Dr. Donald Crafton's "Winsor and Gertie"

In December of 2019 I had the privilege to attend "Winsor and Gertie" at the University of Notre Dame. Upon watching the play I came home and wrote the following write-up. The following has not been published anywhere else.

"Winsor and Gertie” Delights, Dr. Crafton Shares his Journey

By: Orrin Scott 12/7/19

“Winsor and Gertie,” is an hour-long playlet by Dr. Donald Crafton and featuring music adapted by Gabriel Thibaudeau. It was performed on Friday, December 6, to a filled to capacity Patricia George Decio Theatre, at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

An hour prior to its premiere, Dr. Crafton held a thirty minute talk to an audience of around 50. The talk started with a quick biography of Winsor McCay and ran to the height of his career.

Beginning with Winsor's birthplace in Canada, as well as his upbringing in Spring Lake, Michigan, Dr. Crafton highlighted how Winsor's artistry and work ethic formed. Winsor was a troublemaker in primary school, though eventually he would attend higher education for artistic study.

Winsor's artistry would earn him dinner in his early days as a poster designer for dime shows in Cincinnati, Ohio. This gig would lead Winsor into a job drawing political cartoons. His avant garde style and masterful understanding of perspective would make him a nationally recognized artist in the fairly new medium of comics. Naturally enjoying performing, Winsor traveled the vaudeville circuit with his “Seven Stages of Man” performance. This combination of celebrity and drawing prowess would lead to a premiere of a certain dinosaur at The Palace Theatre in Chicago, Illinois...

Dr. Crafton shared a fun aside for local audiences, the local Performing Arts Center, The Morris, was not only a vaudeville stopping location way back when, but it was also a Palace Theatre related to both the Windy City's and the Big Apple's. Though, unfortunately, no documentation exists to show Winsor performed in South Bend. Yet.

"You are flabbergasted to see the way the reel minds its master.”

-Ashton Stevens, “Dinosaur, M'Cay's Gerty, Begins at Palace”, Chicago Examiner 2/3/1914

The original “Gertie the Dinosaur” film has, unfortunately, been lost to time. The current one that exists on Internet Archive and YouTube variants is a third or fourth generation copy of a re-release. It is originally from a movie retelling of the vaudeville act produced by 20th Century Fox founder, William Fox, at the beginning of his film distribution career. It features spliced in live action footage setting up the premise of the film, a bet between gentlemen and Winsor McCay, as well as title cards throughout. To accomplish these additions the nitrate film had to be spliced. This splicing resulted in a two frame loss when cut into animation. These frames are considered lost media.

“Winsor and Gertie” features a third act re-enactment of “Gertie the Dinosaur” complete with a recently restored 2K scan. This is the same scan from The Gertie Project.

The Gertie Project was originally a plan to photocopy all remaining copies of the original 5”x8” drawings to reproduce the original vaudeville version. Unfortunately, only 10% of the drawings could be brought together. It soon became the goal to restore, not improve, to the best of current capabilities. The project over the course of 36 months, one that started in Ottawa and would end at Annecy in June of 2018, would result in a completely restored film. The Gertie Project was headed by David Nathan, M.D., Marco de Blois from the Canadian film conservatory, Cinémathèque Québécoise, and Dr. Crafton.

Dr. Crafton explained without the journey of The Gertie Project, the “Winsor and Gertie” playlet would not have come to be. He further elaborated that The Gertie Project was a research project that required a lot of hard research, three years of research with a grant sponsored by Notre Dame. This play was a way for Dr. Crafton to take what he learned from those years of research and apply that research in a new way. To humanize not only this underappreciated milestone in mixed media, but to give a bit of background how it all came to be.

Why has Dr. Crafton done all of this? “Well, someone has to!” he said to cheers in the audience. He elaborated further that the original Palace Theatre in Chicago, where Gertie premiered, has been demolished and is now the Richard J. Daley Center. When the Toy's R' Us Building in Times Square in New York City was torn down, they discovered the original Hammerstein Theatre Foundation, Gertie's New York premiere. And most recently, the Vitagraph Corporation of America building, the place where Winsor photographed the film, was torn down to make room for apartments. He emphasized that it's our responsibility to preserve the history that's disappearing at an all too fast rate.

The performance of “Winsor and Gertie” that followed was a joyful experience. All three actors portraying the McCay family, as well as the vaudeville ringleader, were enthusiastically performed. Specific props to Gabriel Krut as Winsor McCay. One of the biggest challenges of performing the Gertie act is timing. No matter what one does, that film will be running and it's up to the actor to make it feel as though the performance between man and projection is natural. It was evident Mr. Krut practiced quite a bit with the 100 year old film, his timing made Gertie's playfulness all the more real. Even the youngest children in the audience audibly laughed at the slapstick performance by the actors and eternal adorability of Gertie. One hundred plus years later Gertie's antics continue to entertain.

You can learn more about The Gertie Project and “Winsor and Gertie” at Dr. Crafton's blog post on the Society of Animation Studies blog about the subject, “Out of the Cave: The Vaudeville Version of Winsor McCay's Gertie (1914)” .

You can read more about early animation history from Dr. Crafton by checking out his books:

Before Mickey from the University of Chicago Press

Shadow of a Mouse: Performance, Beliefs, and World Building in Animation from the University of California Press

As well as Cartoon Research's book on Winsor McCay's early Life, Winsor McCay: Boyhood Dreams by Kevin Scott Collier.