artist made per day. It became Toubro's unpopular and ungrateful
task to ensure that the cartoonists did not "forget" to move the
clockwise or possibly moved it, without having made a similar number of
drawings.
This desperate attempt to force
production, however, only led to the cartoonists opposing and making
counterclaims, with the idea of creating a kind of trade union to look after
the interests of the employees. Johnsen and the shareholders then bowed,
removed the controls and raised salaries moderately as far as I know for all
employees, but mostly for the key signers. On the other hand, the formation of
a trade union was put on hold, and under completely different circumstances,
such a union was not formed until sometime in the 1970s.
Peter Toubro died on July 25, 1993 and
was buried from Holte Church on Thursday September 2 at 4 p.m. He left behind a
wife, a son and a daughter. But Peter Toubro will forever have inscribed his
name in the history of Danish cartoons in connection with his efforts in
connection with the cartoon "Fyrtøjet". (See also Peter Toubro's biography
here on the website).
Read Peter Toubro's entire biography here on
the website.
The literary consultant
Henning Pade (1918-88),
mag.art., Read comparative literary history at the University of Copenhagen in
his younger days and at the same time took pedagogy in Danish and French. In
his capacity as a literature student at the University of Copenhagen and
through his friendship with the chairman of Skovshoved Roklub, director Allan
Johnsen, Henning Pade became a consultant on the screenplay for the feature
film "Fyrtøjet", when it was started by his friend Peter Toubro in
the summer of 1942. In the following time Pade followed on the sidelines how
the production of the film progressed, and he regularly appeared with Toubro at
the studio in Frederiksberggade 28. However, Pade was also involved in illegal
work, which led to him being taken on September 3, 1944 of the Gestapo and put
in Vestre Prison, from which he was only released after the liberation on May
5, 1945. Henning Pade took his master's degree in 1946, and was otherwise
re-enlisted in the army. After that, he worked for some years with publishing
and translation work and was also an employee at Folkeuniversitetet. In 1948 he
became program secretary at the Dramatic-Literary Department of State Radio.
Together with the generation of writers to whom he himself belonged, several of
whom were masters, he helped in the post-war period to renew the radio's
cultural programs. It was especially theater life that interested him, and in
the 1950s he helped start the radio's theater magazine Dramatisk Forum, which
he edited for a number of years. In 1964 he became the deputy head of the
drama-literary department with the title of program editor. The boss was Jørgen
Claudi, who died in 1971, after which Pade took over his job as program
manager.
In the following years, Henning Pade, as
head, continued the Radio Theater in particular, and listeners could often hear
his well-sounding and manly voice when he announced the Radio Theater's
audition. Over the years, Pade retained his elemental delight in drama and
literature and never allowed himself to be swallowed up by Radiohuset's
internal diplomacy and bureaucracy, and this attitude spread to the mixed staff
he headed. In 1982, Henning Pade chose to resign from his post as boss, and was
replaced by author Mette Winge. In the years that followed, he was a consultant
at the TV provincial department in Aarhus, i.a. on productions such as the
Christmas calendar performance "Christmas at the Castle" (Jul på
Slottet”), 1986.
In the late 1940s, Henning
Pade was co-author of the screenplay for the planned feature film
"Klods-Hans". Creative main force, however, was the playwright,
mag.art. in Literary History Finn Methling (1917-). Henning Pade married at one
point Helle Pade, born Schmidt, who in the first years of television was a
well-known speaker face on screen. Henning Pade, who was a Knight of Dannebrog,
died on 25 February 1988, aged 69, but did not want a funeral and was therefore
buried in complete silence.
The studio's creative staff
The studio's permanent
creative staff initially consisted of relatively few people, namely designer
and background painter Finn Rosenberg, and the animators Børge Hamberg, Bjørn
Frank Jensen, Preben Dorst, Otto Jacobsen, Frede Henning Dixner and Harry
Rasmussen. Please note that all photos in this section were taken by
in-betweening artist and 'house photographer' Arne "Jømme" Jørgensen
during the production years 1943-45.
The idea man and the designer
Finn Rosenberg Ammnitsted (1920-55) was the
only 22-year-old originator of the idea of making a long cartoon
about the fairy tale "Fyrtøjet". In the years 1942-45 he was a
leading force in the production of the said film. He was trained as an
advertising cartoonist at the advertising agency Monterossi and had worked
there for a few years, after which he became creatively involved in the
production of Denmark's first long cartoon with a running time of 78 minutes.
He lived privately with his mother in an apartment in Guldbergsgade in
Nørrebro, and the mother was apparently financially dependent on her son, who
in turn felt strongly attached to her. This meant, among other things, that
even in 1947, at the age of 27, he had never been engaged or had gotten stuck
with a girl. He also stated that he was somewhat shy towards the female sex
because he only had one testicle in his scrotum, and this had also contributed
to the fact that he had so far kept his distance from the beautiful sex.
Around 1953, I happened to meet him at
Nørrebro's Runddel, where he was sitting and getting a quiet object after work
at the bodega "Runddelen"'s sidewalk café, and then he told me at my
request that he still lived with his now old mother. He then worked as a copywriter
for the advertising agency Harlang and Toksvig. Some years later, through
another former employee at "Fyrtøjet", I learned about the artist
Otto Jacobsen, whom I happened to come across inside the city. that Finn
Rosenberg had passed away.
Several times during 1944-45
he traveled with Johnsen to Berlin, where the development and copying of the
film negative for "Fyrtøjet" took place at Agfa's film laboratory.
This was because people in Denmark did not yet have the facilities to develop
and copy color films.
As for Finn Rosenberg's private
relationship, my colleague and good friend Hans Perk has once again been able
to contribute new information for me. In an e-mail of 30 September 2018, he
announces that there is private information about Finn Rosenberg on the website
https://danskefilm.dk/skuespiller.php?id=30772.
This information has been
further confirmed by the webmaster of this website, Jakob Koch, who has
conducted his own investigation of Finn Rosenberg Ammitsted's private
circumstances. The mentioned website states that Finn Rosenberg Ammitsted was
married to a woman named (first name not given) Jørgensen.
According to the above sources, Finn
Rosenberg is stated to have been born in 1920 and was thus 35 years old at his
death in 1955. As far as I understand, the marriage should have been entered
into in 1947, when both were around 27 years old. In that case, the marriage
should have lasted only about 8 years at his death in 1955. When I last met him
in 1953, he was 33 years old, myself 24 years old. But to me, he seemed like an
old man.
Read Finn Rosenberg's entire
biography here on the website
Click on the picture to see
examples of Børge Hamberg's animation for Fyrtøjet.
Drawing room manager and chief draftsman
Børge Hamberg (1920-70) was born
on March 14, 1920, and he lived with his parents in Ungarnsgade 21 on Amager,
where he grew up. He went to school at Øresundsskolen by Amagerbrogade. Børge
Hamberg had two brothers, Helge and Arne, of whom the former was a big brother
and the latter a little brother. Helge later became a manager in a large
clothing company in Copenhagen, and Arne was trained as a ceramicist at Bing
and Grøndahl. The father, Holger Hamberg, was a mechanic by training and
employed at B&W, but was very interested in his son's career as a
draftsman. In addition to his work as chief illustrator and animator on
"Fyrtøjet", Børge Hamberg also drew and delivered drawings for e.g.
the satirical yearbook "The Rocket". Due to Børge's busyness, it
occasionally happened that the father came up to the drawing room to pick up
his son's satirical drawings, to hand them over to the magazine editors.
The mother's name was Jenny
Hamberg, born Jacobsen, but I do not know her data and fate, except that she
was a homemaker and otherwise a nice and kind lady. Both parents were, like the
sons, dark-skinned, and without knowing it, I guess they may have been of
Jewish or similar origin. Especially the father's facial features could
indicate that.
As far as I know, Børge Hamberg came to
Vepro in 1939, when he was 19 years old, and here he started as a colorist and
later an intermediary. When the company in 1940 saw with goodwill that a
creative part of the staff took on tasks of various kinds outside the company,
Børge Hamberg got a temporary job as an intermediary for Erik Rus on the
cartoon "Peter Pep and Shoemaker Lace Boot" or "Peter Pep's
Assassination ”, Which was produced by" Teknisk Film Kompagni ". The
film, which was silent and had a playing time of 5 minutes, was presented on
December 6, 1940. It is, as previously mentioned, about the nimble little boy,
Peter Pep, who by all sorts of tricks provides the shoemaker with customers, a
little in the direction of what that is the case in Chaplin's "The
Kid", in which the Vagabond acts as a wandering glazier, enlisted the help
of his little hit son, who goes ahead and smashes people's windows, by throwing
stones, thus providing work for his foster father. However, Erik Rus produced
another short cartoon with the game maker Peter Pep, as a file entitled
"Peter Pep: Quick release", but Børge Hamberg does not have credit
for this film, which is why he was probably not an employee of it.
Since it was difficult to get paid cartoon
work in Denmark, ie. in Copenhagen, in the summer of 1942 Erik Rus and Børge
Hamberg, together with Erik Christensen (Chris), managed to get a job as
animators at Hans Held at Bavaria Film in Potsdam, just outside southwest
Berlin. Here they met several other Danish cartoonists, such as Arne
"Jømme" Jørgensen and Otto Jacobsen, who had also been taken to
Germany to work at Bavaria Film.
Børge Hamberg once told me that one day he
had gone to a nearby street to buy bread from the baker, and here he witnessed
a column of lousy-looking male concentration camp prisoners led by a couple of
armed soldiers stopping outside the bakery. One of the soldiers went into the
bakery and soon after came out again with a large bag of something resembling
rolls. The soldier went out into the street and turned the bag upside down, so
that all the bread fell out and down the street in front of the starving
prisoners, who immediately threw themselves at it like a pack of hungry dogs
fighting to get to and secure a share of " exchanged "because there
was not enough for everyone.
After this experience, which seemed eerie
and outrageous to him, Børge could not get himself to go into the store, to buy
bread for himself, but instead went empty-handed back to the drawing studio.
Another time he was out, when
he and probably Arne Jørgensen, one day was out for a walk in the area, that
they got lost in the forest or plantation they had entered. Suddenly they were
in front of a heavy barbed wire fence , where signs pointed out that electric
power had been put to the fence. Inside the fence, they saw a number of people
who looked like the ones Børge had seen in front of the bakery. But before
Børge and Arne had time to think about it, they were attacked by a heavily
armed patrol with furious and violently barking German Shepherds. The patrol
leader asked in a stern tone what the two men were doing here on the spot and
whether or not they had seen the warning signs with "Zutritt
Verboten" (Access Prohibited). And where did they come from and why did
they stay there in the area ?. When Børge and Arne unanimously explained that
they were out to look around in the beautiful surroundings, and that they had
strayed away from the road, he ordered them to disappear as soon as possible
and forget all about what they thought they had seen. , otherwise it could get
worse for themselves. To emphasize the seriousness of his words, the commander
asked to see their credentials, and he wrote down their names in a notebook.
