For Lucas: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard", Winnie the Pooh.

On 10 June, my youngest son, Lucas (30), passed away after an epileptic fit and cardiac arrest. Lucas was my angel and my worry child. He was mentally disabled and could not talk, but was, above all, beautiful, cheerful, sweet and left a deep impression on everyone who cared for him. Lucas and I loved watching films together, first a lot of animation films and later nature films. One of the films he loved and wanted to watch over and over again was The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. We watched that brilliant film more than 100 times. As a result, his brother Simon could retell entire dialogues from the film. Even when Lucas's interest in Walt Disney films waned, we continued to sing the Winnie the Pooh theme song during our walks. We also let the song be heard today at the service where we say goodbye to Lucas. Bye-bye, dear Pooh bear of mine.

Paul van Yperen


Dutch postcard by Interstat, Amsterdam. Image: A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard / Disney.


British postcard by Reflex Marketing, Wellingborough, no. PC 107. Illustration: Ernest H. Shepard / Methuen Children's Books, 1983. Postcard sent by mail in the Netherlands in 1989.


British postcard by Reflex Marketing LTD, Wellingborough, no. PC 585. Image: Ernest Howard Shepard / Disney. Caption: 'Feeling more snowy behind the ears than he had ever felt before', Sketch for illustration to 'The House at Pooh Corner'(publ. 1926), Chapter 1, page 4. Original drawings provided by the Victoria and Albert Museum.


British postcard by Reflex Marketing LTD, Wellingborough, no. PC 611. Image: Ernest Howard Shepard / Disney. Caption: Hearts Balloon.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

The anthology film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, 1977) is Disney's 22nd animated feature, based upon the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard. The film is comprised of three previously released animated Disney featurettes: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974). Extra material was used to link the three featurettes together to allow the stories to merge into each other. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was first released on a double bill with The Littlest Horse Thieves in 1977.


Finnish postcard. Image: Disney. Publicity still for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, 1977). Caption: Greetings from the Hundred Acre Wood!


French postcard by Les Presses de Belleville, Paris / LYNA, Paris. Image: Walt Disney Productions, 1965. Publicity still for the short film Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1966), later incorporated in the feature The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, 1977). Caption: The honey thief.


French postcard by Les Presses de Belleville, Paris / LYNA, Paris. Image: Walt Disney Productions, 1965. Publicity still for the short film Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1966), later incorporated in the feature The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, 1977). Caption: What a gourmand!


French postcard by Les Presses de Belleville, Paris / LYNA, Paris. Image: Walt Disney Productions, 1965. Publicity still for the short film Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1966), later incorporated in the feature The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, 1977). Caption: Winnie the Pooh.

The magical world of the Hundred Acre Wood

In Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1966), Winnie the Pooh and his friends have adventures in the magical world of the Hundred Acre Wood. The short film is based on the first two chapters of 'Winnie-the-Pooh' by A.A. Milne.

Winnie, Christopher Robin's silly old bear, attempts to get honey from a bee tree. After climbing the tree didn't work, Winnie borrows Christopher Robin's balloon, dunks himself in mud, and floats to the top of the honey tree incognito as a little black rain cloud.

After escaping the angry bees, Pooh decides to get honey the old-fashioned way: getting some from Rabbit, so after stuffing his face with all of Rabbit's honey, Pooh attempts to climb out of Rabbit's front door but becomes stuck!

No matter how hard everyone tries, they can't get him out, so Pooh is stuck for a week until he can lose the excess baggage. Then along comes Gopher, who agrees to help get Pooh out and almost feeds him more honey! But then one morning, Pooh is finally freed from the doorway and ends up in another sticky situation-quite literally!

Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree was the last short film produced by Walt Disney, who died of lung cancer on 15 December 1966, ten months after the film's release.


French postcard by Les Presses de Belleville, Paris / LYNA, Paris. Image: Walt Disney Productions, 1965. Publicity still for the short film Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1966), later incorporated in the feature The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, 1977). Caption: The brass band.


French postcard by Les Presses de Belleville, Paris / LYNA, Paris. Image: Walt Disney Productions, 1965. Publicity still for the short film Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1966), later incorporated in the feature The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, 1977). Caption: Winnie the Pooh.


French postcard by Les Presses de Belleville, Paris. Image: Walt Disney Productions, 1965. Publicity still for Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1966).


