Calendar: February 19

Year: Day to Day Men: February 19

The Coffee Table Book

The nineteenth of February in 1913 marks the birth date of Francis Frederick von Taschlein who was an American animator and filmmaker. Best known as Frank Tashlin, he worked on the Warner Brothers Studio’s series of animated shorts, “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies”, as well as many successful comedy feature films.

Born in Weehawken, New Jersey, Frank Tashlin left high school at the age of thirteen and began working through a series of various jobs. In 1930, he started working as a animator for film director John Foster on the “Aesop’s Fables” cartoon series. Tashlin joined producer Leon Schlesinger’s cartoon studio at Warner Brothers in 1933 as an animator; the studio had achieved its success with the production of the “Looney Tunes” and later “Merry Melodies” series of shorts.

Tashlin worked with Schlesinger for one year before he joined the Ub Iwerks studio in 1934. Iwerks had worked as a character designer for Walt Disney and refined Disney’s sketch for Mickey Mouse; he would do much of the animation on Disney’s “Silly Symphony” cartoons which included “Steamboat Willie” and “The Skeleton Dance”. Tashlin stayed with Iwerks until 1934 and then worked for one year with Hal Roach’s studio.

In 1936, Frank Tashlin returned to Schlesinger as the head director for the animation department at Warner Brothers. With his knowledge of the industry and his diverse interest in animation, he brought a new understanding of camera techniques to the department. Animated shorts began to use montages, vertical and horizontal pan shots, and shots taken from different camera angles. From 1936 to 1938, Tashlin directed almost twenty shorts. After an argument with studio manager Henry Binder, he resigned and worked for a few years in Disney’s story department.

Tashlin joined Columbia Pictures’s Screen Gems animation studio as production manager in 1941. He was effectively in charge of the studio and hired many former Disney artists who had left as a result of the Disney animators’ strike over pay inequities and unionization efforts. Tashlin launched one of the better products of the studio, “The Fox and Crow” series which ran until the studio closed in 1946. His stay at Columbia lasted only one year as he was fired after an argument with Columbia executives.

In 1942, Frank Tashlin rejoined the Warner Brothers animation studio as a director. Among the cartoon shorts he directed were “Porky Pig’s Feat” in 1943 and two Bugs Bunny features, the 1945 “Unruly Hare” and 1946 “Hare Remover” which was Tashlin’s last credited film at Warner Brothers. Tashlin worked on the studio’s wartime shorts during the years of World War II. Before he left Warner Brothers, he directed some stop-motion puppet films for producer John Sutherland. Tashlin’s 1947 puppet animation film “The Way of Peace” was selected in 2014 for entry into National Film Registry.

From 1946 until 1951, Tashlin became a gag writer for such comedians as Lucille Ball and the Marx Brothers; he also worked as a screenwriter for Bob Hope and comedian Red Skelton. Tashlin began his career as a director of feature films when he was asked to finish directing Bob Hope’s 1951 “The Lemon Drop Kid”. His successful streak of box-office successes began in 1956 with “The Girl Can’t Help It” starring Jane Mansfield and Tom Ewell. This was followed by the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis 1956 “Hollywood or Bust” and the 1957 “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter” that starred Jane Mansfield, Tony Randall, Betsy Drake and Joan Blondell. Tony Randall received a Golden Globe nomination for his role and the film was selected in 2000 for entry into the National Film Registry.

Frank Tashlin was the director for six of Jerry Lewis’s early solo films, among which were the 1958 “The Geisha Boy”, the 1960 “Cinderfella”, and “The Disorderly Orderly” in 1964. He also directed the 1965 “The Alphabet Murders” and the 1966 “The Glass Bottom Boat’ with Doris Day, Rod Taylor, Arthur Godfrey, Paul Lynde, and Dom DeLuise. Tashlin’s last directorial work was the 1968 comedy “The Private Navy of Sgt. O’Farrell” with Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller and Jeffery Hunter.

Over the course of his career, Tashlin worked on four dozen animated shorts, including a dozen of Porky Pig’s earliest appearances, and forty-four feature films, either as director, writer, or producer. Frank Tashlin was stricken with a coronary thrombosis in his Beverly Hills home on the second of May in 1972. He died three days later on the fifth of May at Los Angeles’s Cedar-Sinai Medical Center at the age of fifty-nine. Tashlin is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Calendar: January 16

Year: Day to Day Men: January 16

The Farm in Early Autumn

The sixteenth of January in 1962 marks the first day of filming for Terence Young’s “Dr. No”, the first film in the James Bond series. Set in London, Jamaica and the fictional Jamaican island of Crab Key, the filming for Ian Fleming’s novel began on location at the Palisaodes Airport in Kingston, Jamaica. The primary scenes shot at that location included the exterior shots of Crab Key and and the city of Kingston.

Fleming had originally written “Dr. No” as a television outline for film producer and author Henry Morgenthau III who wanted to promote the Jamaican tourism industry. When that project did not develop, Fleming met with film producer Harry Saltzman to discuss a screen adaptation. Having reached an agreement with Saltzman, Fleming sold him the rights to all the James Bond novels except “Casino Royale” and “Thunderball” for fifty thousand dollars.