Then they were allowed to go.
It was two nervous young cartoonists who
hurried off back to their lodgings near the Bavaria Film. They hardly dared to
talk to each other on the way home, but individually they decided that it was
important to travel home to Copenhagen as soon as possible. But when they were
forced to stay for the time that the contract with Hans Held obliged them to,
they kept their teeth too heavy and concentrated on the work, while at the same
time talking the days to the journey home.
One day after the end of working hours,
Børge and Arne were visiting a restaurant near their accommodation. There were
many people of both sexes present, mainly people of a mature age, as most men
in their 20s and 40s were called up for military service. There was a pleasant
buzz of talking people and the radio was playing entertainment music. Kl. 20
however, the music was suddenly interrupted and the speaker's voice announced
that there would now be an important broadcast that all nationalist Germans
should listen to. All conversation fell silent and people sat quietly in
anxious anticipation, staring in the direction of the radio. There was a
fanfare and immediately after, Hitler's familiar voice was heard in the
loudspeaker, at first calmly and fatherly and self-righteous on behalf of the
gross Vaterland, occasionally ironic, especially when he mentioned the Allies,
but eventually he worked his way up to something resembling anger and rage .
The latter was usually always the case when he talked about his favorite
subject "die Juden", the Jews, who for a long time had sucked out
that poor Germany and who now only intended to destroy it completely, from
within and without. For Hitler, the Jews represented both capitalism and
Bolshevism, which in turn meant the United States and the Soviet Union,
respectively.
Hitler usually only addressed
the German people when he was in a large assembly of loyal party colleagues,
and this was also the case on the day when Børge and Arne sat down and had a
cup of substitute coffee at the mentioned restaurant. Hitler was an expert in
opening up a gathering of people, and his speeches therefore always resulted in
a huge round of applause, during which people clapped and shouted and healed,
either out of joy or out of anger and excitement. It also happened that day,
and the German guests in the restaurant got up spontaneously and clapped,
shouted and greeted, while Børge and Arne stood embarrassed and felt like
strangers in the company.
One of the things that also made an
indelible impression on at least some of the Danes who stayed in Germany at the
beginning of the war was the Germans' treatment of the Jews who had not yet
been arrested and taken to concentration camps. When Børge and Arne entered the
local police station one day, presumably to get something done with their
visas, they could observe that the waiting room was divided into two sections,
one "Für Juden" and one for Aryans. The same was true in many other
places, e.g. in trams, buses and trains. Similar to what was still the case for
many of America's Negroes as late as the early 1960s. Everywhere in the big
cities in the Southern States, one could see signs, such as. "For
Blacks" or "For White Only", as was the case in South Africa
until the late 1980s.
But even if the existence of the Negroes
in the places mentioned above was certainly not enviable, it cannot be compared
to the cruel and harsh fate that befell millions of Jews during World War II.
During the time Børge Hamberg worked for
Hans Held at Bavaria Film in Berlin, he drew on films such as
"Störenfried" and "Einigkeit macht stark". I remember he
had brought home some painted cels with a column of mounted knights in armor
from one of these films. As far as Børge knew, Hans Held was a Swiss German,
and as such he was more or less forced to work for "der grose
Vaterland". Moreover, it must probably be said in general that cartoonists
are often people who live in their own inner world and creative imagination,
and they therefore prefer not to engage or only rarely in external conditions
and circumstances.
The latter did not apply to Børge Hamberg,
however, because as a result of his experiences during his stay in Germany, he
realized that it was necessary to fight a despot like Hitler, just as he
generally believed that the factors and forces that were to blame for the great
unemployment in the 1930s and later, should also be combated. Børge therefore
became a convinced communist, but refrained from anything that tasted of party
politics. What he sought and which he supported was economic, social and human
justice, and he did not think that the political parties were able or able to
establish it, nor the Social Democrats or the Communist Party. For a brief
transition, however, Børge was inclined to believe that the Communist Party
might be the only party that would work and fight for the ideals he himself
believed in. After the war, however, he changed his view and became more
philosophically and humanely interested, rejecting all forms of intolerance,
use of force and violence, and over time became more and more spiritually
interested, with particular connection to Martinus' cosmology.
Read Børge Hamberg's entire
biography here on the website
Click on the picture to see
examples of Bjørn Frank Jensen's animation for Fyrtøjet.
Animator and later also
drawing studio manager
Bjørn Frank Jensen (1920-2001), about
whom we have already learned that from the mid-1930s he was employed as an
advertising drawing student at Monterossi's Advertising Agency, where he at one
point came to work with Dahl Mikkelsen, and including also with Jørgen Myller,
who in 1938 worked for Gutenberghus Reklame Film. In April 1939, Bjørn Frank
followed Mik and Myller over to "Vepro" in Hovedvagtsgade, and
followed when the company moved to Svanemøllevej in Hellerup at the beginning
of 1942. As the talented cartoonist and animator, Bjørn Frank quickly turned
out to be, he got his first independent animation assignment in the commercial
cartoon "Pig of the Gods", in which he according to his own statement
animated a small scene. Later, he probably got other independent assignments
during the time he worked for this company.
Around the time when the start-up of the
feature film "Fyrtøjet" had gradually begun, and where Müller and Mik
were briefly in the picture as possible directing animators on the project, it
is probable that Bjørn Frank has seen the possibilities that would be for him
if he let himself be employed by Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S. The fact is, at
least, that he joined the project at a relatively early stage of production.
Here he was given the responsibility of animating figures such as the
astrologer, the guard, the king, the queen, etc., a task he smoked with care
and great talent.
In my opinion, Bjørn Frank Jensen is one
of the key characters in "Fyrtøjet", which came closest to the Disney
style, in terms of both design and animation of characters. A cartoonist like
Kjeld Simonsen was also strongly Disney-influenced in his line and animation,
but Simon, as he was called, had difficulty with the timing of the characters'
movements, which he tended to make too soft, "rubbery", slow and
almost "floating". In particular, it caused the characters to lose
their individual character, so that they all seemed completely alike, despite
their different appearance. Bjørn Frank did not have this unfortunate tendency
in his design and in his animation, which was admittedly rounded and soft, but
in such a restrained way that the figures nevertheless retained a distinctive
character.
Simultaneously with his
cartoon work, Bjørn Frank was interested in drawing illustrations and comics.
As early as 1944, he began a cartoon called "The Good Knights,"
loosely based on a tale by Mark Twain. The series was printed in the then very
popular joke magazine, the weekly "High Mood" (“Højt Humør”).
In 1939 he had illustrated Johan Herman Wessel's satirical poem "The
Blacksmith and the Baker" (“Smeden og Bageren”), and in 1948 he drew a
series of cheerful drawings for the children's book "Little Peter
Spider", for which the text and music are written by actor, singer,
lyricist and revue director Knud Pheiffer. In 1994, this small modest book was
republished in a photographic reprint, and for publication was Pheiffer's
stepdaughter, actress, dancer and singer Susanne Breuning.
At a time in 1944, when there was a
shortage of space in the drawing studio in Frederiksberggade, some of the
in-betweeners were moved to the design studio that Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm
A/S had had arranged on the first floor on the corner of Nørrebrogade and
Blågårdsgade, above Nørrebro's Messe. . The drawing studio was led by Bjørn
Frank, and some of the in-betweeners he was responsible for were i.a. Kai
Pindal and Ib Steinaa.
Read Bjørn Frank Jensen's entire biography
here on the website
Click on the image to see
examples of Otto Jacobsen's animation for Fyrtøjet.
Animator and background
painter
Otto Jacobsen (1916-) was born
and raised in Karise on Southeast Zealand. Here he came in 1930 as a carpenter and
was apprenticed in 1934, after which he worked as a carpenter in the province,
until he came to Copenhagen in 1940. Through a rental agency, he got a room in
Nørregade, with a Mrs. Jørgensen, who ran a boarding house. Jacob, as we called
him in everyday speech, wanted to be a draftsman, and therefore he applied to
Jean Jallit's drawing school, called the Academy of Free and Mercantile Art
(Akademiet for Fri og Merkantil Kunst), which was housed at the end of Vester
Voldgade, adjacent to Nørre Voldgade.
As a resident, Jacob had a Baroness Lerche
who lived on the other side of the stairs, and this lady knew the German
cartoonist Hans Held, who at the time worked for Bavaria Film in Berlin, and
she therefore asked Jacob if he would like to go to Berlin and make cartoons.
He said yes to that. The baroness had already provided Mrs Jørgensen's son,
Arne Jørgensen, with a job with Hans Held. It was probably also through the
Baroness and "Jømme", as Arne Jørgensen was called among friends and
acquaintances, that both Erik Rus and Børge Hamberg came to Germany. Here they
worked on the cartoon "Störenfried", which I have not been able to
find details about, and therefore do not know.
Otto Jacobsen returned home to Copenhagen
at the same time as Børge Hamberg and "Jømme", and here it was that
they got a job on "Fyrtøjet" via a newspaper ad, respectively as a
key draftsman and background painter, drawing studio manager and key draftsman,
and as an in-between draftsman.
After many years, in 1984-85 I
had a short written and telephone contact with Jacob. At the time, it was my
intention to write the history of Danish cartoons, but for several reasons it
did not work out. Unfortunately. But here in August 1999, when these lines are
being written, I see from the phone book that Jacob no longer lives at
Ringerbakken 4 in Virum, where he lived at the time in 1984, when I had contact
with him. He may have moved or may have passed away. But if he is still alive
(in 2005), he must be around 90 years old.
It is my opinion that Otto Jacobsen was
also of Jewish descent, which his appearance and name: Jacobsen spelled with c
could indicate, similar to e.g. the politician Erhardt Jacobsen and his
daughter, Mimi Jacobsen, who was also married to Bengt Burg, who is undoubtedly
of Jewish descent. But this of course has no significance in itself, but will
in any case be an example of how a number of people of Jewish descent could
move freely in the Copenhagen of the time, surrounded by Germans with and
without uniform, without any harm to those concerned, nor did any proper human
think of identifying acquaintances or friends of Jewish descent.
When the feature film "Fyrtøjet"
had been finished in the late summer of 1945, Jacob got a job at Gutenberghus
Reklame Film in Vognmagergade, and here he was joined by colleagues such as
"Jømme", Helge Hau, Elsebeth?, Grethe? and Edel Hansen. It turned
out, however, that in the long run there were not enough orders for commercials
for it to be possible to maintain a continuous production of this type of film,
and the "team" was therefore dismissed. After this, Jacob came to
Magasin du Nord's drawing studio and from there in 1952 to the daily newspaper
Politiken, where he was employed as an advertising cartoonist for 30 years.
Jacob retired in 1982, at the age of 66.