French postcard by Les Presses de Belleville, Paris. Image: Walt Disney Productions, 1965. Publicity still for Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1966).


British postcard by J. Arthur Dixon Ltd / Lotus Production, no. PCD/21286. Image: Walt Disney Productions, 1965. Publicity still for the short film Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1968), later incorporated in the feature The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, 1977). Caption: For deeds well done, Christopher Robin throws a party for heroes Pooh Bear and Piglet and their Hundred Acre Wood friends.

Rumbly in my tumbly

Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1966) is the first of the four Winnie the Pooh short films by the Disney studio, based on the A. A. Milne stories. Each character is introduced nicely in this charming short classic. The animation is excellent and the Sherman Brothers composed great songs such as 'Little Black Rain Cloud', 'Up, Down and Touch the Ground', 'Rumbly in My Tumbly' and 'Winnie the Pooh'.

Pooh's determination to get some honey remains amusing. Although he is a bear with very little brain, he's not the sort of bear to give up easily. The honey-loving bear tries various schemes to get his golden delight. It's funny how he often thinks of something, but no matter how hard he tries to think, the only thing that comes to his simple mind is honey.

And it's funny that he does physical exercises, but not for the reasons you could think. Do you think he does physical exercises to get thinner? You'd better think again! He does physical exercises to get hungry, as an excuse to eat honey. Each different character in the film has a unique trait. The donkey Eeyore shows the depressing side of human nature, always finding the downside of anything.

The other characters succeed in cheering him up. The owl is the 'educated' one who loves to hear himself talk. Tigger, happy-go-lucky tiger, bounces around exuberantly on his coil-spring tail, greeting everyone, and sometimes accidentally knocking them over. Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966) immediately became a popular phenomenon and led to more Pooh shorts, which later made up the feature film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, 1977).

A fourth, shorter scene was added to bring the film to a close, originally made during the production of Blustery Day. The sequence was based on the final chapter of 'The House at Pooh Corner', where Christopher Robin must leave the Hundred Acre Wood behind as he is starting school. In it, Christopher Robin and Pooh discuss what they liked doing together, and the boy asks his bear to promise to remember him and to keep some of the memories of their time together alive. Pooh agrees to do so, and the film closes with The Narrator (Sebastian Cabot) saying that wherever Christopher Robin goes, Pooh will always be waiting for him whenever he returns.


Dutch postcard. Caption: Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.


French postcard by Cartoon Collection, Paris, Réf. 26289. Image: Disney. Based on the "Winnie the Pooh" works by A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard. Caption: Party.


French postcard by Cartoon Collection, Paris, Réf. 24225. Image: Disney. Based on the "Winnie the Pooh" works by A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard. Caption: Party.


French postcard by MD, Paris, no. D 460. Image: Walt Disney Productions. Caption: Winnie the Pooh, Tiger and Eeyore.


Hungarian postcard. Image: Disney. Caption: Merry Christmas!


French postcard by Sonis, no. C. 1716. Image: Disney, based on the Winnie the Pooh works by A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard.


Italian lenticular postcard by Dedit srl, no. 2803474. Image: Disney, based on the "Winnie the Pooh" works by A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard. Lenticular printing is a technology in which lenticular lenses are used to produce printed images with an illusion of depth, or the ability to change or as for this postcard move as the image is viewed from different angles. Like today, the weather changes on the card from rain to sunshine and back. Sadly, we can't scan the effect.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Silly Symphonies

Silly Symphonies (also known as Silly Symphony) is an American animated series of 75 musical shorts produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939. As the series name implies, the Silly Symphonies were originally intended as whimsical accompaniments to pieces of music. The films usually did not feature continuing characters, but there are exceptions such as Three Little Pigs, The Tortoise and the Hare, and Three Orphan Kittens, which all had sequels. The series is noted for its innovation with Technicolor and the multiplane motion picture camera, as well as its introduction of Donald Duck, who made his first appearance in the Silly Symphony cartoon The Wise Little Hen in 1934. Seven Silly Symphonies won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.


French postcard by Imp. Georges Lang, Paris, offered by Chocolats Tobler. Image: Walt Disney.