In order to finance the filming of the novels, Harry Saltzman formed a partnership with film producer Albert R. Broccoli. This partnership created two companies: Danjaq which held the rights to the Bond films, and Eon Productions which would handle their production. EON Productions had originally chosen the ninth volume of Fleming’s Bond series, the 1961 “Thunderball”, to be the first adaptation of the Bond films. However , due to a legal battle with the novel’s co-author Kevin McClory, EON Productions decided to film Fleming’s sixth Bond novel, the 1958 “Dr. No”.

After several Hollywood studios passed on the project, United Artists gave Saltzman and Broccoli authorization to produce “Dr. No” with a release date in 1962. Although United Artists agreed to finance “Dr. No”, the studio felt the film was on the same level as Hammer Films productions and was not willing to spend more than one million dollars for the film. United Artist had previously financed British films only to have them fail in U. S. theaters. For the climax scene of the explosion of Dr. No’s base, the producers managed to secure an extra one-hundred thousand dollars from the United Kingdom’s branch of United Artists.

The final choice for director was Terence Young who had previously directed several films for Albert Broccoli’s Warwick Films. In addition to his directorial work, Young made pivotal choices in the development of the James Bond character. Many actors were considered for the role of Bond before Saltzman and Broccoli decided thirty-one year-old Sean Connery would play Bond for first five films of the series. After he was chosen, Connery was taken by Terence Young to Young’s tailor and introduced to the casinos and high life of London. Connery’s role as Jame Bond was officially announced to the media on the third of November in 1961.

Principal photography was completed at the end of March in 1962. Editor Peter R. Hunt used innovative editing techniques of extensive quick cuts, fast motion and exaggerated sound effects on the action scenes to push the fast pacing of the film. Title artist Maurice Binder created the credits which became a signature of all subsequent James Bond films. His highly stylized main title sequence, filmed in sepia by putting a pinhole camera inside the barrel of a .38 calibre gun, and the opening’s music scores became a instantly recognizable symbols of the EON-produced series.

“Dr. No” premiered at the London Pavilion in the northeast side of Piccadilly Circus on the fifth of October in 1962; it was released across the United Kingdom two days later. Although the film did well in the United Kingdom, United Artists were still hesitant to premiere the film in New York City. The first commercial showing in the United States was at Atlanta, Georgia, where it ran successfully for twelve weeks in May of 1963. Despite the successful test run, United Artists did not consider shifting its release strategy. “Dr. No” was next launched in four hundred-fifty theaters in the Midwest and Southwest. The film finally opened in eighteen New York City theaters in June of 1963, nine months after its original premiere.

Notes: Due to the low budget for production, only one sound editor, Norman Wanstall, was hired instead of the usual three or four editors; sets had to be constructed in less-costly ways. The office of M, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, contained cardboard paintings and a door covered in leather-like plastic. Scenes involving Dr. No’s aquarium were accomplished by using a rear-projection screen and magnified stock film footage of goldfish-sized fish.

Sound editor Norman Wanstall worked on the first five Bond films and won an Oscar for his sound effects on “Goldfinger”. He created the sound effects for the spinning hat of Goldfinger’s servant Oddjob and for Dr. No’s crushing metal hand.

Calendar: January 15

Year: Day to Day Men: January 15

Southern Edge of the Lake

On the fifteenth of January in 1962, the Derveni papyrus was found at a site in Derveni, Macedonia, northern Greece. Discovered among the remnants of a funeral pyre in the necropolis that belonged to the ancient city of Lete, it is the oldest surviving manuscript in the Western tradition and possibly the oldest surviving papyrus written in Greek regardless of provenance.

The papyrus dates to approximately 340 BC, making it Europe’s oldest surviving manuscript. Composed near the end of the fifth-century BC, its text is a mix of dialects, mainly Attic and Ionic Greek with a few Doric forms. Occasionally the same word appears written in different dialectic forms.

The content of the Derveni papyrus is divided between religious instructions on sacrifices to gods and souls, and an allegorical commentary of a genealogical poem of the gods, ascribed to Orpheus. The identification of the papyrus’s author is a matter of dispute among scholars. Names like Euthyphron of Prospalta, Diagoras of Melos, and Stesimbrotus of Thasos have been proposed with varying degrees of likelihood.

The reconstruction of the papyrus involved the exacting job of unrolling and separating the layers of the charred papyrus roll. The surviving two hundred and sixty-six fragments of the papyrus were conserved under glass in descending order of size; however, due to the existence of unplaced smaller fragments, reconstruction is exceptionally challenging. Modern multispectral imaging techniques were used to take digital microphotographs of the papyrus fragments. From this work, twenty-six columns of text were recovered, all with their bottom parts missing, as they had perished on the pyre.

The Derveni papyrus is now included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, a compendium of the world’s documentary heritage, such as manuscripts, oral traditions, audio-visual materials and library and archive holdings. The papyrus is noted in this register as being the oldest known European book.