After many years, in 1984-85 I
had a short written and telephone contact with Jacob. At the time, it was my
intention to write the history of Danish cartoons, but for several reasons it
did not work out. Unfortunately. But here in August 1999, when these lines are
being written, I see from the phone book that Jacob no longer lives at
Ringerbakken 4 in Virum, where he lived at the time in 1984, when I had contact
with him. He may have moved or may have passed away. But if he is still alive
(in 2005), he must be around 90 years old.
It is my opinion that Otto Jacobsen was
also of Jewish descent, which his appearance and name: Jacobsen spelled with c
could indicate, similar to e.g. the politician Erhardt Jacobsen and his
daughter, Mimi Jacobsen, who was also married to Bengt Burg, who is undoubtedly
of Jewish descent. But this of course has no significance in itself, but will
in any case be an example of how a number of people of Jewish descent could
move freely in the Copenhagen of the time, surrounded by Germans with and
without uniform, without any harm to those concerned , nor did any proper human
think of identifying acquaintances or friends of Jewish descent.
Click on the image to see
examples of Preben Dorst's animation for Fyrtøjet.
Animator and character
designer
Preben Dorsch Jensen (1923-). It is
unfortunately not much I have to be able to tell about Preben Dorsch Jensen,
apart from the fact that he was probably born and raised on Amager. At the time
he was an employee at "Fyrtøjet", he lived in Tårnby. He must have
been around 20-21 years in 1943, when we started working on
"Fyrtøjet", where he came to make a number of different larger and
smaller scenes. But he got his big and responsible task - some will think too
big - when after various futile attempts with other artists, among others. Jørgen
Claudi, the later head of the Radio's dramatic-literary department, including
the Radio Theater, entrusted him with drawing and animating the film's
princess.
Preben Dorst, as he soon called himself,
changing his middle name and deleting the surname Jensen, was a pretty good
cartoonist and a skilled, but - like several other of the employees -
uneducated and inexperienced animator. The task was therefore doomed in advance
to fail, as he only managed in a few single scenes, to give the princess the
life and charm that she should have had throughout the film. It must be noted
that Dorst's animation of the shoemaker boy, which i.a. fetching the uniform
jacket for the imprisoned soldier, succeeded considerably better.
Dorst, who by the way had received an
education as a decoration painter at the decoration company Brønsholm in
Copenhagen, was not entirely unfamiliar with cartoons and animation, as before
his employment with Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S in the spring of 1943, he had
experimented with making puppet film in so-called table-top technique, and in
addition he had a transition in the early 1940s was an employee of Richard
Møller on one or more of his cartoons.
Dorst, as he was called in
daily publicity and indictment, was a friendly and accommodating man, but with
a delicate and nervous mind, which caused him a number of personal problems.
When he felt exposed and uncomfortable, he became pale in the face and began to
stutter, which caused him to usually close his mouth and be silent. He was otherwise
a tall, quite handsome young man with naturally curly hair and always
well-dressed. But apparently mainly because of his nervous mind and his tribe,
he was very shy, especially towards girls. However, there was one of the girls
in the coloring department he had fallen in love with but did not dare declare
himself to. Her name was Anne Lise Clausen, and she had probably also a lot
left over for the shy and awkward, but still gallant Dorst.
In May 1944, Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A /
S held a dinner with a subsequent trip to Tivoli for all employees who wanted
to participate. The dinner took place in the Officers' Association's Banquet
Rooms, which were located behind the Industrial Building on the corner of
Rådhuspladsen and Vesterbrogade. I do not remember the menu, only that some of
the staff got so much to drink that they became very happy and elated. The
subsequent Tivoli trip, where some of the employees continued to rinse their
throats, was very enjoyable and cheerful. This good and enjoyable atmosphere
was used by a clearly happy Dorst, who had only just wet his palate and was
therefore, if not embarrassingly sober, then at least sober enough that he
dared to face the rest of us that he and Anne Lise Clausen had ring engaged
just this day.
Everyone congratulated the seemingly happy
young couple, and everything pointed out that the two should start living and
rejoicing with each other to the end of their days. But less than a few months
later, we noticed others that Dorst had again become silent and confined, and
the same was true of his chosen ones. The golden ring, the covenant on the
promise of later marriage, had none of them on the ring finger of the left hand
anymore. However, no one bothered to ask what had happened, for we knew it
would be painful for Dorst to give us answers. At one point, he took sick leave
and was away from the drawing room for a few weeks. The drawing and coloring
department meanwhile moved to other premises, which were located in Nørrebro,
and here most of the girls followed, including Anne Lise Clausen. Back in
Frederiksberggade 28 were Jenny Holmqvist and one of the five or six of the
girls. Upon moving to Nørrebro, the girls got a new female leader, whose name
was Else Emmertsen, who had previously been head of the drawing and coloring
department at VEPRO.
Shortly after, Dorst returned
and resumed his work at the design studio. He was now more or less at his old
self again and therefore able to work, and in the ensuing time he worked
intensely and sought to catch up on what he had had to neglect. It was shortly
before the time when he was selected to draw and animate the film's princess.
After the Fyrtøjet era, one day I met Otto
Jacobsen in Jorck's Passage, and he told me that Dorst and a friend were
experimenting with making puppet films, but it probably did not turn out to be
a finished and useful result. By the way, Dorst had already experimented with
making puppet films while he was working on "Fyrtøjet", which he
himself told me in his time. Some years later I also heard, also from a mutual
acquaintance, whose name I do not remember, that Dorst in an attack of
depression had probably taken his own life, but according to the information I
received in 2001 from Bodil Rønnow, so he was still alive but stayed
permanently in a psychiatric ward at an unspecified location. Bodil Rønnow
could also tell that Preben Dorst had some time later during the production of
"Fyrtøjet" got engaged and had married Alice ("Bitten")
Andersen, who was an employee in the drawing and coloring department at Dansk
Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S. The couple had a daughter together and everything
seemed to be going well for the small family, but Dorst's nervous constitution
worsened and unfortunately proved incurable, so that at some point he had to be
admitted to a psychiatric ward for the incurably mentally ill. But no matter
what, we are still some pieces that remember Preben Dorst as a nice and
pleasant person, and that he was also a really good artist and skilled
animator.
Click on the image to see
examples of Kjeld Simonsen's animation for Fyrtøjet.
An artist and animator of the
great
The personally very modest and
friendly Kjeld Simonsen (1920-88) was born in Aalborg, where he went to
cathedral school. Here, the drawing teacher, Viggo Vagnbye, noticed the boy's
distinct drawing talent. In 1933, Simon, as he was commonly called, saw for the
very first time a black-and-white Mickey Mouse film in the cinema, and it
seemed so overwhelming and inspiring to him that he decided on the spot to
become a cartoonist (animator).
However, Simon was only 13 at the time, so
he had to arm himself with patience for a few more years. However, he had
already begun to draw jokes for the newspapers, and by the way, he often sat in
class for hours drawing in the Latin and French books. That, according to his
own statement, led to him being kicked out of school! However, the relationship
with the school and the teachers was no worse than arranging the contact with a
local company, which had an English director named Graham Lokey's
Advertising Agency, which then also adopted the hopeful young man as a
student. Here he then spent three years learning about advertising drawing and
advertising techniques.
But it was and became a cartoon that Simon
wanted to make, and as soon as his apprenticeship was over - it was in 1939 -
he went to Copenhagen, the main center of the country's film industry. Here he
succeeded in becoming a student at Nordisk Films Kompagni A/S, where he as a
teacher got the company's artistic director, the playwright Adolf Kobitzch
(1901-45), who also worked as a director of documentaries. Here, Simon got the
chance to make some cartoon features in a wash film for F.D.B. as well as some
scenes in an anniversary film for "Brugsen".
However, Simon did not think
he learned "the right thing" from Kobitzch, and no matter how it is
connected, Nordisk Film's chief executive, director Holger Brøndum, came into
the picture, and as he was also a board member of the then only
"right" cartoon company in Denmark, "Vepro", which was
housed in Hovedvagtsgade in Copenhagen, he made sure that Simon got a job here.
Simon was set to "draw up", paint cells and draw in-betweens,
processes that the company's artistic directors, Jørgen Müller and
Dahl-Mikkelsen (Mik), rightly thought every aspiring animator should know
about. "Vepro" later moved to Svanemøllevej in Hellerup.
It soon turned out, however, that there
was no constant work at "Vepro", so Simon therefore got various
freelancing drawing work, partly what he himself could find from commercial
cartoons - and it was modest - and partly illustration and commercial drawing
tasks. Occasionally he also drew comics and picture books for Per Carlsen and
his Press and Illustration Bureau (P.I.B.). Probably at that time Simon drew
some glorious illustrations for the children's book "Mads, Mogens and
Mikkel", which I remember I bought and liked a lot. At that time,
Simon also illustrated some poems by Harald H. Lund for Familie Journalen, and
for Sylvester Hvid’s Advertising Bureau he drew posters, signs and
advertisements, and also made some advertising cartoons, among others. one for
the agency itself, namely the film that, in a sense, became my 'destiny' and
carried me on when, at the end of May 1943, I was employed as a student at the
agency.
At
that time, Denmark had been occupied by Nazi Germany on April 9, 1940, an event
that was to have tragic consequences for Simon as well, but about this later.
Despite the oppressive seriousness of the occupation and the war, the Danes did
not lose their temper, perhaps rather the opposite. And so it was with Simon,
who steadily and tenaciously continued his diligent working life. As a
freelancer, he managed to get various commercial cartoons to make, i.a. "The
gallant Hedgehog", which advertised for Ilka Barbercreme, and one for
the Book Dealers' Association: "The House with the Green Tree", which
advertised for the author Kelvin Lindemann's then nationally known novel of the
same name.
In his often sparse free time, Simon
cultivated his great interest in horses and riding, and when he lived in Holte,
it meant that he so often did so, taking the opportunity to go on horseback
rides in the beautiful surroundings of this town. However, he rarely rode
alone, but was often on horseback rides with some of his friends and
acquaintances.
In the summer of 1943, Simon made a
commercial for the Danish Book Service. The film was called "The
Jubilee's Dream" and was part of a propaganda campaign to get people
to read more fiction. It was shown in cinemas in July 1943. Shortly afterwards,
Simon became a regular but home-based employee on "Fyrtøjet", where
he was given a wide range of different scenes and sequences to draw and
animate. A few days at a time, however, he also sat in the drawing studio
Frederiksberggade 28. This was where I got to know him quite well. His
diligence, productivity and animation quality quickly became legendary, and
there is no doubt that without him, the film would have been in production
longer than was the case, despite the fact that he only worked on it for a good
year. Around the fall of 1944, Simon felt compelled to ask to be released from
work because he eventually received reports that some of his old friends had
been arrested by the Germans, and tortured and executed by firing squad, and he
therefore found it best, that he himself so far went underground.
