Das Boot
>Walt Disney testifies before HUAC (1947)
https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-wonderful-world-of-cineffects/
August 22, 2022 posted by Bob Coar
The Wonderful World of Cineffects
Say âMotion Pictureâ and â1939â together and images are conjured of what may be considered Hollywoodâs pinnacle year, when GONE WITH THE WIND, THE WIZARD OF OZ, STAGECOACH, GUNGA DIN, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, NINOTCHKA, DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, DARK VICTORY, OF MICE AND MEN, THE ROARING TWENTIES, EACH DAWN I DIE, BEAU GESTE, DESTRY RIDES AGAIN, IDIOTâS DELIGHT, YOUNG MR. LINCOLN, and MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON were released. To the person on the street âmoviesâ were feature length stories with attractive actors.
Three thousand miles away from Hollywood a very different aspect of the movie business occupied the attention of Nathan Sobel in New York. From what I can gather, Nate Sobelâs interests lay with color film processing. Sobel had some connection to DuArt Film Laboratories at 245 West 55th Street. DuArt dabbled in animation and special effects, mainly meaning optical effects. Loucks & Norling were there in the same building.
Nate Sobel also had some affiliation with Audio Productions in Long Island City, and their client Consolidated Film Industries. In 1939 Nate Sobel decided to start a company to aid little studios with production. Sobel started out small, securing a French movie camera built in 1910. Leon Levy partnered with Sobel in this enterprise. Levy handled the technical end while Sobel looked after the business. Sobel invited his brother-in-law Irving Hecht, unemployed with a teaching degree, to assist him and learn the business.
Cineffects maintained a low profile, no promotional ads in trade publications. Jobs must have come by word of mouth, but the company grew, moving twice before renting space at 1600 Broadway in the Studebaker Building. One of the guys Leon Levy relied heavily on was James Love. Born to parents who toured as a vaudeville act, James Love got into the business young. When his father settled down to manage a movie theater, while training as an assistant projectionist, Love carried films to and from the exchange on his bicycle. Warner Brothersâ booking department hired him upon graduation. In the Coast Guard James Love learned how to edit film. Together, Leon Levy and James Love hammered out problems in effects production. By 1944 the company was advertising its existence.
rving Hecht ran the special effects department. Anne Busch supervised editing. In 1945 Al Semels was head of animation for Cineffects. Semels supported Screen Cartoonists Local 1461, which negotiated a contract with Cineffects early in 1946. Sydel Solomon, long-time inker for Max Fleischer, recently at M-G-M, came over. Animator Jimmy Tanaka came from the Fletcher Smith Studio. Tanaka had been with Disney and Famous Studios before that.
Phil Klein, who started as an inker For Van Beuren Studios, showed up. Phil had worked his way up to inbetweener before Van Beuren closed, following his older brother Izzy to Disney. Phil Kleinspent four years in Hollywood learning animation and assisting in the camera department. This marked Klein as a good fit for Cineffects, where they were streamlining effects techniques into a new process. As Nathan Sobel explained:
The studio camera cannot always tell the complete story without the aid of the drawing board, the optical bench or the animation camera. Our function is to tie up the loose ends of motion picture production. The wide service we have rendered in this branch of film work has made Cineffects the foremost âProducersâ Aidâ in the industry.
Sobel and Leon Levy dissolved their partnership in late 1946. Sobel incorporated Cineffects, holding onto one hundred percent of the stock. Irving Hecht became Secretary/Treasure. Sobel started a venture called Model Films at 27-27 Jackson Avenue in Long Island City with Bob Jenness. Model Films boasted of a new technique for 3-D animation, so Iâm supposing they did stop-motion.
>Phil Klein, who started as an inker For Van Beuren Studios, showed up
Sydel Solomon andPhil Klein left Cineffects in April of 1947.Solomon went to Tempo. Klein went to Fletcher Smith.Jimmy Tanaka went off to Transfilm. Model Films doesnât seem to have lasted long, but Sobel was also involved with the Color Service Company and their lab at 115 West 45th Street, across from the Knickerbocker Hotel where the animatorsâ union sometimes met.
A fresh batch of animators rolled in during 1949. Paul Halliday had been with Fleischer two decades before, and more recently Fletcher Smith. Irv Dressler started with Fleischer in Miami and joined Famous Studios. Sylvia Alevy had been with Famous and Minitoons. Alex Geiss from Terrytoons had been with Disney before being part of Frank Tashlinâs great experiment at Columbia Screen Gems. Russ Dyson, another West Coast transplant from Disney joined Cineffects in 1950. Dick Rauh, graduate of the Art Students Leauge, had been kicking around different shops, settling into Cineffects to really learn the optical trade.
