I love to listen to people laughing.
“This man has devoted his whole life to bringing the film classics to the public. He treats animation-cartoons, if you will-as art. He is underfinanced, overworked and snubbed. I think we should pay tribute to him.”–DAVID BEARD, owner CINEBOOKS.
The January/February 1975 issue of FILM COMMENT magazine was a game changer for me.
https://www.filmcomment.com/issue/january-february-1975/
It woke me up to seeing the animated cartoons produced by Hollywood as an art form.
When I tried to rent copies of the films I had read about in its pages I found I couldn’t. No prints were available.
Then a woman called. She asked if I wanted to buy her late husband’s film collection.
I knew she did not want to haggle. She just wanted to find a home for the films. I said, “Sure. How much?”
In that library were many 16mm prints of classic cartoons.
Only a handful of people (8) came out to my first presentation.
12 came out to my next one.
“Hardly anyone came out for your last programs. Why are you doing this again?” said the people who worked with me at the time.
“Because they were interesting people,” I replied.
They said, “You are crazy.”
How did you know so many people would come out,” they asked after the third show.
I didn’t.
I was just doing something that interested me.
It still does.
In 1979 I invited animation producer/director Bob Clampett to Toronto. With Bob came his wife Sody.
I asked Jane Jacobs, author of THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES, to welcome Bob.
Jane said, “I know nothing about cartoons. I love you. I will do it if I can talk about your value to this city.”
Not everyone in Toronto shares the high value Jane Jacobs placed on my work.
Jane Jacobs welcomes Bob Clampett and speaks on the value of Reg Hartt to Toronto.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sCbKEvF164
Reg Hartt Presents Bob Clampett Animation Workshop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkvcLCIYf8E
Reg Hartt Presents Bob Clampett at The John Leach Animation Studio Toronto 1979.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cabLJU-Aiyw
Friz Freleng at Reg Hartt’s Cineforum, Toronto, Canada, 1980.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbZwISKdfnQ
The day Friz Freleng asked, “Reg, can I bring my wife?”
https://reghartt.ca/cineforum/?p=37195
Grim Natwick at Reg Hartt’s CineForum. Toronto 1980
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDAcJW66MkM
Grim Natwick at Reg Hartt’s CineForum, Toronto 1982
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CEYYLr9tRU
Reg Hartt presents Shamus Culhane, Toronto, 1986 plus My Daddy, The Astronaut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taGVbmQdafg
Reg Hartt presents Shamus Culhane, Toronto, 1986 4 Intro by Ellen Besen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2a8nQMAsMg
Reg Hartt presents Shamus Culhane, Toronto, 1986 Intro by Madeline Pengelly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT_4ro6Mvb8
Reg Hartt presents Shamus Culhane at Sheridan College
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_8YxFbp1So
Reg Hartt presents Shamus Culhane at Sick Kids Hospital Toronto 1986
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFa6vtJ-Rqo
Many of the young people who came to my programs left wanting to make films like the ones they had seen.
They wrongly thought that to do that they had to study to become animators.
Actually, they didn’t and don’t.
What they needed to be is producer/director/writer.
Why?
Because animators are a dime a dozen.
They are the pencils the producer/director/writer uses.
When I started my animation programs I had a hard time getting films.
Today I have one of the largest animation archives in the world.
That archive includes a copy of Walt Disney’s FANTASIA the way we can’t see it today.
It includes Disney’s SONG OF THE SOUTH which Disney refuses to release (but they did release a copy in Asia).
If you want to study animated films this is the place to study them.
If you want to show your kids what your kids can’t see this is the place.
If you just want to laugh yourself silly, this is the place.
Below are links to the videos I made of animation legends in Toronto.
In 1980 I invited the great animation master Friz Freleng to Toronto.
“Would you like a fee?” I asked him.
Friz said, “Can I bring my wife?”
I said, “Of course.
To my surprise everyone in animation in Toronto said Friz was old hat and could teach them nothing.
The people with me at the time asked me to cancel the event.
I picked up the phone to hear Friz saying, “Hi, Reg, this is Friz. DePatie-Freleng has folded. I’m back at Warner Brothers. They don’t want me going anywhere they don’t approve of and they don’t approve of you.”