In the summer of 1944, I visited him in
Holte, where he lived in a small brick house, which was located in the backyard
of a large villa near Vejlesø. The house had a relatively large and bright
garden room, and here Simon had arranged a drawing room. But the space on the
floor was so cramped that you almost had to edge through it to get to his
drawing board. This was because there were stacks of floor-to-ceiling drawings
everywhere. Up in the attic above the drawing room, the then unmarried Simon
had his diminutive bedroom, to which he had access only via an ordinary ladder.
The room has only been about 8-10 m2 and then it even had sloping walls, as it
was up under the roof.
The toilet and the bathroom were in a
small brick outbuilding, where it must have been very cold in the winter,
because the room could not be heated. The bathroom consisted only of a bare
room with only a shower, to which the water could be heated by means of a gas
water heater. It was certainly not the outward luxury that characterized the
otherwise introverted and quiet Simon's life.
Read Kjeld Simonsen's entire
biography here on the website
Cartoonist and animator
The cartoonist Erik
Christensen (1923? -) was known during the occupation as a joker under the
artist pseudonym "Chris", and especially for his well-built, sexy
young girls, whom he had probably taken inspiration from in American role
models, such as. in the cartoonist and animator Preston Blair's "Red
Riding Hood", which in addition to cartoons at the time could also be seen
in Walter T. Foster's Animation by Preston Blair. Learn how to draw Animated
Cartoons. However, the inspiration may also have come from joke drawings in American
magazines such as. Saturday Evening Post and Esquire, which at the time could
be bought second-hand in a much-visited "Concerno", a second-hand
magazine shop located on the corner of Gl. Coin and Sværtegade. The mentioned
and other American magazines were in fact negotiated during the entire
occupation period, without either the Danish or German authorities doing
anything to prevent it.
Chris joined "Fyrtøjet"
relatively early, namely already during the start-up at the design studio in
Frederiksborggade. He probably came along because he too had worked for
"Vepro" and been with Børge Hamberg and Erik Rus in Germany, but he
actually animated only a few scenes in the film, namely the one in which the
innkeeper takes a mug of beer and the cork jumps of a champagne bottle so that
both the innkeeper and a little mouse jump in the air of fright, and another
scene where the innkeeper again takes a mug of beer, as well as a scene with
two chimney sweeps sticking their heads out of their respective chimneys and
exchanging news. And finally an amorous scene with a baker and a sexy young
lady. The scene was too daring by the standards of the time and therefore did
not appear in the finished film. Chris had animated these scenes at the design
studio in Frederiksborggade, a few months before I myself joined in June 1943.
Chris only visited the design studio in Frederiksberggade a few times, but he
was invited and participated in the big gala dinner at the Officers'
Association's Banquet Rooms in in the summer of 1944, and he was also with us
in Tivoli afterwards, which i.a. can be seen from some of the photos that Arne
"Jømme" Jørgensen took on that occasion, and which are reproduced in
chronological order in the main text here on the website.
Personally, I have no knowledge of why
Chris was no more involved in "Fyrtøjet" than was the case, for he
was a good cartoonist and a skilled animator. But rumor had it that he was also
a bit of a bohemian and therefore did not like fixed working hours and
obligatory work, at least not for quite a long time at a time.
At some point around 1944, Chris was
loosely attached to a newly established advertising film company,
"Illustra", which was located on Gammel Torv, and here one had to
make one or more advertising cartoons with the cartoonist Holger Philipsen's
then Copenhagen famous bicycle bidder or swayer, "Carlt", who
had gone as a cartoon in "BT" since September 10, 1940. Chris should,
at least according to what he has personally told me, as a relatively
experienced animator assist Philipsen in animating these commercials.
When I had a short written and telephone
contact with Holger Philipsen in 1985, he told me that only a single commercial
had been made with "Carlt", and that he himself had drawn and
recorded it at Nordisk Films Teknik in Frihavnen. When you have seen the film,
which by the way advertised for the dinner newspaper B.T., you would think
Philipsen, because the animation is certainly not something to write home
about. But that does not have to rule out that Chris may have been the author
of "Carlt" and draws helpfully with a few animation technical advice.
When Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S around
1948-50 produced a 10-minute pilot film for the feature film
"Klods-Hans", Chris was engaged as one of the key animators who,
under Jørgen Müller's supervision, was to try to animate the film figures.
Chris animated some lantern men dancing around in the air.
In 1953, Chris was an employee of the
cartoonist Bent Barfod, and here he animated, among other things. "A
new and sad song" “En ny og sørgelig vise”), based on the poet Sigfred
Pedersen's text. I have this information partly from Bent Barfod and partly
from Chris himself. However, Chris has not received credit for this film in the
Films Who-What-Where 1929-1967. Chris also animated a number of scenes in Bent
Barfod's cartoon "ABC Spelling Game in Africa", which was
released in 1962, but which had begun several years earlier and which several
animators had otherwise worked on.
Later, Chris worked with the
cartoonist "Pils" alias Poul Ilsøe, and together with the film
director Bent Christensen made the various propaganda cartoons for the Social
Democrats. In 1961, Chris was the first animator on Bent Christensen's and Poul
Ilsøe's cartoons of H.C. Andersen's two "welded" adventures: "The
Swineherd and the Princess on the Pea". Unfortunately, the film was
not entirely successful in any respect, nor any success, either with the
critics or with the audience. But the few cartoonists and others who worked on
the film did not lack commitment. Chris' animation had nothing wrong with it,
except that he did not feel comfortable having to make "save
animation". He found himself best at unfolding the whole technique of
‘classical’ animation art, but unfortunately that was not the budget of the
film. I myself had the perhaps dubious honor of having animated the court
jester and his parrot in the film, an animation I would like to know.
When I had a brief written and telephone
connection with Poul Ilsøe in 1985, he told me that the fate that befell the
film "The Swineherd and the Princess on the Pea" hit Chris so
personally hard that he had decided never to do cartoons again. That was
because, Ilsøe thought, Chris had expected "The Swineherd and the Princess
on the Pea" to have been his comeback in the cartoon industry.
All my attempts to track down Erik
Christensen (Chris) have unfortunately been in vain. At the time we made
"The Swineherd", he lived in Matthæusgade in Vesterbro, but a search
for him there and other possible places has not yielded any results. Although
he was a decidedly urban man, he may have moved out of town or he may have
died. But if he is still alive, today (2011) he must be around the late
eighties.
Addition: The Comics Museum's
website states that Chris also worked under the pseudonym Echri (an
abbreviation of Erik Christensen), and that in the 1950s he drew the series
"Buksetrolden" for Dansk Familieblad, and in the 1960s the series
"Rosita" for Politiken and the series "Beatnik Bob" for the
Family Journal. Chris was from 1946 a transition also cartoonist of Dahl
Mikkelsen's (Mix) cartoon "The Hansen Family", which was later
drawn by Helge Hau and even later by Holger Philipsen.
Draftsman and animator
Erik Rus Christensen (1920-87) was
probably originally an in-betweener at "Vepro", and later became one
for Richard Møller on his short cartoon "Fyrtøjet", but Erik Rus,
like most animators, dreamed of making his own cartoons. He got the chance for
this in 1940, when he produced a small 5-minute cartoon for Teknisk Film
Compagni: "Peter Pep and the Shoemaker's Lace-up Boot" (see
the section Danish Cartoons 1930 - 1942 and under Børge Hamberg). However, the
film was titled "Peter Pep's Attempts". The project was
planned as a series of cartoons, but as far as is known, it only turned into
two cartoons. Peter Pep cartoon no. 2 is entitled "Peter Pep: Quick
Emergence". However, when it was difficult to get professional cartoon
work here at home in the 1940s, Erik Rus, like several other Danish animators,
chose to travel to Germany in the summer of 1942, where there were jobs
available at the cartoon producer Hans Held at Bavaria Film in Berlin. See also
the mention of Erik Rus ’Peter Pep cartoon here on the website in the section
DANISH CARTOON 1930-1942.
During his stay in Germany, Erik Rus met
his future wife, Erika, who was one of the best inkers at the Bavaria studio,
and together they went to Copenhagen in the autumn of 1944, where they settled.
Erik Rus then worked for a short period as an animator on "Fyrtøjet",
where he drew some scenes that take place in the banquet room for the inn where
the soldier has his lodgings. Erik Rus, who was an excellent animator, had a
very pertinent and precise line, which actually did not resemble the other
animators' way of drawing, perhaps just with the exception of Preben Dorst, but
without comparison otherwise.
How it went Erik Rus, I do not know in
detail, but shortly after "Fyrtøjet" he tried to establish a small
cartoon studio in Larsbjørnsstræde, and here Kaj Pindal, who for a short time
had been an in-between cartoonist on "Fyrtøjet", got a job in same
property. Erik Rus made an advertising cartoon for Bergenholz, and also worked
on a shorter cartoon about "Ole Lukøje", probably based on
H.C. Andersen's fairy tale or fairy tale comedy of the same name. But Erik Rus
was not able or sustained in the long run to maintain his small cartoon studio.
When I had a short written and telephone
contact with him in 1985, he told me, among other things, that over the years
he had worked on various own cartoon projects, including a feature film, but
none of these films had ever turned into anything. Back in 1985, he was a
disability pensioner, suffering from muscle wasting. At the time, he had been
divorced from Erika for a number of years, but was now married to a woman who
was a kindergarten principal.
Erik Rus died on December 7, 1987, barely
67 years old.
Designer and animator
Mogens Mogensen (data unknown)
Mogens Mogensen has so far been mentioned in almost all sections here on the
website, which deals with the feature film "Fyrtøjet" and its
history. Research regarding Mogens Mogensen's personal data and fate is
underway.
Click on the image to see
examples of Harry Rasmussen's animation for Fyrtøjet.
Designer and animator
Harry Rasmussen, born June 12, 1929
in Nakskov. He began his schooling in 1935 as a 6-year-old in Tillitse School,
and went here to 2nd grade. Then came when his parents moved to Nakskov in 1937
in Tårsvejens School, where he continued in 2nd grade and came in 3rd grade.
The parents moved to Copenhagen in April 1939, where the now 10-year-old boy
first went to Kapelvejen’s School for a year and then to the Holy Cross School
until the 2nd Free Intermediate, which corresponds to 7th grade. With a good
graduation and a diligence prize in the form of a wristwatch, Harry Rasmussen
left school in May 1943 as a barely 14-year-old because he wanted to learn and
make cartoons.
In 1943, at the age of 14, he auditioned
with Sylvester Hvid Reklamebureau, which turned out to be a misunderstanding,
as no cartoons were made at the agency. Director Sylvester Hvid then mediated
the contact to Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S, where the production of the first
Danish feature film "Fyrtøjet" had just begun.
June 1943 to June 1945 animator student,
assistant animator and key animator at Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A / S, with
Børge Hamberg as teacher. Harry Rasmussen's first task as a student was to draw
the scene in which the three lackeys help the king of his nightwear and put on
his royal robe, crown, scepter and apple. The scene, which was animated by
Børge Hamberg, was over a thousand numbers, and with four characters on each
and every drawing, it therefore took the as yet untrained student a good month
to make the intermediate drawings.