Fifer Pig and Fiddler Pig are two of the three little pigs of the classic Silly Symphonies short Three Little Pigs (Burt Gillett, 1933). The Three Little Pigs (1933) was phenomenally successful with audiences of the day, so much so that theatres ran the cartoon for months after its debut, to a great financial response. Several theatres added hand-drawn "beards" to the movie posters for the cartoon as a way of indicating how long its theatrical run lasted. The cartoon is still considered to be the most successful animated short ever made and remained on top of animation until Disney was able to boost Mickey's popularity further by making him a top merchandise icon by the end of 1934. The Three Little Pigs won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 1934. In 1994, it was voted #11 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. In 2007, The Three Little Pigs was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


French postcard by Imp. Georges Lang, Paris, offered by Chocolats Tobler. Image: Walt Disney.

Practical Pig is one of the three little pigs of the classic Silly Symphonies short Three Little Pigs (Burt Gillett, 1933) and its three follow-up shorts, The Big Bad Wolf (Burt Gillett, 1934), Three Little Wolves (Burt Gillett, David Hand, 1936), and The Practical Pig (Dick Rickard, 1939). The three pigs are constantly targeted by the Big Bad Wolf, who wants to eat them for dinner.


French postcard by Imp. Georges Lang, Paris, offered by Chocolats Tobler. Image: Walt Disney.

The Big Bad Wolf is the main antagonist of the Silly Symphonies short Three Little Pigs (Burt Gillett, 1933) and its sequels. As his name suggests, he is a ruthless, conniving wolf who constantly plots to capture and eat the Three Little Pigs.


French collector card, series 2, no. 2. Image: Walt Disney - Mickey Mouse. Scene from The Three Little Pigs (1933). Caption: 'We're going to play a dirty trick on him...!'


French postcard by Éditions F. Sépériadès, Paris, no. 2. Image: Walt Disney - Mickey Mouse. Scene from The Big Bad Wolf (1934). Caption: Along the way, Little Red Riding Hood passes by her friends' farmhouse.

The Big Bad Wolf (Burt Gillett, 1934) is an animated short produced by Walt Disney as part of the Silly Symphony series. Acting partly as a sequel to the wildly successful adaptation of the folk tale The Three Little Pigs (1933) and maintaining the previous film's title characters as well as its villain, this film also acts as an adaptation of the fairy tale 'Little Red Riding Hood' (1697) by Charles Perrault, with the Big Bad Wolf from Three Little Pigs acting as the adversary to Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.


French postcard by Éditions F. Sépériadès, Paris, no. 3. Image: Walt Disney - Mickey Mouse. Scene from The Big Bad Wolf (1934). Caption: Little Red Riding Hood and her little friends set off through the woods. 'Raccourci" translates as Shortcut.

Musical animated shorts that combined the latest sound technology with storytelling

While Walt Disney and Carl Stalling, a theatre organist from Kansas City, were in New York to add sound to the Mickey Mouse shorts The Gallopin' Gaucho, The Barn Dance and Plane Crazy, Stalling suggested the idea of making a series of musical animated shorts that combined the latest sound technology with storytelling. At first, Walt did not seem interested, but when they returned to New York in February to record the sound for a fifth Mickey Mouse cartoon, The Opry House, they also recorded the soundtrack for The Skeleton Dance, the type of short that Stalling had suggested and the first Silly Symphony cartoon.

Within the animation industry, the series is known for its use by Walt Disney as a platform for experimenting with processes, techniques, characters, and stories to further the art of animation. It also provided a venue to try out techniques and technologies, such as Technicolor, special effects animation, and dramatic storytelling in animation, that would be crucial to Disney's plans to eventually begin making feature-length animated films.

Shortly after the switch to United Artists, the series became even more popular. Walt Disney had seen some of Dr. Herbert Kalmus' tests for a new three-strip, full-colour Technicolor process, which would replace the previous two-tone Technicolor process. Disney signed a contract with Technicolor which gave the Disney studio exclusive rights to the new three-strip process through the end of 1935 and had a 60% complete Symphony, Flowers and Trees, scrapped and redone in full colour. Flowers and Trees was the first animated film to use the three-strip Technicolor process and was a phenomenal success. Within a year, the now-in-Technicolor Silly Symphonies series had popularity and success that matched (and later surpassed) that of the Mickey Mouse cartoons.

