pure beauty 8

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verwitterte melodie 1942

I taped this version of VERWITTERTE MELODIE ( weather-beaten melody ) in the late 70s when it was shown in german television and copied it over and over to all the latest tape versions. for me it is a treasure, because not even hans fiescherkoesen’s son had a good copy of his fathers’s film. he told me when I met him sometime in the mid 80s in his bad godesberg melem ( near bonn ) studio. the original negative of this jewel is still probably somewhere in prague, I hope it is stored safe. in an earlier post I have written about this short, produced 1942 in the middle of WW2 in nazi germany. big parts were animated in prague by JIRI BRDECKA, HORST VON MOELLENDORFF received story credit, but it is not clear how much he contributed. the overall direction was in the hands of HANS FISCHERKOESEN. his son told me he could still remember a huge studio space filled with flowers and plants, cut out of thin wood, for the opening circling camera move. GOEBBELS, in charge of propaganda and film in the 3.reich, had ordered that german animation should rival disney. he was especially a big fan of SNOW WHITE and the disney feature was analyzed by all german studios at that time. in a berlin animation studio even a huge multiplane camera was constructed to come up with similar effects disney had done in SNOW WHITE.

Die verwitterte Melodie (1942) Fischerkoesen from hans bacher on Vimeo.

© fischerkoesen film

fischerkoesen 2

last year in nov. I had a post about WEATHER-BEATEN MELODY, or VERWITTERTE MELODY, that the FISCHERKOESEN animationstudio near bonn in germany in the forties produced. here now are some scenes from advertising commercials the same studio did in the fifties.

© fischerkoesen

fischerkoesen

these color-corrected screengrabs are from the
1942 WEATHER-BEATEN MELODY and the 1943
THE SNOWMAN short films, both produced during
the wartime in germany by HANS FISCHERKOESEN and his studio.
considering the circumstances and the very limited
resources I think these films are masterpieces.
in the late seventies I met fischerkoesen’s son. he
was still running his father’s animation studio near
bonn right next to the river rhine, where some of the
best animated commercials were produced in the
fifties and sixties. he remembered the difficult war time
when they produced the 3-dimensional settings for
DIE VERWITTERTE MELODIE ( weather-beaten melody )
in an animation studio in prague with mostly tchech.
animators. 
if you are interested you can see the shorts on 
YOU TUBE and there are several articles about this
german animation pioneer as well on the internet.

© fischerkoesen