PRESERVED FILMS

Mutt and Jeff: On Strike (1920)
Production Company: Bud Fisher Films Corporation, distributed by the Fox Film Corporation. Director/Writer: Charles Bowers (?). Transfer Note: Digital file made from a 35mm negative. Running Time: 7 minutes (silent, no music).

On Strike is one of more than 300 animated ‘half-reelers’ produced between 1913 and 1926 starring the popular American comic-strip characters Mutt and Jeff—and is unusual in featuring live-action shots of its creator, Bud Fisher. Although not the first daily newspaper comic strip to use an ongoing narrative, Mutt and Jeff was by far the most successful and made Fisher a small fortune from syndication and merchandising. A shrewd entrepreneur, he kept the copyright and remained in the spotlight after he expanded his characters into film and farmed out the animation work to the studio of Raoul Barré and Charles Bowers.

Launched in San Francisco in 1907, the original Mutt and Jeff strip often commented on politics. This film episode continues the tradition by working into the storyline parallels to the 1919 Actors Equity Association strike, which spread to eight cities before the actors won a settlement. On Strike offers an alternative version from the producer’s point of view. When Mutt (the tall one, his diminutive name notwithstanding) and Jeff see how lavishly the celebrated Fisher lives off their labors, the duo demand a bigger cut. With the battle cry of “Arbitrate me eye!!!” they decide to strike and make cartoons on their own. What follows is a fascinating demonstration of the time-intensive animation process then in use. “About 3000” cells later, Mutt and Jeff’s production bombs with the movie audience and the actors return to their “boss” as grateful employees. (Thanks to Erin Hanna and Nancy McVittie, graduate students of Richard Abel at the University of Michigan, for their invaluable research on this cartoon. Click on their names to read their papers.)

About the Preservation
The single known print of On Strike was found at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, which generously lent the nitrate source material to make the preservation copies. The work was done just in time. Nitrate “blooms” are visible in several scenes, particularly in the initial live-action shots with Bud Fisher. Preservationists, however, were able to replace a number of decayed frames in the intertitles by “stretch printing” the adjacent frames. Some digital repairs were also done. The new prints are available at the Museum of Modern Art and the NFSA.

More Information
On the origins of the animated film, especially in the United States, see Donald Crafton’s fascinating Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898–1928 (MIT Press, 1982).

Additional examples of early animation may be viewed online at the Library of Congress’s exhibition Origins of American Animation, based on The Library of Congress Video Collection, Volume 3: Origins of American Animation, 1900–1921.