The contract Disney had with Technicolor would also later be extended another five years as well. The success of Silly Symphonies would be tremendously boosted after Three Little Pigs was released in 1933 and became a box office sensation; the film was featured in movie theatres for several months and also featured the hit song that became the anthem of the Great Depression, 'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf'. Several Silly Symphonies entries, including Three Little Pigs (1933), The Grasshopper and the Ants (1934), The Tortoise and the Hare (1935), The Country Cousin (1936), The Old Mill (1937), Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (1938), and The Ugly Duckling (1939, with an earlier black-and-white version from 1931), are among the most notable films produced by Walt Disney.

Due to problems related to Disney's scheduled productions of cartoons, a deal was made with Harman and Ising to produce three Silly Symphonies: Merbabies, Pipe Dreams, and The Little Bantamweight. Only one of these cartoons, Merbabies, ended up being bought by Disney, the remaining two Harman-Ising Silly Symphonies were then sold to MGM who released them as Happy Harmonies cartoons. Disney ceased production of Silly Symphonies in 1939.


Italian postcard by Grafiche Biondetti, Verona, no. 123. Image: Walt Disney Productions.

'Grandpa Bunny' (1951) is a classic Little Golden Book. It was inspired by the Technicolor Silly Symphony short, Funny Little Bunnies (1934).


French postcard by Imp. Georges Lang, Paris, offered by Chocolats Tobler. Image: Walt Disney.

Grandpa Bunny was introduced in the Silly Symphony Funny Little Bunnies (Wilfred Jackson, 1934). In the seven-minute short, bunny rabbits are preparing for Easter by making chocolate eggs, rabbits decorating eggs, and weaving and filling baskets. In 1951, Grandpa returned in the Little Golden Book 'Grandpa Bunny'. It tells the touching story of (now) Great-Grandpa Bunny Bunny, who teaches each new generation of bunnies how to prepare for the coming spring. The story was told by Jane Werner with illustrations by the Walt Disney Studio adapted by Dick Kelsey and Bill Justice from Funny Little Bunnies (1934). Cole Sear at IMDb about the short: "Funny Little Bunnies is whimsical Disney animation at its best and it is unapologetically funny. (...) The story is simple and humorous without being too dumb and the animation- which I suspect was done on 3-strip technicolour is beautiful."


French postcard by Tobler. Image: The Walt Disney Company.

Elmer is the main character of the Silly Symphonies short Elmer Elephant (1936), produced by The Walt Disney Company, and directed by Wilfred Jackson.


French postcard by Imp. Georges Lang, Paris, offered by Chocolats Tobler. Image: Walt Disney.

Little Hiawatha (or simply Hiawatha is a little Indian hunter who hunts for the game. He is the hero of the Silly Symphony Little Hiawatha (David Hand, 1937). In the short film, Hiawatha is first seen rowing in his canoe across the canoes across the falls of Minneha'ha. Encountering a bluebird and a robin, he prepares to fire his arrow but the animals tell them not to hurt them. Upon passing through a whirlpool, Hiawatha arrives at a stop and falls on the water where the raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, and other woodland creatures laugh at him. Approaching the animals, Hiawatha tries to fire his arrow at them but they end up running away. Hiawatha sees strange animal tracks to which he sees a grasshopper he is about to hunt. Hiawatha attempts to take him down but the grasshopper fools him and later chases a small rabbit which surrounds him as he attempts to take him down but instead shoos him away. The rabbit is reunited with his family due to his big heart, as he spares the innocent rabbit. Upon sparing the rabbit, Hiawatha breaks his arrow as the animals cheer for him that he will not harm any other animal he encounters. He accidentally encounters a bear cub alongside an adult bear which suddenly chases him across the woods while three beavers notice that Hiawatha is in danger sounding the alarm to the woodland creatures. As Hiawatha is being chased, the raccoons, beavers, opossums, and other animals manage to save him from the bear. He then returns to his canoe as the animals bid farewell to him.

French postcard by Imp. Georges Lang, Paris, offered by Chocolats Tobler. Image: Walt Disney.

Little Hiawatha (or simply Hiawatha is a little Indian hunter who hunts for the game. He is the hero of the Silly Symphony Little Hiawatha (David Hand, 1937).


French postcard by Imp. Georges Lang, Paris, offered by Chocolats Tobler. Image: Walt Disney.

Ferdinand is the quiet, gentle bull who, instead of being fierce in the bullring, only wants to smell the flowers in Disney's animated short Ferdinand the Bull (Dick Rickard, 1938). When he is stung by a bee, the townspeople believe he is ferocious and they take him to the bullfight. Ferdinand was voiced by animator Milt Kahl.

