Product Details

• Actors: Ub Iwerks
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: G (General Audience)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Walt Disney Video
• VHS Release Date: September 11, 2001
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005NZEK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #256,932 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perfect companion piece for the book, February 6, 2002

By 

Rachel Newstead "finder of forgotten animation" (Appleton, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Hand Behind the Mouse - The Ub Iwerks Story [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Ub Iwerks. By rights, that very unusual name should have been equal to that of Walt Disney. And for a brief time, it was.

Yet Ub is little remembered today, despite the fact that he was the true creator of Mickey Mouse. He was certainly a far better draftsman than Walt, a technical genius who succeeded in every endeavor he ever tried--animation, archery, even bowling. Everything, that is, except one--escaping the imposing shadow of his old friend and onetime partner Walt Disney.

Directed by Ub's granddaghter Leslie Iwerks and narrated by Kelsey Grammer, this documentary takes us through the various twists and turns of Ub's career. It has one distinct advantage over the Iwerks/Kenworthy book--one can see for oneself the extent of Ub's genius through his work, presented on-screen for the first time in decades. We see the first primitive efforts he and Walt produced as young commercial artists in Kansas City--the "Laugh-O-Gram" films and the "Alice in Cartoonland" series. We are also treated to rare clips of the silent "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" series (far superior to the later ones by Walter Lantz). And of course, the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons (two of which, "Plane Crazy" and "Steamboat Willie", are shown at the end of the film, animated almost exclusively by Iwerks).

In seeing the films, (particularly the ones he made as an independent producer) one gets the impression there were some pretty strange things going on in Ub's head. His best work, most of which was produced before the Hollywood crackdown on film morals, had a surprising edge to it. In one of his cartoons as an independent (he had left to form his own studio in the thirties) St. Peter in heaven is buzzed by a speeding motorist, whom the venerable saint promptly gives "the finger!" His work could be bizarre, and even morbid--one cartoon, "The Pincushion Man", took place in a land of balloon people. They were constantly menaced by their worst enemy, a humanized pincushion who delighted in popping the poor little balloony people into oblivion, effectively killing them. This, we are told, is perhaps the real reason his cartoons are not shown today. One interviewee in the film noted that Ub's cartoons could at any moment slip from "Never-Never Land into the Twilight Zone."

The only flaw in this production is that it skips over some aspects of his career, particularly the brief period he assisted cartoon producer Leon Schlesinger in making two Porky Pig cartoons. That would reunite Iwerks with one-time studio cel-washer Chuck Jones, who states in the film that Iwerks was the one who got him interested in animation. The oversight is understandable, given that this documentary was done for the Disney studio, and is not likely to give competitors any free publicity.

Ub is often unfairly portrayed in animation histories as being more interested in gadgets than art, and he did seem most at home coming up with new technical advances for film. The earliest multiplane camera (a device designed to give dimension to cartoons) and the travelling matte process are among his greatest achievements. But it is likely he lost interest in animation after Mickey Mouse because there was nowhere else he could go. One man who knew him was quoted as saying that Ub, having taken up bowling, put his ball in the closet after bowling a 300 game, never to use it again. With Mickey, Ub had already "bowled a 300" in a sense, and sought new areas to conquer.

And conquer he did. Returning to Walt in 1940 after a ten-year estrangement, he immediately set to work on devices that would make Disney's animated world more real than it had ever been. Donald Duck cavorted with Latin senoritas and Dick Van Dyke danced with animated penguins with the aid of devices invented by Ub Iwerks. Even after winning two Academy Awards for technical achievement in film, Ub retained his characteristic modesty. Of Mickey Mouse, he would say, "It's not creating (the character) that matters, it's what you do with it." For making Mickey what he bacame, Iwerks gave full credit to his friend Walt.

Iwerks died in 1971, five years after Disney. One wonders what might have occurred if he had lived long enough to witness the coming of computer animation and the Internet. One can be sure of one thing--before long, he would, as always, be three steps ahead of the rest of us, pondering what more he could do.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An eye-opener, December 7, 2002

By 

R. A. Caton "Arcaton" (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Hand Behind the Mouse - The Ub Iwerks Story [VHS] (VHS Tape)

As a citizen of the UK I have had no chance (I believe) to see this documentary on TV; thus I ordered and bought it from Amazon. It is an eye-opener, filling in much I had only half discovered from books. To appreciate an Iwerks cartoon it has to be seen; every frame positively vibrates with life.
The downside is that one wants to see full examples of the Iwerks films, not easy if you want to see good copies. I have a few on tape but they tend to be from public domain originals in low cost anthologies. Who has the rights? could there be a Disney standard issue? who knows.
However, it should be noticed that a fuller version of Steamboat Willie is available on the Disney Treasury "Mickey Mouse in Black and White" along with other Iwerks - drawn Mickey Mouse cartoons.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful biography!, March 20, 2008

By 

Giovanni Abrate (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Hand Behind the Mouse - The Ub Iwerks Story [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a well written and brilliantly produced biography, directed by Ub's granddaughter, Leslie Iwerks. It shows the important role that Iwerks had in launching the Disney Studios. It also shows why the Disney Studios became the pinnacle of the animation world: they had Walt Disney. It is inevitable to make a direct comparison between the cartoons produced by Iwerks after he left Disney and the films made at the Disney Studios during the same period. Iwerks was a brilliant animator and his cartoons are interesting for their "weird" and zany humor. They lack, however, the character identification and development that make the Disney films so much more involving and enjoyable. Ub himself gave Walt Disney due credit in the development of Mickey's character and personality. The shorts Ub made after Disney show that he was anchored to a style based on caricature and quick gags, while Disney led animation towards more complex stories and deeper and better defined character development. Still, Ub Iwerks was a genius and a brilliant technical innovator and Walt, who never forgave those who had abandoned him, found a way to reconcile with him at the end of his life. This is a welcome biography of a true pioneer of cartoon animation.