Shamus Culhane
Culhane worked for a number of American animation studios, including Fleischer Studios, the Ub Iwerks studio, Walt Disney Productions, and theWalter Lantz studio. He began his animation career in 1925 working for J.R. Bray studios, and is known for promoting the animation talents of his inker/assistant at the Fleischer Studios in the early 1930s, Lillian Friedman Astor, making her the first female studio animator. While at the Disney studio, he discovered while working on Hawaiian Holiday's crab sequence an animation method that involved stewing for multiple days, before drawing the entire thing in rough sketches all at once, straight ahead, without invoking the left side of the brain. He was a lead animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, animating arguably the most well-known sequence in the film, the animation of the dwarves marching home singing "Heigh-Ho". The scene took Culhane and his assistants six months to complete. During this time he developed his 'High-speed' technique of using only the right side of the brain and animating with quick dashed-off sketches. In 1944, he collaborated on The Greatest Man in Siam with the layout artist Art Heinemann. In that animation, "the king of Siam bolts past doorways that are distinctly phallic in shape and peers at another that mimics a vagina."[3] Later in his career, Culhane worked briefly in Chuck Jones's unit at Warner Bros, before moving on to being a director for Lantz, where he helmed Woody Woodpecker's 1944 classic, The Barber of Seville, the cartoon famous for one of the first uses of fast cutting, after taking the idea from Sergei Eisenstein. At Lantz, he introduced Russian avant-garde influenced experimental art into the cartoons. In the late-1940s, he founded Shamus Culhane Productions (Culhane had gone by his birthname of James up until this point, before going by its Irish variant Shamus), one of the first companies to create animated television commercials. It also produced the animation for at least one of the Bell Telephone Science Series films. Shamus Culhane Productions folded in the 1960s, at which point Culhane became the head of the successor to Fleischer Studios, Paramount Cartoon Studios. He left the studio in 1967, and went into semi-retirement. Culhane wrote two highly regarded books on animation: the how-to/textbook Animation from Script to Screen, and his autobiography Talking Animals and Other People. Since Culhane worked for a number of major Hollywood animation studios, his autobiography gives a balanced general overview of the history of the Golden Age of American Animation. At his death on February 2, 1996, Culhane was survived by second wife, the former Juana Hegarty, and by two sons from his first marriage to Maxine Marx (the daughter of Chico Marx) which ended in divorce: Brian Culhane of Seattle and Kevin Marx Culhane of Portland, Ore. -From Wikiepedia
Films (91)
Last of the Red-Hot Dragons
1980 · Writer, Director
King of the Beasts
1977 · Director, Writer
Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure
1977 · Production Consultant
Noah's Animals
1976 · Director, Writer
The Night the Animals Talked
1970 · Director
Keep the Cool, Baby
1967 · Executive Producer, Story
The Opera Caper
1967 · Director, Story
The Stubborn Cowboy
1967 · Executive Producer, Story
A Bridge Grows in Brooklyn
1967 · Executive Producer
Brother Bat
1967 · Executive Producer
Forget-Me-Nuts
1967 · Executive Producer
High But Not Dry
1967 · Executive Producer
From Orbit to Obit
1967 · Director
Robin Hoodwinked
1967 · Director
Halt, Who Grows There?
1967 · Director, Writer
The Squaw Path
1967 · Director, Executive Producer
The Plumber
1967 · Director, Executive Producer
The Trip
1967 · Director, Executive Producer
Alter Egotist
1967 · Executive Producer
My Daddy the Astronaut
1967 · Story, Director
Think or Sink
1967 · Director
The Blacksheep Blacksmith
1967 · Director
The Space Squid
1967 · Director
Geronimo and Son
1966 · Director
Potions and Notions
1966 · Director
A Wedding Knight
1966 · Director, Producer
Throne for a Loss
1966 · Director
A Balmy Knight
1966 · Director, Executive Producer
The Defiant Giant
1966 · Director
I Want My Mummy
1966 · Director
The Unchained Goddess
1958 · Producer
The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays
1957 · Producer
Hemo the Magnificent
1957 · Animation
The Big Fun Carnival
1957 · Director
Around the World in 80 Days
1956 · Animation
Showdown at Ulcer Gulch
1956 · Director
Fair Weather Fiends
1946 · Director
The Reckless Driver
1946 · Director
Who's Cookin Who?
1946 · Director
Mousie Come Home
1946 · Director
The Loose Nut
1945 · Director
The Dippy Diplomat
1945 · Director
Woody Dines Out
1945 · Director
Chew-Chew Baby
1945 · Director
The Pied Piper of Basin Street
1945 · Director
The Painter and the Pointer
1944 · Director
Ski for Two
1944 · Director
The Beach Nut
1944 · Director
Fish Fry
1944 · Director
Jungle Jive
1944 · Director
The Barber of Seville
1944 · Director
The Weakly Reporter
1944 · Animation
Meatless Tuesday
1943 · Director
Puss n' Booty
1943 · Animation
Boogie Woogie Man (Will Get You If You Don't Watch Out)
1943 · Director
Take Heed Mr. Tojo
1943 · Director
Mr. Bug Goes to Town
1941 · Animation Director
Two for the Zoo
1941 · Animation
Popeye Meets William Tell
1940 · Animation Director
Gulliver's Travels
1939 · Animation
The Autograph Hound
1939 · Animation
The Pointer
1939 · Animation
Beach Picnic
1939 · Animation
Donald's Cousin Gus
1939 · Animation
The Hockey Champ
1939 · Animation
Society Dog Show
1939 · Animation
Polar Trappers
1938 · Animation
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
1938 · Animation
Pluto's Quin-puplets
1937 · Animation
Hawaiian Holiday
1937 · Animation
Donald and Pluto
1936 · Animation
Mickey's Circus
1936 · Animation
Orphan's Picnic
1936 · Animation
Balloon Land
1935 · Animation
The Merry Kittens
1935 · Director
Old Mother Hubbard
1935 · Co-Director
Little Black Sambo
1935 · Co-Director
Jack Frost
1934 · Co-Director
The Valiant Tailor
1934 · Co-Director
The Headless Horseman
1934 · Co-Director
Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
1934 · Co-Director
Jack and the Beanstalk
1933 · Co-Director
I Yam What I Yam
1933 · Animation
Coo Coo the Magician
1933 · Animation
Minding the Baby
1931 · Animation Director, Animation
The Herring Murder Case
1931 · Co-Director
Alexander's Ragtime Band
1931 · Co-Director
Please Go 'Way and Let Me Sleep
1931 · Animation
Up to Mars
1930 · Animation
I'm Afraid to Come Home in the Dark
1930 · Animation
Just Spooks
1925 · Animation