Source: Wikipedia.

The Disney Classic That Never Was: Chanticleer

In June 1960, Walt Disney told the Los Angeles Times that, following the release of One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), two animated films were in development: The Sword in the Stone (1963) and Chanticleer. Earlier conceptions of Chanticleer date back to the 1940s. The Disney film was never realised but it was an interesting project based on a legendary French stage play of which many wonderful postcards remain.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley) / GPL. Photo: Bert. Lucien Guitry as Chantecler, Le coq (The Rooster) in the stage play 'Chantecler' by Edmond Rostand.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley) / GPL. Photo: Bert. Félix Galipaux as Le Merle (The Blackbird) in the stage play 'Chantecler' by Edmond Rostand. French actor, playwright, and humorist Galipaux (1860-1931) was known for his comic stage monologues, such as 'Communication Téléphonique' (1906). A few of these monologues were recorded.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley) / GPL. Photo: Bert. Mme Simone as La Faisane (The Pheasant) in the stage play 'Chantecler' (1910), written by Edmond Rostand. French actress and writer Pauline Benda (1877-1985), known as Madame Simone or simply Simone, made her debut in the theatre in 1902. She acted in plays by Luigi Pirandello and Henry Bataille, among others.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley) / GPL. Photo: Bert. Léontine Bouchetal as La vieille Poule et les Poussins (The Old Hen and the Chicks) in the stage play 'Chantecler' (1910), written by Edmond Rostand. French stage actress Léontine Bouchetal (1872-1932) played the role of mère Marguerite in the premiere of 'Cyrano de Bergerac' in 1897. At her wedding in January 1904, the witnesses were Coquelin aîné, Jean Coquelin and the police prefect Louis Lépine.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley) / GPL. Photo: Bert. Jean Coquelin as the farmyard dog Patou in the stage play 'Chantecler' (1910), written by Edmond Rostand. Jean Coquelin (1865-1944) was the son of the famous stage actor Benoit Constant Coquelin. He played Raigoné in Edmond Rostand's 'Cyrano de Bergerac', the major play in which his father had performed. Coquelin and his father played together in the stage play 'La Dame de Monsoreau' (1860), after a novel by Alexandre Dumas. Between 1925 and 1943 he also appeared in several films.

The laughing stock of all domestic and wild animals

The Disney studio based the idea for Chanticleer on the stage play 'Chantecler'. Famous French auteur Edmond Rostand wrote this play in four acts in 1910. 'Chantecler' was first performed on 7 February 1910 at the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre. The lead roles were played by Lucien Guitry, Jean Coquelin, Félix Galipaux and Madame Simone.

Lucien Guitry starred as the rooster Chantecler. Guitry was considered the preeminent French actor of his day. For many years, he played opposite Sarah Bernhardt. He also appeared in silent films like Tosca (1908) and Ceux de chez nous (1915). He was married to Jeanne Desclois and Renée de Pont-Jest, and his son was the well-known actor-writer-director Sacha Guitry.

Chantecler is a coquerel who reigns over a barnyard. He is so convinced of his importance that he imagines his crowing will make the sun rise. But the arrival of a pheasant hen turns his life upside down. Love is revealed to him in such a way that he forgets to crow. So when the sun comes out, Chantecler becomes the laughingstock of all domestic and wild animals.

Especially the owls, the creatures of the night, hate him and force him to accept a public fight with another cock. The fight takes place in the guinea fowl's literary salon. After a near-death experience, Chantecler defends the barnyard against the threats of a sparrowhawk, thereby regaining some of his prestige. Unjustly neglected, but understanding that vanity is stronger than love in the cock, the pheasant nevertheless sacrifices herself for him and goes to meet a hunter in his place. A shot is fired, but it is the golden-voiced nightingale who is mortally wounded. The rooster's hoarse crow alone will continue to celebrate the dawn.

Opposite the proud cockerel Chantecler, there is the vile Merl. He represents the cynical city slicker, intrigue, jealousy and cowardry. Then there are the presumptuous Guinea Fowl, the loyal and friendly dog Patou, the Pheasant, representing female Beauty and the Modern Woman, the vain and stupid Peacock, the fragile and magic Nightingale, and the creatures of the night like the Toads (ugly and powerless, a critique by Rostand of theatre critics) and the Night Birds like the Owls, who hate the cockerel as they can only live during the night and he disturbs this.


