Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Film: "From Trees to Tribunes:" The Chicago Tribune Cartoonists

Here's a clip from a 1931 documentary, "From Trees to Tribunes," showcasing the Chicago Tribune cartoonists at that time. They are (in order of appearance):

John T. McCutcheon
Gaar Williams
Casey Orr
Sidney Smith
Frank King
Frank Willard
Carl Ed
W.E. Hill
Walter Berndt
Martin Branner
Harold Gray



Poking around the internet, I see that the original "From Trees to Tribunes" documentary is from 1937, and there is no extended sequence of the cartoonists in the film that's at archive.org. These clips actually look a bit older, but perhaps there is more than one cut of the documentary.

1 comment:

greatpumpkin said...

What fun! These look older than 1937 to me -- 1930 or earlier would be my guess. I also looked at the files on the Internet Archive. There is one sound film said to be 1937 (I see no date in the film itself) and some silent clips with intertitles like the one you posted. The 20-minute sound film has some shots of women in bathing suits and hairstyles (at 18:33 out of 20 minutes) that look like early-to-mid 1930s. Immediately following, at 18:55, are a few seconds of cartoonists. It does appear there were at least two versions, one silent and one sound, perhaps using some of the same footage. The total of the silent clips is more than 20 minutes -- maybe the 1937 version was cut down from a longer silent version and sound added.