acingst
This film is made by James Stuart Blackton in U.S.A. At the first, blackboard and a human hand appears in the film. Then, the human hand draws pictures which are a man and a woman with choke. After that, the human hand disappears from the screen and stories which the man and the woman drawn begin. The painter's hand appears sometimes in the screen and the hand erasers pictures on the blackboard. And new story begins in the film. This film is made still in the era of silent. So, we can watch now many kinds of the film added later versions sounds. In addition, it is said that this film is the first animated movie in the world. The characters move in comical and those actions are in light. People who have seen the film are interested in story changing. In the early days of animation movie there is a live-action part. We can also see the history of movie is seen. It is one of the interesting characteristics of this movie.
tavm
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...
MartinHafer
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.
booyah-1991
I, of course, like this animated short that J. Stuart Blackton created and it is spectacular, but I have one question about this short. The one question is when J. Stuart Blackton, the artist in the film, is drawing the characters' sequences with a chalk bit-by-bit, I do not know how the drawings move, like when the guy with a mustache is drawn beside a woman, he smokes. Now, I do not get that particular part of the animated short.Of course, I love this film because there were silly cartoon drawings and it was one of the early special effects in film history, but The Enchanted Drawing, made in November 1900, was, I believe, the first animated film with special effects.8/10
AD