French postcard by E.L.D. (Ed. Le Deley), no. 88. Caption: L'auteur de 'Chantecler' (the author of Chantecler - Edmond Rostand).


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley), no. 84. Jean Coquelin as the farmyard dog Patou in 'Chantecler' (1910), a play by Edmond Rostand.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley), no. 85. Mme Simone in the French stage play 'Chantecler' (1910), written by Edmond Rostand.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley), no. 86. Lucien Guitry was the title character in the French stage play 'Chantecler' (1910), written by Edmond Rostand.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley), no. 87. Félix Galipaux in the French stage play 'Chantecler' (1910), written by Edmond Rostand.

Very high expectations

After his successes with 'Cyrano de Bergerac' and 'L'Aiglon', the expectations for Edmond Rostand's next play were very high. Rostand took years to finish 'Chanticler' which involved over 70 characters and 195 costumes. The author himself designed all the sets and costumes and he almost crashed during the preparations of his gigantic enterprise. The play finally premiered on 7 February 1910 at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, with a star cast including Lucien Guitry as Chantecler and Jean Coquelin as Patou.

The premiere audience was deluded and even felt insulted, as Rostand sharply criticised the hypocrisy, jealousy, intrigues, and presumptuousness of life in the city, as opposed to the countryside. Moreover, audiences were not accustomed to seeing the famous actors dressed up as animals, and some felt Guitry's performance was not his best. A revival in 1927, with Victor Francen as Chantecler, was better received. Afterwards, the play would be revived in and outside of France several times, while the Broadway version already took place in 1911, with Maud Adams starring.

Wikipedia offers the curious afterlife of the play: "In June 1960, Disney told the Los Angeles Times that, following the release of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, two animated projects were in development, which were Chanticleer and The Sword in the Stone. Around that same time, Disney's elder brother Roy O. Disney attempted to persuade him to discontinue their feature animation division, as enough films remained to make successful re-releases. The younger Disney refused, but, because of his plans to build another theme park in the United States, he would approve only one animated film to be released every four years.

Chanticleer was developed by Ken Anderson and Marc Davis, who aimed to produce a feature animated film in a more contemporary setting. They visited the Disney archives and decided to work on adapting the satirical tale after glancing at earlier conceptions dating back to the 1940s. Anderson, Davis, Milt Kahl, and director Wolfgang Reitherman spent months preparing elaborate storyboards for Chanticleer. Following a silent response to one pitch presentation, a voice from the back of the room said, "You can't make a personality out of a chicken!" When the time came to approve either Chanticleer or The Sword in the Stone, Disney remarked that the problem with making a rooster a protagonist was, "[you] don't feel like picking a rooster up and petting it."

In 1992, Edmond Rostand's story of Chantecler was loosely adapted into the American animated film Rock-a-Doodle (Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, Dan Kuenster, 1992) and set in Tennessee in 1957. Here the Grand Duke of Owls concocts to have Chanticleer ridiculed as he forgets to crow at the rising sun after a fierce battle, so the rooster leaves for town to become a singer. Meanwhile, the night birds set their hungry eyes on the farm birds... Glen Campbell gave his voice to Chanticleer and Christopher Plummer dubbed the Grand Duke of Owls. The film was neither a critical success nor a box office hit. However, it would be more successful during its home video release.


French postcard by E.L.D. (Ed. Le Deley). Scene from the stage play 'Chantecler', Act I, with Lucien Guitry as the Rooster. Caption: L'Hymne au Soleil (Anthem to the Sun).


French postcard by E.L.D. (Ed. Le Deley). Scene from the stage play 'Chantecler', Act I, with Lucien Guitry as The Rooster. Caption: Chantecler et ses Poules (Chantecler and his hens).


French postcard by E.L.D. (Ed. Le Deley). Scene from the stage play 'Chantecler', Act I. Caption: L'Arrivée de la Faisane (The arrival of the pheasant).


French postcard by E.L.D. (Ed. Le Deley). Scene from the stage play 'Chantecler', Act II, with Lucien Guitry in the title role and Mme Simone as the Pheasant. Caption: Le Matin du Coq (The Morning of the Rooster).