At the beginning of October 1943, Harry
Rasmussen was confirmed, and on that occasion the staff at the design studio in
Frederiksberggade sent a homemade 'telegram' on heavy parchment in folio
format, as well as a sum of money. The telegram contained the following text,
which was written by Torben Strandgaard and handwritten by Finn Rosenberg:
A GREETING FROM US DRAWERS AND
COLOR GIRLS
TO LITTLE "DISNEY"
ON THE BIG DAY
WELCOME AMONG THE ADULT’S
ARTICLES
SURELY YOU WILL BE VERY GOOD
IN THIS TRADE
WITH PINS ON CHAIRS YOU ARE
NEVER BARRIED
PROBABLY IT WILL END AFTER YOU
BECOME MR. HARRY.
On the document there were 25 signatories,
and 11 of these had each drawn a small vignette. The signatories were, in the
order in which they were written, the following:
Mogens Mogensen, Bodil Rønnow,
Birthe Pedersen, Helge Hau (havus), Torben Strandgaard (Graham), Allan Johnsen,
Frede Henning Dixner (Septimus Dix), Anne Lise Clausen, Jytte Claudi, Arne
Jørgensen (Jømme), Børge Hamberg, Preben Dorsch , Karen Bech, Ea Johnsen, Bjørn
Frank Jensen (Bjørn), Peter Toubro, Finn Rosenberg, Henning Pade, Mona Irlind,
Henny Hynne, Pat Bjørn, Jenny Holmqvist, Kaj Johnsen, Alice Kjærsgaard and Otto
Jacobsen (OJ).
At the same time, the
following signatories had each drawn their own little vignette:
Mogens
Mogensen, Bodil Rønnow, Helge Hau, Frede Henning Dixner, Arne "Jømme"
Jørgensen, Børge Hamberg, Bjørn Frank Jensen, Finn Rosenberg, Kaj Johnsen and
Otto Jacobsen.
The young Harry Rasmussen got on well with his
somewhat older ‘colleagues’ at the design studio in Frederiksberggade. He was
quickly respected for his abilities as an artist and animator.
After approx. half a year as an
intermediary, the still only 14-year-old Harry Rasmussen advanced to assistant
animator for Børge Hamberg, especially on the witch, the crow and the smallest
of the three dogs. After another six months, in the early summer of 1944, the
now approximately 15-year-old Harry Rasmussen was given independent tasks as
key animator, both of the witch, the crow and the smallest of the three dogs,
and also on several supporting characters, which he even designed.
In the spring of 1944, when it was thought
that the end of the production of "Fyrtøjet" could be seen, Dansk
Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S had plans to continue with the production of a series
of short adventure cartoons, which together could constitute a film program of
about an hour. It was, of course, still a film adaptation of H. C. Andersen's
adventures that one had in mind, and therefore the company's management asked
the key animators to come up with suggestions and drafts for what adventure
they each would like to be responsible for. Finn Rosenberg chose "The
Swineherd" as motif, Børge Hamberg chose "Klods-Hans",
Bjørn Frank Jensen "Elverhøj", Preben Dorst "The
Princess on the Pea", Kjeld Simonsen "What the Father
Does…", Otto Jacobsen "Little Claus and Big Claus ",
and Harry Rasmussen chose "The Emperor's New Clothes".
However, it dragged on with
the production of "Fyrtøjet", which took longer than anticipated, and
it meant financial problems for Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm. That was, as far as
is known, the main reason why nothing came of the plans for the adventure short
films.
In the late summer of 1944, it was clear
to Allan Johnsen, Peter Toubro and the main characters Finn Rosenberg, Børge
Hamberg, Bjørn Frank Jensen and Preben Dorst that they would not be able to get
"Fyrtøjet" ready for the planned premiere at Christmas time the same
year. The management therefore decided to speed up the production, first and
foremost by pacing the key animators and cartoonists to give their absolute
utmost every single day. For this purpose, a kind of dial with numbers from one
to fifty was set up on each drawing desk, and the individual designer then had
to move the rotating arrow of the dial as the number of drawings in question
increased.
This situation aroused the indignation and
irritation of the cartoonists, who intended to give all their individual
enthusiasm and commitment to the work of getting the many characters in the
film as vivid and believable as the individual animator was able and powerful.
The indignation of the employees led to a
special committee of these deciding to hold a meeting where the creation of a
possible professional organization to look after the interests of the employees
could be discussed. Mentioned in alphabetical order, the reduced and eleven-man
'selection' consisted of the following persons: Erling Bentsen, Preben Dorst,
Børge Hamberg, Otto Jacobsen, Bjørn Frank Jensen, Arne "Jømme"
Jørgensen, Mogens Mogensen, Harry Rasmussen, Finn Rosenberg, Bodil Rønnow and
Kjeld Simonsen.
The meeting was held on a
Saturday afternoon after working hours at the tractor site "Sluk
Efter" on Strandvejen in Hellerup, and it lasted for a few hours. It was
agreed that Allan Johnsen would be given the ultimatum that the 'control
clocks' on the light desks should be removed and that the employees should have
increased overtime pay, just as the company should pay an amount that could
cover the cost of dinner for the staff who had to work overtime. It was also
agreed that these demands should be presented to Allan Johnsen on Monday
morning by the spokespersons Børge Hamberg, Finn Rosenberg and Bjørn Frank
Jensen.
Allan Johnsen had virtually no choice but
to meet the employees 'wishes and demands, and already on Monday noon, the
famous' control clocks 'were removed from the employees' light desks. The
spokespersons and the management, led by Allan Johnsen and Peter Toubro, then
agreed that production could and should be significantly increased, partly by
employing more middlemen, more drawing and coloring girls, and partly by
letting especially the key animators and the intermediaries work over. Working
hours Monday to Friday were usually at. 8-17, Saturday at 8-14, but now many of
us had to work over Monday to Friday at. 17-23.
Overtime meant more in the paycheck, but it
was tough with a 15-hour workday. Harry Rasmussen, who in the autumn of 1944
during normal working hours had a weekly wage of DKK 350, came in the six-month
period during which work was done, up to a weekly wage of DKK 575. A high wage
at that time, especially for a 15 -year-old man.
Read Harry Rasmussen's entire
biography here on the website
Drawer, background painter and
hypnotist
Frede Henning Jensen (1925-) was from
Grenaa, where he was born and raised and had received an education as a
furniture upholsterer. He had a good drawing talent and was also gifted and
interested in science, philosophy and occultism. This was partly reflected in
the fact that he studied Einstein's theory of relativity and various forms of
philosophy as well as occult psychology, including hypnosis technique. He
lively discussed Einstein's theories and similar topics with several of the
others in the drawing room, but I do not think there was anyone at the time who
really understood what it was he meant. But he impressed the staff of the
studio when he demonstrated his hypnotic abilities, as when he e.g. could make
someone believe that the person was in a flowering meadow, where a lot of
butterflies were fluttering around, which the person in question should try to
catch with a fictitious net. When the hypnosis was lifted, it turned out that
he could not remember what had happened.
Or when he e.g. had a couple of the
strongest guys in the drawing room place one of the young girls who had agreed
to it, in a stretched position between two chairs, so that her neck rested on
the back of one chair and her heels on the back of the other chair. He then
hypnotized her to be able to stay in this position on his own, and when he
thought the girl was ready for it, he told the two men to let go of the girl
and move. To everyone's great surprise, the girl was lying stiffly stretched
out in this position until the hypnotist made the two men understand that they
were to grab hold of the girl again, whose hypnotic state he then brought to an
end. When the girl woke up, she told that she had no idea what had happened.
At one point, Frede Henning Jensen began
to call himself Septimus Dix (from Latin, respectively, "the seventh"
and "has spoken", ie "the seventh has spoken". The number
seven is considered in mysticism as a number of wisdom or sacred number).
Septimus Dix alias Frede Henning Jensen, had discovered his hypnotic talent by
studying some of the fakir Louis Brinkfort's books on hypnosis. Brinkfort was a
professional magician and hypnotist, and one of the numbers he performed when
he performed on e.g. variety’s, was a so-called fakir number, where he, wearing
only a pair of Indian fakir shorts, lay down on a board full of large nails
facing the pointed end upwards. Here he lay for a few minutes, but when he got
up again, no trace could be seen on either his back, arms or legs that he had
been lying on the impossible bed.
Several years later, I
realized that some of the thoughts and ideas that Frede Henning Jensen
discussed with some of his colleagues must have originated from the Danish
intuitive thinker and mystic Martinus (1890-1981). The interest in precisely his
so-called spiritual science, which at the time was partly presented in the form
of the first volume of the main work "Book of Life" and the
introductory book "Logic", and partly in the form of lectures, has
probably been conveyed by Louis Brinkfort. The latter was a sincere and serious
supporter of Martinus' teachings and did his part to convey this to his own
students and followers, but preferably by referring to Martinus himself.
It was probably also through Frede Henning
Jensen and at least through Louis Brinkfort that Børge Hamberg and his
schoolmate Bjørn Olsen around the end of the occupation came in connection with
Martinus at his institute at Mariendalsvej 96 in Frederiksberg. Both were
gripped by Martinus' teachings, but especially Børge Hamberg was from then
until his untimely death in 1970, only fifty years old, an eager and deeply
committed supporter of the world of thought that Martinus has presented in the
form of his so-called spiritual science or cosmology.
Frede Henning Jensen at one point tried to
take a registered name change to Septimus Dix, but the name could not be
approved, so he instead got the surname Jensen replaced with the more pompous
Dixner, and as Frede Henning Dixner he settled after the occupation as an
independent fine mechanic, and it became as far as I know his way of life.
After all, after the Fyrtøjet era, he did not assert himself as a draftsman.
Frede Henning Jensen started as an
intermediate draftsman, but later also and especially came to paint backgrounds,
although he had reportedly never tried it before. It must also be said that the
relatively few backgrounds he has made for "Fyrtøjet" are not among
the best that this film can show. He was a skilled draftsman, a cheerful and
nimble guy, full of ideas and inventions, and then he had his very own opinion
about things. But what reason there was for him to appear on the film's preface
and in the film program in line with Børge Hamberg, Bjørn Frank Jensen, Kjeld
Simonsen and Finn Rosenberg, has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Septimus
Dix must certainly have lived up to its pseudonym and spoken seven times to the
objectively undeserved position.
A short transition in 1944, Frede Henning
Jensen and I entered into an informal collaboration on a cartoon, which I no
longer remember either the title or plot of, except that there was a small worm
that lived in an apple, and the worm could talk, and I had made some animation
of it, which was filmed on test film at Nordisk Films Teknik in Frihavnen. The result
was so acceptable that Dixner entered into some negotiations to get director
Rosenvinge, Grenå Dampvæveri (as I think it was called), to sponsor the planned
film project. However, it failed and the project was shelved.
