Humorous Phases of Funny Faces

I don't think there's anything more about this pioneering animation effort that hasn't already been said before by many of the other reviewers except maybe only the very young who haven't been exposed to cartoons previously would find this the most charming thing they have ever seen yet! Certainly we all recognize how primitive these chalk drawings are now having been exposed to Disney, The Simpsons, hell, even Beavis and Butthead is more sophisticated than this short Humorous Phases of Funny Faces! That said, anyone with an interest in animation's history should watch this at least once to see where it all began...

This film is highly reminiscent of some of the films by Georges Méliès because of the film's extensive use of trick cinematography--an art perfected by Méliès before the director of this film got his start. In fact, the Méliès short THE UNTAMABLE WHISKERS (1904) is an awful lot like this film except instead of just having cartoons come to life due to stop-motion, this earlier film features Georges Méliès himself interacting with the drawings. Both are pretty antiquated by today's standards, but because they are short and pretty creative, they are also both very watchable. This J. Stuart Blackton film isn't quite as good or innovative, but this shouldn't stop you from giving it a look on google video.

This is an historically little classic from early movie-maker J. Stuart Blackton.

It's always interesting to watch a movie that is over- or near 100 years old. Movie-making obviously was still a profession yet in development which let to some many experimental little productions. This movie is one of those early experimental movies, that for one of the first times ever shows us a couple of fully moving animated characters, that also interact with each other.

Of course nothing really happens in this movie. It's just merely used as a medium to show off the skills- and possibilities of this new genre. The movie features a couple of animated persons that get drawn by J. Stuart Blackton himself. The characters interact simply to each other. It doesn't make this movie very entertaining to watch, although the bit with the dog and clown was pretty amusingly done.

The animations themselves are good and the speed is more than great. All of the movements feel right and natural. A real big accomplishment.

It's hard to rate a thing like this. It obviously is a little piece of early movie history and is simply a must-see because its widely regarded as the first ever animated movie. But the movie itself is hardly interesting or amusing enough to watch. Nothing really happens and thank goodness that the movie doesn't run over 3 minutes. I therefor go with a safe six out of ten.

6/10

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If you're a lover of really old movies, this is a real charmer. This is an animated version of a 'chalk talk' or 'lightning drawing' vaudeville act. It has an animated title, and each segment of the film begins with J. Stuart Blackton drawing each character. Sure, the animation is crude and occasionally Mr. Blackton's hand pops up during the animated parts, but is forgivable since this is recognized as the first animated cartoon ever. The white-on-black drawing and caracatures from an era gone by give it a sublimely surreal quality.

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906)

*** (out of 4)

When viewing this animated short people must remember that it was made even before D.W. Griffith started making pictures! This three minute film basically has chalk drawings coming to life in front of our eyes. The animation technology certainly grew as time went along but I can't see how anyone could watch this and not be impressed with what they were doing. The trick photography is really impressive and I also thought the drawings were extremely good. I really liked the first man and woman and how the man's smoke was used to cover up the woman. This is certainly a very early use of animation and it looks extremely well.