French postcard by E.L.D. (Ed. Le Deley). Scene from the stage play 'Chantecler', Act II. Caption: Les Nocturnes - L'Ode à la Nuit (Nocturnes - Ode to the Night).


French postcard by E.L.D. (Ed. Le Deley). Photo Bert. Scene from the stage play 'Chantecler', Act III Caption: Le jour de la Pintade (The Day of the Guinea Fowl). Left to right: The Blackbird (Felix Galipaux), The Rooster (Lucien Guitry), The Old Hen & the Chicks (Léontine Bouchetal), and far right, The Pheasant (Mme Simone).


French postcard by E.L.D. (Ed. Le Deley). Photo Bert. Scene from the stage play 'Chantecler', Act IV. Caption: Les Crapauds (The Toads).


French postcard by E.L.D. (Ed. Le Deley). Photo Bert. Scene from the stage play 'Chantecler', Act IV. Caption: La Nuit du Rossignol (The Night of the Nightingale). In the foreground, Lucien Guitry as Chantecler and Mme Simone as The Pheasant.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley) / GPL. Photo: Bert. Dorival as Le Grand Duc (Grand Duke of Owls) in  'Chantecler' (1910).


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley) / GPL. Photo: Bert. Augustine Leriche as La Pintade (The Guineafowl) in 'Chantecler' (1910). French stage actress and singer Augustine Leriche (1856-1938) performed at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique, Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques, Théâtre du Châtelet, Gaîté-Lyrique, Théâtre de l'Athénée, and Théâtre du Palais-Royal. At the Porte-Saint-Martin, she created the role of the guinea fowl in 'Chantecler'.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley) / GPL. Photo: Bert. Henri Harment as Le Dindon (The Turkey) in 'Chantecler' (1910). In the 1910s, French stage actor Henri / Henry/ Harry Harment (1878-19..) alternated between the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique and the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in plays such as 'La Flambée' by Henry Kistemaeckers, 'Le Mystère de la chambre jaune' by Gaston Leroux, and 'Les Flambeaux' by Henry Bataille. Onscreen, Harment debuted in La petite fonctionnaire (Georges Denola, 1912). He acted as Louis XVI opposite Diana Karenne as Marie-Antoinette in Le collier de la reine (Gaston Ravel, Tony Lekain, 1929). In the early 1930s, Harment also had supporting parts in Delphine (Roger Capellani, 1931) and in Une nuit à l'hôtel (Leo Mittler, 1932). Afterwards, he also scripted the Yvette Lebon vehicle Les mariages de Mademoiselle Lévy (André Hugon, 1936) and C'est lui que je veux (André Royet, 1937) - in the latter, he also acted.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley) / GPL. Photo: Bert. Carmen Deraisy as La Poule Blanche (The White Chicken) in 'Chantecler' (1910). French stage and screen actress Carmen Deraisy aka Carmen de Raisy (1883-1954) played the femme fatale Gioconda Danti in Gabriele D'Annunzio's play 'La Gioconda' (1905). After that, she did several performances at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique. In 1910 she started at the company Éclair to act in such films as La jolie dame de Narbonne (Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset, 1910) in which she had the lead right away. In 1911 she stepped over to Pathé, where she could be seen in La fiancée du château maudit (Albert Capellani, 1911), a Horror film about a bride who gets trapped in a room with a skeleton. Between 1911 and 1914, she acted in eight more Pathé films. She would return to the film set only once more, as a fortuneteller in the Harry Baur film Péchés de jeunesse (Maurice Tourneur, 1941).


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley) / GPL. Photo: Bert. Paulette Lorsy and Madeleine Deréval as La Poule Grise and La Poule Houdan in 'Chantecler' (1910). French theatre and silent film actress Paulette Lorsy (1881-1929) performed in Paris's leading theatres, including the Porte-Saint-Martin, the Gymnase, the Ambigu, the Sarah-Bernardt and the Athénée, as well as in the provinces and abroad. She played in vaudeville and prose comedies, but also in such dramas as 'Cyrano de Bergerac. Lorsy started to act in film farces at Pathé Frères in 1909. She was matched with comedian Max Linder in 1910 and acted in numerous of his comedies. She also acted in the comedies with Rigadin (Prince), directed by Georges Denola. From 1915 to 1917, she acted in many short comedies directed by Henri Gambart.

Sources: Wikipedia (English and French) and IMDb.