Hesanut Builds a Skyscraper - 1914
ABOUT THE FILM : Hesanut Builds a Skyscraper
EYE Film Instituut NederlandYear: 1914
Hesanut Builds a Skyscraper is a short animation film. Hesanut appears to be a distinguished looking gentleman, who starts setting up the steel skeleton for a skyscraper. After the placement of doors and windows, a brick laying machine finishes the work.
Nationality: American
Length: 2' 33"
Genre: animation
Sound: silent with soundtrack
Original elements: black & white
Composer: Martin de Ruiter (2009)
Original language: English
A BRIEF HISTORY : Hesanut Builds a Skyscraper
The film Hesanut Builds a Skyscraper is one of the five films Kalem has produced featuring the character Hesanut. The films were made in the period 1914-1915 and were usually released with a live-action comedy short.
The film was premiered in the US in November 1914 and screened in the Netherlands in the spring of 1915. Hesanut Builds a Skycraper was released in the Netherlands under the titles Wolkenkrabber en de arbeiders in ‘t bouwvak (The skyscraper and the workmen in the building business) and Bouwen van wolkenkrabbers (Building skyscrapers, which is also the title of the copy in the archive of the Filmmuseum) by HAP Film. The Dutch website Cinema in Context documents nine screenings in big cities as Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. Probably there were many more screenings, but in most advertisements the animated and short comical films were not mentioned.
HAP Film was one of the biggest Dutch distribution companies; with its main focus on American movies. One of its founders was Loet C. Barnstijn, who would turn out to be one of the leading figures of Dutch cinema from the teens to the Second World War. Besides being active as a distributor, he also owned a couple of movie theatres and produced films. He became well known during the early thirties for his involvement in the introduction of sound film in the Netherlands. He developed his own sound system, the ‘’Loetafoon’’, and founded his own film studio which produced a couple of well known feature films.
Very little can be found on the Hesanut series in the contemporary sources like the Kalem Kalendar and other trade magazines. A review about another episode, Hesanut Hunts Wild Game, is not very positive. Moving Picture Worlds says (10/24/1914, pg. 491): "This is an animated cartoon which has been only fairly photographed, otherwise it is passable." By now this series seems to have been completely disappeared and forgotten. Filmmuseum holds no other episodes.
The original music for this film was composed by Martin de Ruiter in 2009.
More information: http://www.cinemacontext.nl/