Note: The Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC is the location of the Interdisciplinary Research Project for the Derveni Papyrus. Over the last forty-five years, the text of the papyrus has undergone extensive reconstruction and study. Among the leaders of the Imouseion Project have been Theokritos Kouremenos, George M. Parássoglou, and Kyriakos Tsantsanoglou. A user-friendly copy of the latest reconstruction of the papyrus is now available online at: https://chs.harvard.edu/derveni-papyrus-introduction/

An extensive and informative review written by Patricia Curd of Purdue University on the 2004 publication “The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, Theology and Interpretation” written by Hungarian academic Gábor Betegh, the eighth Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge University, can be found in the University of Notre Dame’s “Philosophical Reviews” located at: https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-derveni-papyrus-cosmology-theology-and-interpretation/

Calendar: January 14

Year: Day to Day Men: January 14

Shades of Black and Green

The fourteenth of January in 83 BC marks the birth date of Marcus Antonius who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autocratic Roman Empire.

Born in Rome, Marcus Antonius was the son of Marcus Antonius Creticus and Julia, the daughter of Consul Lucius Julius Caesar and the third-cousin of Gaius Julius Caesar, dictator of the Empire until his assassination in 44 BC. Antonius was a relative and supporter of Julius Caesar and served as a general during the conquest of Gaul and the Civil War of the late Roman Republic. He was appointed administrator to Italy while Caesar eliminated his political opponents in Spain, North Africa and Greece.

There is little reliable information on his younger years. It is known, however, that he was an associate of Publius Clodius Pulcher, a populist Roman politician and street agitator during the First Triumvirate. By the age of twenty, Antonius had accumulated enormous debt and fled to Greece to escape his creditors; during his stay in Greece, he studied philosophy and rhetoric at Athens. Antonius began his military career in 57 BC by joining the military staff of the Proconsul of Syria, Aulus Gabinius, as commander of the calvary. He achieved his first military honors after securing important victories at Alexandrium and Machaerus, both in Jordan.

Antonius’s association with Publius Clodius Pulcher enabled him to achieve prominence in his career. Clodius secured Antonius a position on Caesar’s military staff in 54 BC. Demonstrating military leadership under Caesar, Antonius and Caesar developed a friendship that would last until Caesar’s assassination. It was Antonius who persuaded Proconsul Aulus Gabinius to restore the Ptolemaic pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes to the throne of Egypt after Ptolemy’s defeat in a rebellion. With Ptolemy restored as Rome’s client king, Rome exercised considerable power over the kingdom’s affairs. It was during this campaign that Antonius met Ptolemy’s then fourteen year-old daughter Cleopatra.

After a year of military service in Gaul, Caesar sent Antonius to Rome to formally begin his political career as a quaester, or public official, in 52 BC. After a year in office, Antonius was promoted by Caesar to the rank of Legate and was given command of two legions, about seventy-five hundred soldiers. After Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC, Antonius joined with General Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Galus Octavius, Caesar’s great-nephew, to form the three-man dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate. This group defeated Caesar’s killers in 42 BC and divided the Republic’s government between themselves. Antonius was assigned Rome’s eastern provinces which included the kingdom of Egypt, ruled then by Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator.

As the members of the Triumvirate sought individual power, relations became strained. Octavius and Antonius averted war in 40 BC when Antonius married Octavia, Octavius’s sister. However despite this marriage, relations were further strained as Antonius continued his love affair with Cleopatra. In 36 BC, Lepidus was expelled from the Triumvirate and a split developed between Antonius and Octavius. This hostility erupted into civil war in 31 BC as the Roman Senate under Octavius declared war on Egypt and proclaimed Antonius a traitor. Later that year, Octavius’s forces defeated Antonius at the Battle of Actium. Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius fled to Egypt where, after losing the Battle at Alexandria in 30 BC, these two historic figures committed suicide.

Roman statesman and orator Cicero Minor, a leading figure of the Roman Republic, announced Antonius’s death to the Senate. Antonius’s honors were revoked and his statues removed; however he was not subject to a complete condemnation of memory, damnatio memoriae. A decree was made that no member of the Antonii family would ever bear the name of Marcus again. Married four times, Marcus Antonius had many descendants and was ancestor to several famous Roman statesmen. Through his lover, Cleopatra VII, he had two sons and a daughter Cleopatra Selene II through whom Antonius was ancestor to the royal family of Mauretania, another Roman client kingdom.

Notes:Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC and its last active ruler. She was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. The Ptolemaic pharaohs, crowned by the Egyptian high priest of Ptah at Memphis, resided in the multicultural and largely Greek city of Alexandria founded by Alexander the Great. Previous Ptolemaic pharaohs spoke only Greek and ruled as Hellenistic monarchs. Cleopatra could speak multiple languages by adulthood and was the first Ptolemaic ruler known to have learned the Egyptian language. Contrary to popular belief, Cleopatra VII did not commit suicide by a bite from an asp but rather through poison.