Shortly before the liberation, Dixner drew
and executed a bouncer doll of Hitler, which was hoisted from the drawing room
windows on the second floor down to street level so that all passers-by could
see it. This was also the case on the day in the month of liberation in May, when
General Montgomery drove in a procession from the Town Hall Square and through
Strøget to Amalienborg, where he was to be in an audience with the king and
apparently receive an order of some kind. Whether Montgomery saw the bumblebee
is doubtful, for he had enough to do with standing upright in the open car and
waving to the overwhelming number of people who had lined up along the streets
of the route, and who hung out of all the windows and where otherwise it was
possible to get a glimpse of the famous "Denmark's liberator".
Many years later, I became aware by chance
that there are film recordings of the Hitler bouncer, where he is lowered from
the drawing room windows in Frederiksberggade 28 to street level. The recording
probably dates from May 12, 1945, when Field Marshal Montgomery visited
Copenhagen and drove in a procession through Strøget to Amalienborg, where he
was received by the king and the royal family. This film strip is part of the
documentary "When the English came in May 1945", in which I,
to my own great surprise, also happened to be on some recordings myself. The
same is the case in the documentary "It applies to your freedom"
(1946), where I involuntarily participate in some film clips from
August-September 1943, and which is thus included in the latter film, to which
I must return in a relevant context.
The printed sheet with Hitler
and Goebbels, which towards the end of the war was included in one of the
illegal magazines, was probably drawn by Frede Henning Dixner, and it became very
popular in those days to cut out the Hitler figure and the other Nazi
dignitaries. and make them bounce. At that time there were not many, and
certainly not of us in the drawing room, except for i.a. Børge Hamberg, who
knew something about the atrocities that the Germans had committed during World
War II, especially in the concentration camps around Eastern Europe and in
Germany itself. As far as I know, the original drawings for the scrap sheets
with Hitler et al. at the Freedom Museum.
See, in that way, Frede Henning Dixner has
made an indelible impression on me personally, and I can only regret that he
has not received a more factual mention here. But that is because he did not
respond at all to the inquiring letters I sent to him around 1984-85, where he
as far as I know still had his photo shop in Vanløse. As far as is known, he is
still living here in 2005, and must therefore be around 80 years old.
The studio's reproductive
staff
Cartoonist and clean-upper and
in-between draftsman
Helge Hau (1922-2006) was a
trade graduate in one of Scandinavia's leading companies in the textile and
clothing industry, but had also thrown himself into drawing, especially joke
drawings. But the cartoon also interested him. When in the summer of 1943 he
saw an advertisement in Berlingske Tidende, where Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A /
S was looking for young talent for the completion of an all-night cartoon, he
felt that this had to be something for him. Hau therefore showed up at
Johnsen's office with some work samples, which he presented to Rosenberg and
Hamberg, and he was then hired as a reindeer and intermediate draftsman,
especially for Bjørn Frank Jensen.
At the time when Hau arrived, the design
studio in Frederiksberggade 28 was filled with key artists, middle artists,
drawing and coloring girls and a few coloring men. Therefore, at one point, Hau
wanted to work at home in his own studio, which Allan Johnsen accepted. As one
of the reasons for wanting to work at home, Helge Hau stated that there was a
lack of space in the drawing room, which is true, but there was, after all, a
space for perhaps the fastest intermediate artist who worked on
"Fyrtøjet". It was my personal impression that his second reason was
probably so significant, namely that he wanted to work at home because he felt
at work hampered by the free and informal tone of conversation that was in the
drawing room. He worked on a part-time basis and it was therefore important for
him to make as many drawings as possible per day. At the same time, he had
started producing joke drawings, which he sold to newspapers and magazines.
At home, for Hau’s, he would say in
Bagsværd close to Hareskoven and Bagsværd Lake, not far from Kurvej, where he
later got a home. In addition, he had rented a studio apartment in Halls Allé,
where he also worked for periods. Once a week, Hau came into the drawing studio
and handed over what he had made of drawings for the past eight days.
Helge Hau worked on
"Fyrtøjet" until the autumn of 1945, but had previously had the
opportunity to also work for Dahl Mikkelsen (Mik) on his two Ferd'nand films:
"Ferd'nand on a fishing trip", 1944, and "Ferd'nand on bear
hunting", 1945. Hau himself says that his collaboration with Mik was
excellent, and that "the execution of the drawing work took place in such
a way that Mik very often on a single piece of paper made a rough, which
illustrated a course of action , from which I had to complete an entire scene.
Thanks to my experience from "Fyrtøjet" it went very well and saved
MIK a lot of time. " (Helge Hau in letter of May 8, 1985 to Harry
Rasmussen).
Hau also mentions that for a period he drew
Mik's series about "The Hansen Family". In 1946 he got a job with
Otto Jacobsen at Gutenberghus Reklame Film, but it lasted only a short time, as
Hau in 1948 settled in Stockholm. According to his own statement, this was due to
the fact that Stockholm "at that time was an oasis for new currents in the
area. I quickly gained a foothold and devoted most of my production to
Stockholmstidningen and Aftonbladet. Had a good collaboration with the editor
of Aftonbladet. "Bruno Engström and was the son of the well-known
cartoonist and humorist Albert Engström. Alongside the joke drawing, I got a
job at Sago-Konst, which had been producing cartoons for several years."
(Helge Hau in letter of May 8, 1985 to Harry Rasmussen).
In 1950, Helge Hau traveled to Paris,
where he had previously stayed for a short period, during which he visited the
company "Les Gèmeaux", which was working on a feature film, based on
H.C. Andersen's fairy tale "The Shepherdess and the Chimney
Sweeper". The main man of the company was the artist Paul Grimault (1905-1994)
and its artistic director was Jacques Prèvert, a well-known poet and
writer. Hau wrote an article about his visit to the European famous Grimault
and his partner, Jacques Prèvert, and he sold it to various magazines in
Scandinavia.
However, these years Hau lived "in a
suitcase", as he puts it, traveling around the capitals of Europe and
"depositing thousands of white drawings." In 1953, it was intended
that Hau should have been to the United States to work for Walter Lantz, him
with i.a. Woody Woodpecker (Søren Spætte), but that year Hau married and he and
his wife settled in their own house on Kurvej in Bagsværd, where he still lived
in 1984. But later he and his wife sold the house and moved into an apartment
in Hedeparken in Ballerup.
By 1955, Helge Hau had grown tired of the,
after all, somewhat uncertain life as a joker, and he, who had a solid
commercial background, felt the urge to get solid ground under his feet. As a
result, he was employed in the advertising department of the pharmaceutical
company Ferrosan, where he later became advertising manager, a position he
resigned on 1 August 1985 after 30 years of service.
During his time at Ferrosan, Helge Hau
produced a small cartoon in collaboration with Jørgen Müller. That was in 1972
and at a time when Müller had ended a long-standing collaboration with the
weekly magazine "Hjemmet". Hau states that he had a connection with
Müller in the years 1970-80. (Helge Hau in letter of 8.5.1985 to Harry
Rasmussen).
Read Helge Haus' entire
biography here on the website
Joke artist, in-between artist
and 'house photographer'
Arne Jørgensen (1922? -), with the nickname
"Jømme", was as previously mentioned among the first employees at
"Fyrtøjet". He worked as an in-be-tweener, but by virtue of his great
hobby as a photographer, he recorded countless snapshots of the staff during
the two years that the production lasted. In his spare time he had also started
drawing joke drawings, which he sold under the signature "Arne",
which was shaped like a small worm-like, cheerful figure, to Danish newspapers
and magazines, and later, after the occupation, also to foreign ditto. Some
years after the war, joking became a relatively lucrative way of life for the
tall, slender, dark-haired and extremely nice and sensitive "Jømme",
who in private life was only for men. Back then, homosexuality was a subject
and a sexual orientation that was highly shrouded in prejudice, condemnation,
and silence. But for several reasons it was impossible not to know that
"Jømme" belonged to the category of men who, despite their
discretion, were usually subjected to harassment and assault by intolerant and
primitive younger men, who found homosexuality disgusting. The male homosexuals
were therefore forced to hide their sexual identity as much and as best they
could and walk quietly through the doors. Lesbian women had it easier then,
even then, because they were generally very little visible, and moreover, had
it easier to hide or camouflage their sexual disposition. There were only a few
who were offended by two women walking arm in arm or as sling friends on the
street.
Like several of the other employees at
"Fyrtøjet", "Jømme" also began his cartoon career with Hans
Held in Germany, where he apparently worked for a couple of years. This was
because the cartoon-loving young friend got to know a baroness who was next
door to his mother's boarding house in Nørregade. He was employed by Dansk
Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S in the late summer of 1943 and worked here until around
the late summer of 1945, where he went freelance and then, in 1946, was
employed by Otto Jacobsen at Gutenberghus Reklame Film. Here he was employed
until the cartoon department closed around 1950, after which he, as far as I
know, again went freelance as a joke artist. He organized his production so
that the drawing work could take place intensely one half of the year, while
the other half of the year was spent traveling around Europe, selling his joke
drawings in great style.
When, many years later, more
precisely in 1985, I had a brief written and telephone contact with
"Jømme", I understood from him that he had married, I had almost said
married a lady, because he was, as mentioned in his time gay. The couple lived
at the time in Skovfogedhuset in Barager on Langeland. "Jømme" had
previously lived in the nearby Longelse, where he had apparently lived for a
number of years. He preferred the quiet and unassuming life of the province,
rather than a life in the noisy, hectic, ambitious and competitive physical and
mental atmosphere of the capital.
"Jømme" had allegedly not been
involved in cartoons since 1946-50, when he collaborated with Otto Jacobsen at
Gutenberghus Reklame Film. In all the years since then he had lived off his old
and new joke drawings. What has become of "Jømme" since 1985, I do
not know, only that all attempts to find him so far have been in vain. Possibly
he has moved abroad, perhaps to Greece, more specifically Corfu, where he at
least for a change owned a house.
In-betweener Bodil Dargis, b.
Rønnow (1925-)
Bodil Rønnow went to school in
Skovshoved and in 1941 became a student at the School of Drawing & Art
Industry for Women. Here, however, she only went the first school year, as her
family unfortunately could not afford to pay for tuition.
As a child, Bodil Rønnow had experienced
some of the very first Mickey Mouse films, and as a 13-year-old she saw
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", which fascinated her so much that
she copied the characters and played the melodies. In other words, she wanted
to make cartoons, and in the summer of 1943 she was employed as an intermediate
illustrator at Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S, where they produced the first
Danish feature film, "Fyrtøjet". Here she was supervised by the chief
animators Børge Hamberg and Bjørn Frank Jensen, but was especially associated
as an in-betweener for chief animator Preben Dorst, who was responsible for the
animation of the film's princess. He rightly believed that a woman and artist
like Bodil Rønnow would be best suited for this work.
