A brief History: La Grande Revue Philips

Born in 1908 into a Hungarian family, George Pal quickly turns towards animation and starts out in the famous UFA studios in Berlin. In 1933, the Nazis' arrival forces him to emigrate to Czechoslovakia. His lack of technical means gives him an idea for a new artistic process that didn't require the use of intertitles or cels: films with puppets, inspired by the first works of Starevitch. At the time, animated films were essentially used for advertisement. A French tobacco company had hired George Pal, with successful results.

When he moves to Holland the following year, he founded his own studio, which he baptizes "Dollywood", and meets the directors of Philips. Radio was the TV of the era, and Philips wanted to present its product as a window open to the world. So George Pal will animate a soundtrack composed of music from all over the world, thereby demonstrating, year after year, the fantastic potential made possible by his invention: the Puppetoons.

These animated puppets were made of wood, composed of many interchangeable parts, and filmed image by image in Technicolor. Therefore, a simple walking sequence lasting only a few seconds could use 12 pairs of legs, and his longest productions often required creating more than 9,000 puppets! These amusing films were so successful that the theaters played them for free, without charging Philips for screen time.

In 1939, after the German troops invaded Poland, Georges Pal leaves Dollywood for Hollywood, joins Paramount, and will make more than 40 Puppetoons, not for advertising purposes this time. He was awarded an Honorary Oscar for the ensemble of these films in 1944. A few years later he would make science-fiction feature films, with hugely popular special effects, for which he would win several Oscars: Destination Moon, in 1949, War of the Worlds, and then The Time Machine and became known as a true pioneer by film-makers like George Lucas or even Steven Spielberg.

In 1964, he films The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, before producing The Power in 1967, for Byron Haskin. It was his last fantasy film. He ends his career with Doc Savage before dying 1980, leaving behind him original, atypical works, radiating color and life, as this little animated treasure will admirably demonstrate.