Raymond Durgnat on British animation in 1970

Books on the history of British cinema often overlook animation. Raymond Durgnat's seminal 1970 volume A Mirror for England: British Movies from Austerity to Affluence is a key exception; after briefly touching upon Animal Farm and namechecking Dustbin Parade and Richard Williams during the course of the book he dedicates his final sub-chapter to the subject of animation in Britain.

He begins this overview by returning to Halas & Batchelor, specifically The Hoffnung Symphony Orchestra (which he credits with "spiritedly solving the problem which gave every Hollywood cartoon unit, from Disney to U.P.A., such difficulty; how to reconcile emphatic laugh gags with smartish post-Disney graphics") and Automania 2000.

The Rise and Fall of Emily Sprod. More stills here.

Durgnat then goes on to cover George Dunning's short films The Wardrobe, The Flying Man and The Apple, describing them as being "as near American wryness as any English tone", before going on to analyse the films of Bob Godfrey.

In a typical example of his characteristic writing style Durgnat describes The Do-It-Yourself Cartoon Kit as "a prestidigitous jingle-jumble of iconographies, from Goonish to Gothic, by way of empire-builders' emblems, admen's knickknacks, cultural doodads and assorted oojamaflips" before going on to make some very intriguing comments on the animator's potential future. Although Godfrey is now firmly associated with bawdy knockabout, Durgnat had something quite different in mind after discussing the proto-Gilliam visual style of The Rise and Fall of Emily Sprod:

The Rise and Fall of Emily Sprod... suggests that Godfrey might develop towards cartoons which are only incidentally humorous, and, primarily, dream-like, satirical, or even macabre, along the lines of the Polish school. For the Poles share the British ambivalence towards the past...

He then moves on to Richard Williams's Love Me, Love Me, Love Me and The Little Island. Of the former he has this to say:

If fratricidal strife, and ironies of cool and rage, are the covert theme of Tom and Jerry and the American cartoons, the corresponding English theme is a derisive nostalgia — not always the same thing as satire. Richard Williams's Love Me, Love Me, Love Me is a sharp send-up of British mediocrity as being self-protective masochism... all in all this cartoon is almost a classic crystallisation of the British character as Tex Avery's The Cat That Hated People of the American.

A Short Vision.

Finally, Durgnat concludes his book with a brief overview of Peter and Joan Foldes' Animated Genesis and A Short Vision:

The latter film, inspired by the irritatingly righteous, albeit naggingly plausible, spirit of C.N.D. insists, with its strong sculptural visuals, pointedly reminiscent of Henry Moore's wartime sketches of Londoners sleeping safely in tube shelters during the blitz, in making us feel, in skin and sinew, the unleashing of an atomic device that melts the bone under the face and snuffs the last spark of life from a blackened, superfluous, and shameful planet. The cartoon film, too, can be a moral sledgehammer.

 One of Henry Moore's sketch Pink and Green Sleepers.

TVC's Charley

Made by TVC in 1965, Charley (not to be confused with the other boy-and-cat cartoon called Charley) is one of those felt tip on paper shorts that used to be common before Flash came along. It takes place in the imagination of a boy, who transforms himself into a clown, an aeroplane and an explorer before running up against an angry hairy creature and a stern policeman.

Of special note is the soundtrack - all of the sound effects are made vocally by Noel Picarda, perfectly fitting in with the overall stream of consciousness aesthetic. It's almost as if you're hearing an animator mumbling and humming to himself as he draws the frames.

The film's credits list George Dunning, Jimmy Murakami, Alan Ball, Ron Wyatt, Alex Rayment and John Williams as its creators, but exactly who did what is not explained. Denis Gifford's filmography identifies Dunning as director and producer, Murakami, Wyatt and Ball as animators, Rayment as editor and Williams as camera operator. The BFI database, on the other hand, credits Murakami and Ball as co-directors and Dunning as producer, as does IMDB, which also lists Rayment as editor. Meanwhile, when the film was shown on Channel 4 in the nineties, it was identified simply as a George Dunning piece.

George Dunning and Topper Carew's The Maggot

Directed by George Dunning and apparently targeted at black American youth, this stylish anti-drug film was animated by Roy Evans and Jerry Hibbert, with design by Mick Crane and assistant Eric Marlow. The American musician Topper Carew is credited with "conception", as well as soundtrack.

The Maggot was a collaboration between TVC and The Righteous Apple, which appears to be Carew's brand: eight years later he produced a live action TV series called The Righteous Apples, about a fictional teenage pop group.

George Dunning's Hands, Knees and Bumps a Daisy

Made for the National Coal Board, George Dunning's 1969 short Hands, Knees and Bumps a Daisy is an instructional film informing miners of the importance of gloves and kneepads. Well, the first two thirds are, anyway - the final portion of the film is an almost unrelated comedy skit featuring a stripper.

The instructional portion of the film is narrated by Stanley Unwin in his unique brand of semi-nonsense ("Now today, fellow blokers and worklemates, we're going to do a chitty-chat about the hands and the deep importload of the protecting of those hands by the wearing of the safety glovery, oh yes"). More on the short can be read at Screenonline.