During the three years of often intense
drawing work on "Fyrtøjet", it happened regularly that the
"house orchestra" held jam sessions on Saturday afternoons after the
end of working hours at. 14. Members of the orchestra were Finn Rosenberg
(violin), Bodil Rønnow (jazz mandolin), Erling Bentsen (guitar), Børge Hamberg
(banjo) and Torben Strandgaard (double bass).
The daily work at the drawing studios in
Frederiksberggade, Nørrebrogade, Stengade and Willemoesgade continued largely
unaffected by the external circumstances, except for the people's strike in
1944, when the drawing studios were closed for a few days. Not because the
staff participated in the strike itself, but because it was impossible for most
to get back and forth between the home and the drawing studio. But it was
primarily a matter of getting the film finished as quickly as possible, so the
work in the studio was resumed as soon as possible, and fortunately it did
after a few days.
In the autumn of 1944, it was clear to the
management and the senior employees that "Fyrtøjet" could not be
completed for the premiere that had been planned to take place in the same
autumn. It was therefore required that all employees, in addition to increasing
the daily work result, also work overtime until the film was completed. This
led, as described elsewhere, to the employees protesting and coming up with a
counterplay that led to an acceptable compromise for all parties. Later the
same year, A/S Filmcentralen Palladium became a co-producer of "Fyrtøjet".
But before it got there, employee
representatives had held a meeting at restaurant "Sluk Efter" in
Hellerup, and below it was agreed on what counterclaims should be set and met
by Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S' management, to one would agree to several
months of intense overtime. Bodil Rønnow also attended the meeting.
During the three years that Bodil Rønnow
was the in-betweener cartoonist for the princess in the film “Fyrtøjet”, it
became several thousand drawings, and since both the animator Preben Dorst and
his assistant Bodil Rønnow were good and careful cartoonists, they had to rub
their fingers to get something from the hand. But they never compromised on the
quality of their drawings.
The work with the princess also included
the side characters that pertained to her, namely a couple of lovebirds and the
swallows. Bodil Dargi's (Rønnow's) talent for drawing was greater than what she
needed during her work on the feature film "Fyrtøjet" 1943-46. At
that time she was mainly an assistant to the animator Preben Dorst, who was
especially responsible for drawing and animating the princess.
Read Bodil Dargi's entire
biography here on the website
In-betweener artist
Erling Bentsen, born 30.03.1923 - died
13.09.1985. Son of dr. med. Axel Bentsen, died 1955, and wife, nurse, Countess
Ingeborg Bentsen, born Trampe, born 1887 - died 1980.
Erling Bentsen was musically talented and
in addition to being a self-taught artist, he also played guitar, with a
penchant for jazz music. It was the mother's wish that the son should have been
an academic or an officer, but he himself would rather live as an artist.
However, in July 1943 he was employed by Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S, where
he became an in-betweener artist on the feature film "Fyrtøjet".
During the winter of 1943, the then
20-year-old Erling Bentsen established a house band at the drawing studio in
Frederiksberggade 28, 2nd floor, where jam sessions were usually held on
Saturday afternoons after the end of working hours (2 pm). The house band and
its members, which are described in the general story about the creation of the
cartoon "Fyrtøjet", came to work in the approximately two years when
Erling Bentsen was employed by Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm.
During the production of
"Fyrtøjet" it soon became a habit for the cartoonists that they
occasionally drew small comic drawings for each other. The working day could
often seem long and at times a little trivial, perhaps especially for the
in-betweener characters. It was therefore a welcome opportunity to relax during
breaks in the painstaking work by indulging in completely non-committal small
drawings, where the imagination and personal creativity had free rein. In the
case of Erling Bentsen, it turned into a large number of small drawings of
mainly baby elephants in all possible positions and situations, as examples are
shown in his biography elsewhere here.
It is so fortunate for posterity that
Erling Bentsen thought it might be of some interest and value to collect what
he was able to grasp from drawings from the "Fyrtøjet" era. But he
also collected his own and some of the other artists' non-committal small
drawings. It can be stated with some certainty that already during 1944 he
began to paste such drawings into a scrapbook, which he also continued to
collect drawings for after the work on "Fyrtøjet" was completed
during 1945, and he continued to do so until at least 1957.
In the daily work on "Fyrtøjet",
Erling Bentsen was, as mentioned, an in-betweener, and as such he worked for
several of the animators: Preben Dorst, Børge Hamberg, Otto Jacobsen, Mogens
Mogensen and in a few individual cases for Harry Rasmussen. He had no prejudice
against having to work for an artist who was much younger than himself.
Erling Bentsen was a quiet and sociable
person who did not demand anything more than being a skilled in-betweener
artist. But at the same time he was full of humor and spirits, which, among
other things, his small drawings in the scrapbook testify to. He was in his ace
when he on Saturday afternoons after working hours ended at. 14 often gathered
in the drawing studio with the other band members. Then he grabbed his beloved
instrument, the guitar, and joined forces with violinist Finn Rosenberg to set
the tone and beat.
The role model for Bentsen-Band was Svend
Asmussen and his orchestra. It must be said without exaggeration that with
musicians such as Torben Strandgaard on double bass, Børge Hamberg on banjo and
Bodil Rønnow on mandolin, the Bentsen-Band jazzed and swung roughly on a par
with his famous role model.
Read Erling Bentsen's entire
biography here on the website
In-betweener artist
Kaj Gøtzsche Pindal (b. 1927) began
his cartoon career on "Fyrtøjet". The then 16-year-old
cartoon-enthusiastic, but at the same time very shy and modest young guy, had
heard that a cartoon was being produced about the fairy tale
"Fyrtøjet".
In 1943, King Chr. X birthday on a Sunday,
and therefore there was a school holiday on Monday, September 27th. Pindal used
the opportunity and cycled to Frederiksberggade 10 and ran straight into the
arms of director Allan Johnsen with company. He had drawings with him, which
they all looked at, and Johnsen decided on the spot that the young man was an
obvious animator candidate. Then he was shown around the drawing room in
Frederiksberggade 28, but since Pindal at that time was still in the third
middle school class in Gentofte, there could of course be no question of
employment with Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S. In return, he was given a tap
bar, animated paper and some celluloids, and with all this he went home and
started animating the first scenes of a little cartoon with a monkey, called "Garibaldi",
and a little dog. The strange thing was that the figures were drawn quite small
on the A4 sheet, but Pindal still managed to get them to move fairly
reasonably. Pindal's animation drawings were then recorded as a line test,
which to Pindal's own great surprise showed that the dog was walking backwards,
which had certainly not been his intention. The error was, of course, corrected
immediately.
But this little film thus became Pindal's
introduction to the world of cartoons, to which he with shorter interruptions,
especially in his young years, came to belong right up to retirement age. In
September 2001, at the age of 74, he was still active as a teacher of animation
at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, Canada.
Pindal spent the autumn holidays in 1943 at
the drawing studio in Frederiksberggade, where he sat and painted the cells for
"Fyrtøjet", but later he had the opportunity to draw. It happened
when a number of cartoonists under Bjørn Frank Jensen's management had moved
out into some rented premises on the corner of Nørrebrogade and Blågårdsgade,
above Nørrebro's Messe, where later Bagger Radio was housed. Every day after school,
Pindal cycled from Gentofte and into this drawing studio, where he sat and
struggled to draw. Here he met his colleague and later friend and collaborator,
Ib Steinaa, who was also an in-betweener artist at the time, and who had
initially been sitting in the drawing studio in Frederiksberggade.
When the work on "Fyrtøjet" was
over in the spring of 1946, the artists and other employees were fired, but
before that Ib Steinaa had managed to get some drawing work for Henning Dahl
Mikkelsen, who at the time had a drawing studio in Dronningegården, Dronningens
Tværgade, partly because interest drawing on the "Ferd'nand" comic
strip and partly with some in-between drawing work on the Ferd'nand films, Ferd'nand
on a fishing trip (1944) and Ferd'nand on a bear hunt (1945). Ib
Steinaa also got Pindal a job with Dahl Mikkelsen, but it was short-lived
because Pindal suddenly had to go underground. He was part of a group that
produced an illegal magazine, and he had provided anti-Nazi cartoons for this
magazine. The Germans had come on the trail of the group and had arrested some
of its members.
One month before the liberation, Pindal
returned to school, where he graduated. After "Fyrtøjet" there was no
more cartoon work to be had, so Pindal - and others - had to look far for new
cartoon projects.
Read Kaj Pindal's entire
biography here on the website
In-betweener artist
Ib Steinaa (Jensen) (1927-1987) began
his cartoon career on "Fyrtøjet", where he appeared as an
intermediary. He was at that time a tall, slender and serious young man who
made no creature of himself. No one at the time had any idea what abilities
this slightly shy and shy youngster possessed, perhaps just apart from his
immediate family, who knew he was a talented draftsman and musical genius who
played the piano for more than household needs.
In the period 1946-50, Steinaa and Pindal
were employees of Ring & Rønde, which produced all kinds of cartoons, but
mainly commercial cartoons. The company was housed at Vesterbrogade 163, but
moved in 1949 to Fredensvej 3 in Vedbæk, where in 1951 it was taken over by
Nordisk Film and renamed A/S Nordisk Tegnefilm.
In 1950-53, the couple worked for Puck
Film in Stockholm, where they came in contact with trick film photographer Poul
Dupont, who later also continued the collaboration with Steinaa and Pindal in
Copenhagen.
In 1954, Ib Steinaa and Kaj Pindal returned
home to Denmark because they had both been called up for military service.
After the recruitment period, they both became employees of the Armed Forces
Film Service, of which film producer Jørgen Bagger was then head. Here, in
1954, the couple produced the military instructional film Night Vision.
After the military service, Steinaa and
Pindal collaborated on cartoon features in short films and commercials for A/S
Nordisk Film Junior.
The collaboration between Steinaa and Kaj
Pindal ended in 1957, when the latter chose to work independently and initially
marked himself as someone who was good at making instructional films. This soon
led to him receiving an invitation from the National Film Board of Canada,
which wanted to hire him to make a similar kind of cartoon. So therefore Pindal
left Denmark and only occasionally returned to the homeland, either during
holidays or in a work context. See also Biography for Kaj Pindal here on the
website.
In July 1957, Ib Steinaa and his wife
Kirsten, together with Nordisk Film Junior's director, Ove Sevel, revived the
dormant company A/S Nordisk Tegnefilm. Steinaa became artistic director and
Kirsten became production manager. A number of younger people of both sexes
were employed here, who were trained in the technique and procedures of the
cartoon. In the following years, the company produced commercial cartoons,
cartoon features in feature films and short films, cut-out animation films, rag
cut films, pre- and closing texts for feature films and short films, as well as
several attempts to realize planned feature-length film projects, including
prepared for the cartoon movie, which was renamed "Robinson Columbus"
in the late 1960s and premiered in 1975.