The company moved to 115 West 45th Street. James Love went off in 1952 to start his own shop, first with salesman John Lalley as Lalley 7 Love at 3 East 57th Street. Alex Geiss went along as head of animation. After five years it became simply James Love Productions, moving into the same building as Cineffects, staying until 1961 when Love moved to 2 West 46th Street with Stanley Popko as Creative Director. Six years later James Love was at 550 Fifth Avenue with a sound stage as well as recording and editing studios. He stuck around until about 1986.
As James Love departed in 1952 Cineffects continued to grow. Designer Burt Freund signed on. Freund started in California under Frank Tashlin on Daffy Ditties and worked in the graphics department of CBS in New York. Young animator Ed Smith, inker Beccy Blashko, and Fleisher Studios veteran John Cuddy all came aboard in 1954. Fleischerâs writer Joe Stultz passed through at some point.
Nathan Sobel died in 1962. Irving Hecht (shown here in a sketch by Izzy Klein) took over as president and carried on, continuing to enlarge the studio. When the real estate company Income Properties, Incorporated acquired Cineffects in 1967 the place had eighty-five employees, expanding into another 4,500 feet of their building. By 1970 Cineffects occupied five floors of 115 West 45th Street.
They hung on for another decade. Cineffects Color Laboratories, Inc. made SEA ISLAND for the South Carolina Arts Commission in 1977.
Paul Groh
August 22, 2022 5:58:54 am
There is a Cineffects in Australia today, based at Fox Studios in Sydney. Itâs a film production company offering clients in both the public and private sectors much the same range of services as Cineffects in New York did years ago, including 2D and 3D animation. Iâve seen the New York outfit referred to as âCinefexâ by writers who were clearly confusing it with the late film journal of that name.
I didnât know thatPhil Klein was I. Kleinâs brother. Phil was co-chair of the pickets during the Disney strike of 1941, and he also painted signs and banners for rallies supporting Henry A. Wallaceâs 1948 presidential campaign. Because of this he was investigated and harassed by the FBI and the HUAC during the Red Scare of the â50s. Thus Cineffects, like Tempo and Transfilm, seems to have been a haven for artists who, because of their past political activities, would have been personae non gratae at the major animation studios.
Robert Coar
August 22, 2022 7:57:43 am
Phil is Izzyâs younger brother according to Howard Beckerman, who knew them both well. Cineffects was one of first shops to join the union, so always a hot-bed of âradicalaâ. They gave coffee breaks early on. Tempo is a whole story Iâll get to soon.
Was Izzy Klein still working at Famous/Paramount Cartoons Studios when he directed âKilljoy Was Hereâ or did he leave?
Reply
Thad Komorowski
August 22, 2022 7:03:04 pm
Izzy Klein was part of a mass firing at Famous in Sept. â54 (along with longterm vets like William Henning and Irv Spector), so this probably was his next job.
I. (Isidore) Klein (1897-1986) was a Jewish American cartoonist and animator. Born in Newark, New Jersey, he studied at the National Academy of New York and the Art Students League, and began his career drawing cartoons for silent movies. He went on to work on Mutt and Jeff and Krazy Kat cartoons and for educational and promotional films, but returned to cartoon animation in the late 1920s when sound was developed for films.
Over his career Klein worked for several significant animation studios including Van Beuren Studios, Screen Gems, Hal Seeger Productions, and Walt Disney, often writing as well as animating. For several years he was an animator and writer for Paul Terry's Terry-Toons studio, drawing popular characters such as Mighty Mouse and Farmer Al Falfa. In the 1940s he moved to Paramount's Famous Studios where he wrote for several animated series including Casper, Little Audrey, Little Lulu, and Popeye . In the 1960s Klein began animating, producing and directing his own work as a freelancer for several studios including Famous. He worked on many theatrical cartoon shorts and television shows, and was key animator for Beetle Bailey and for Hal Seeger's The Milton the Monster Show .
In addition to his cartoon work, Klein produced animated television commercials, political and comical illustrations for major publications including Common Sense, New Masses, New Yorker, Colliers, and Life, and wrote articles for various trade journals. He was active in his union, Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Local 841 in New York City, serving on the Executive Board and twice as President, and as editor of Top Cel, the union's monthly paper. He also contributed several articles to the multi-volume Walt's People, about the Disney Studios.
He is sometimes credited as I. Klein, Izzy Klein, and I. Klien.
From the guide to the I. Klein Papers, 1926-1981, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)