I thought to myself, “Gee, I’m off the hook. I won’t lose face. All I have to do is to say, ‘Geee, Friz, that is too bad.”
However, I’m Irish.
I said, “How do you feel about it?”
Friz said, “I gave you my word and my wife is looking forward to the trip.”
I said to my board, “He is coming.”
They said, “We can’t talk to you. We resign.”
They walked out.
I had told the airline who Friz was.
When the plane landed in Toronto they put Friz in the pilot’s seat.
I didn’t get anyone from the animation community out for Friz but IU got a helluva lot of people out who loved his work.
Friz said, “Warners won’t let me show my films.”
I said, “We don’t need them. We do need you.”
Friz said, No one is interested in me.”
I said, “You are wrong.”
Friz said the first night, “I won’t talk for moire than half an hour.”
Four hours later he was still going strong.
That Christmas when I called him Friz said, “You are the finest host I ever met.”
These programs are not Warner Brothers approved.
Neither are the Disney approved.
In fact, a whole lot of folks don’t approve of Reg Hartt.
GREG WILLIAMS, MA (Ph, D. Candidate), President, University College Film Society, and Chairman of the Subcommittee for film, U. C. Symposium: I wish we had more time to chat together last night about our respective (and mutual) interests in film.
‘Cineforum’ has attained the status of an institution; it represents an achievement of which you should rightly feel proud. I can only hope the ‘University College Film Society’ will someday approximate its success and that I will, personally, match your inspired delivery as a master of ceremonies. As a newcomer to the business of arranging film programs, so far I am your equal perhaps only in enthusiasm. Thus I find your presentations to be not only exceptional in their content but also edifying in their execution. As an academic (in the field of English) I am also impressed by the high scholarly standard that pervades your informed and witty introductions, I frequently wonder if you have ever considered writing a history…some very good books have been of your knowledge would, I am certain, produce a very fine volume indeed.”
DOUGLAS ELIUK, education officer NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA, formerly Canada’s Cultural Attache to America, .
“(REG) Hartt is acknowledged as a phenomenon in the film community. He is someone who does not rely on government grants, subsidies or institutional protection to generate his film activities. He depends entirely on his intelligence, talent and resourcefulness. His events are produced with care and good sense, in a clean and friendly atmosphere and with an almost avuncular consideration for his fans, As a film officer for the National Film Board of Canada for 30 years, I have seldom seen anyone who added so much substance and passion to the cultural fabric of our society as he has done with his lectures and presentations.”
Paul McGrath, THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Some audience members were visibly distressed by the frequency and force of Hartt’s interjections into the program but it is clearly his chosen way of doing things, and the payoff in information is worth it. He has many good stories to tell: about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’s transformation into Mickey Mouse, Disney’s most enduring character; about the furor that greeted the creation of Tweety Pie, which subsided only when the artists painted him yellow; and much valuable technical information for the animation students. He has some interesting tales about Mel Blanc, Warners’ resident genius of voice characterization, as he continues the series with a full scale look at the Warner work of Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, and others. It’s the best work of its kind you will see anywhere because, except in rare oases in the United States and Eastern-Europe, they don’t make them like that anymore.
“REG HARTT is what living in a metropolis is all about. He personifies the city as a meeting place of ideas, as a feast of experience and discussion and debate, as a triumph over the banal and soporific of the original and provoking.”-=-MICHAEL VALPY, GLOBE AND MAIL.
“In Toronto, I discovered by chance, CineForum. Pure chance but a fortunate one. In that small room exhaling culture, passion and dedication, I watched the movie TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, an important historical, political and social document., and real artistic achievement….As a journalist (in Romania) I worked in the cultural field, including film reviews. Therefore I came to the CineForum not just as a movie lover, but as a knowledgeable professional…We live in an era authoritatively dominated by brainwashing and political correctness…I admired Reg Hartt’s courage and passion put in searching out and defending the human truth, the artistic truth, the historical truth; the Truth and unveiling it…Discovering Reg Hartt and his CineForum was one of the most important events of my visit in Toronto.”– JULIA SCUTARU, retired journalist, Bucharest, Romania, 2000:
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