Read Ib Steinaa's entire
biography here on the website
Inking - and coloring
Jenny Holmqvist (left in the
picture), who had previously been employed by VEPRO, was employed by Dansk
Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S in January 1943 as head of the drawing and coloring
department, first in Frederiksborggade and then at the drawing studio in
Frederiksberggade 28. Unfortunately, Jenny Holmqvist, married to Balkert, did
not want to take part in this cartoon story, so I do not see myself able to
tell anything about her and her career other than what I myself know and have
heard from others.
Else Emmertsen, head of inking and
coloring department, has so far not been able to be traced, so the information
about her is based on other people's statements. But it is known with certainty
that Else Emmertsen was head of the inking and coloring department at VEPRO,
and since around 1944 at Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S at the drawing studio on
Nørrebrogade and later on Strandboulevarden and even later on Vesterbrogade.
Since I unfortunately do not have much information about Else Emmertsen and her
life and career, this version of Danish cartoon history has mainly had to refer
to, partly what Karen Egesholm and partly Mona Ipsen have been able to tell
about her.
It has not been possible to
obtain a portrait photo of the film and trick film photographer Marius Holdt,
so this photo from his daily work as a trick film photographer at VEPRO from
around 1941-42 must be said to 'portray' him quite well, because you usually
only saw him from behind as he stood bent over the trick table. - Photo: © ca.
1941-42 VEPRO A / S.
Cartoon photographer
Marius Holdt (data unknown) was
a man who gained great importance for the production of "Fyrtøjet".
He was a professional film photographer and had set up his own production
company Daku-Film, and had specialized in filming cartoons and tricks. For this
purpose he had acquired his own trick table and trick camera, and it had
previously been installed at "VEPRO", where Marius Holdt was for a
time a trick photographer. Among other things, he also used the trick table and
camera to record the texts and so-called "scroll texts", i.e.
prefixes or end texts that, for the latter, move through the image, e.g. from
the bottom up, to some of the movies he was also a photographer on. Before
"Fyrtøjet" he had thus produced and photographed the tourist film "Storbyens
symfoni" (1935) and the following year was a cinematographer on the
feature film "Sol over Danmark", which premiered in Copenhagen
cinemas on 24 August 1936. Among the participating actors was Gerda Neumann and
Sigrid Horne-Rasmussen. That same year, 1936, Holdt was the cinematographer on the
revue film "The Circus Revue," directed by Alice O'Fredericks
and Lau jun. The film had its Copenhagen premiere on November 2, 1936.
As mentioned, it has not yet been possible
to recover personal data for Marius Holdt. But during his professional career
he was in 1941 a trick photographer on the Vepro cartoon "The brave
Tailor", which was based on Grimm's fairy tales, and which Jørgen
Myller and Dahl Mikkelsen are credited for the animation of, but which at least
Jørgen Myller did not will know that he has been involved in making. According
to Filmens Hvem-Hvad-Hvor 1929-1967 - Danish titles and biographies,
page 186, it is alleged, however, that the film is mentioned in Politiken for
October 17, 1941 and Berlingske Tidende for October 20, 1941, but this is
incorrect. However, the author Lars Jakobsen documents in the book "Mik
- a biography of the cartoonist Henning Dahl Mikkelsen" (2001) that
the film has at least been planned at "Vepro".
This year, 1941, Marius Holdt was also a
cinematographer on a 7-minute film about the embankment of Kalvebod Strand as
an employment measure. The title of the film was "Amager gets
bigger" and it was produced by Dansk Kulturfilm for MFU and the
Ministry of Public Works. The film was presented in Dagmar Bio on September 20,
1941.
In the autumn of 1943, Marius Holdt was
hired as a trick photographer for "Fyrtøjet", and on that occasion
his large and heavy equipment was installed in the previously mentioned room
with wooden walls and blinded mansion windows in the drawing studio in
Frederiksberggade 28, 2nd floor. to the right. The installation, which was
carried out by Marius Holdt himself, proved to be cumbersome and
time-consuming, because the trick table and the associated columns required
that everything should be in precise weight and vague, so that for example the
camera elevator could slide freely and effortlessly up and down the middle
between the pillars.
But finally one day the trick table was
ready for use, and as far as I remember, some of the first scenes Marius Holdt
recorded were the ones that Bjørn Frank Jensen had made with the astrologer at
Rundetårn and the ones with the guard down the street. In both cases there was
what was called panning scenes, and here I saw for the very first time how
panning was done on the trick table. In one case, the astrologer is seen
running down the wide aisle, which extends from the street all the way up to
the top of the Round Tower. Each time the astrologer has come around the corner
to the left of the image and again has disappeared down the snail's passage to
the right of the image, the camera "tilts" down to the underlying
floor, where the same thing repeats itself, and so the same thing repeats a
total of twice. And if the repetition had not already seemed boring after these
two times, one could, for that matter, have continued indefinitely.
This effect was achieved technically in
the way that on the background of the stage were painted two identical floors
from the interior of the Round Tower. The photographer started with the top
floor on the background, which stood still, while the astrologer phase by phase
and image by image "ran" from left to right, and as he
"disappeared" behind the wall to the right in the image, the photographer
panned the horizontal background to the next floor, also move by move, exposing
an image for each move. But a few pictures before the panning had reached the
position marking the floor below, the photographer switched the background back
to the starting position, after which he repeated the process over and over
again until the astrologer had apparently passed three floors down.
Another form of panning occurred in the
scene in which the astrologer is seen running towards the castle, which,
however, is not seen in this scene, but which lies to the right of the figure,
which therefore runs to the right. The astrologer runs in the middle of the
picture, looking as if the camera is following him. This effect is achieved
technically by the figure being animated at the "place" in a
so-called repeat movement, ie. that the same movement, here running movement,
can in principle be repeated indefinitely. The background is painted in a
length that is carefully calculated according to the astrologer's size and the
distance between each movement phase, as animation phase no. 1 e.g. is equal to
No. 5, ie: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 = 1, etc. During the recording, the
background is placed so that it can be moved (panned) a certain number of
millimeters from e.g. right to left for each exposure.
After working on "Fyrtøjet",
Filmens Hvem-Hvad-Hvor 1929-1967 credits only Marius Holdt as producer and
photographer of the cartoon "Grævlingen og harerne" (1950), which he
had hired Bjørn Frank Jensen and Børge Ring to draw and animate . What has
happened to Holdt since then, I do not know, but since he was already up in the
years when "Fyrtøjet" was made, he has probably long since retired
and has probably now also long since passed away.
Henning Ørnbak (1925-2007) born
in Copenhagen December 4, 1925. baptized in the Church of the Holy Spirit as
the son of blacksmith Carl Johannes Ørnbak, born approx. 1880 in Copenhagen -
died 1959 in Gentofte, and wife Carla Ørnbak., B. Petersen, died approx. 1933
in Hellerup. - Henning Ørnbak died on October 26, 2007, 81 years old, and is
buried in a mass grave at Gentofte Cemetery.
The family later moved to
Charlottenlund, and here the boy went to school from 1932 to 1940, and here he
was confirmed on April 7, 1940 in the Church of the Messiah. Henning Ørnbak
continued in Gl. Hellerup Gymnasium, from which he graduated as a new language
student in 1944.
After graduating in 1944, Henning Ørnbak
was employed as a production assistant at Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S, and in
this capacity he remained in the company until 1950. He was therefore
production assistant for Allan Johnsen and editing assistant for Svend Methling
(and Edith Schlüssel) at "Fyrtøjet" and on the pilot film for"
Klods-Hans ".
Similar to what was the case with Finn
Rosenberg, there are also indications that Henning Ørnbak is of partly Jewish
descent. His facial features were clearly Jewish and became more and more so
over the years, but neither was he arrested during the German Jewish action on
the night of October 2, 1943 or later, just as he did not flee to Sweden
either. On the contrary, he uninterrupted his daily work at Dansk Farve- og
Tegnefilm A/S, partly in Frederiksberggade 28 and partly in no. 10, and later
in the premises on Nørrebrogade, where cutting rooms had been arranged.
In 1950, Ørnbak became an independent film
producer, and in 1951-54 head of the Marshall Plan's Scandinavian film program.
From 1955 he was supervisor of United States Information Service's films in
Denmark, and freelance director at various Danish film companies, including
Arnø Studio, Ib Dam Film and Laterna Film. He has also increasingly worked as a
stage director for both theater and TV.
The majority of the film productions that
Henning Ørnbak has directed have revolved around all genres within short films.
In 1953-54, however, he dared to make a feature film, as he staged "Our
Little City" for Arnø Studio, a provincial satire in the form of folk
comedy. The film premiered at World Cinema on November 8, 1954 and was shown
here until the 21st. It had a number of popular Danish actors in the roles at
the time, but was not an audience success. By the way, the tone master of the
film was the previously mentioned Leif Beck (later surname: Beckendorff).
Ørnbak then concentrated on short films,
and it was not until 1967-68 that he really dared to jump into the TV theater,
staging the very gripping TV play "Farewell Thomas", with
Buster Larsen in the all-dominating lead role as the man , who has been
divorced from his wife and child, but who is unable to manage on his own, and
therefore goes more and more into the dogs, humanly and socially.
But even though Henning Ørnbak after the
success of "Farewell Thomas" continued to record short films, he was
occasionally also needed as a feature film director. In 1970, he directed the
TV series "Bella", which again had Leif Panduro as
screenwriter. In 1974 he recorded the films "Me and the Mafia"
and "The Mafia - it's me too", both with a script by Lise
Nørgaard, followed in 1975 by the crime novel "Only the Truth",
with a script by the author Leif Petersen, whose play "Everything - and
a Post Office ”, Ørnbak had staged at the theater, and which he later
reworked into the feature film “It's Night with Mrs. Knudsen ”, 1972.
In 1976, Henning Ørnbak was the
screenwriter and director of a short film for the Association of Insurers. The
film was called "It is completely safe" and was about mutual solidarity
insurance between the insurance companies. For this film, Flemming Jensen and I
made some cartoon features that were relatively successful.
In 1978, Laterna Film produced a short film
for "Bing & Grøndahl". The film was produced by Laterna Film
and directed by Henning Ørnbak, and I made the cartoon features for it. The
same year, 1978, followed the crime series "Strandvaskeren" in
6 episodes, which Ørnbak made in collaboration with the film director and film
producer Bent Christensen.
1990-93, Henning Ørnbak was a film
consultant at the Danish Film Institute. See also Henning Ørnbak's biography
here on the website.
There were, of course, many more people in
the drawing studio at Frederiksberggade 28 than those mentioned above, not all
of whom played an equal role during the creation of "Fyrtøjet". But
all as one, they each contributed in their own way to the film being made at
all. In addition to those already mentioned, however, several other of the
employees will be mentioned as I get to write myself through the good two years
it took to produce Denmark's first feature film.
Read Henning Ørnbak's entire biography here
on the website
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