#jose escobar

[princesssarisa]

I'm torn in my feelings about the 1949 Lou Bunin version of Alice in Wonderland and the 1950 Spanish Cinderella adaptation Érase una vez... (which I only just watched for the first time; I wish I had known about it back when I did my Cinderella-September-Through-November project!).

I know they were both screwed over by Disney because Disney's own adaptations of the same stories were released around the same time. I know that if not for Disney, they would have been seen more widely, made more money, and been preserved in better quality prints.

But at the same time, in both cases, I feel as if the better movie won. The Bunin Alice and Érase una vez... just aren't as good as Disney's Alice and Cinderella. Yes, they have their own charms, but they're not the unjustly forgotten superior versions that their cult followings would have us believe. Maybe Disney had the advantage because of their higher budget, but still, Disney made the better movies.

[another-title-card-blog]

Erase una vez by Alexandre Cirici Pellicer & Jose Escobar. 1950

[animation-appreciation-education]

Érase una vez... (Once Upon a Time...)

44 in x of animated feature film history Release: Dec. 18th, 1950 Country: Spain Director: Alejandro Cirici-Pellicer

“Érase una vez... is a Spanish animated film directed by Alejandro Cirici-Pellicer. The story is based on Cinderella by Charles Perrault, but the film could not have that title because it was already held by the Disney version. 

The animation director was Jose Escobar, creator of Carpanta and Zipi y Zape. 

The film’s realization began on March 1, 1949, with a total of 97 employees. The first script was given to Escobar to undertake the comic portion, having total freedom in writing and omitting existing passages in the work of Perrault. After completing the script, the producers told Escobar to undertake the first sketches of the film based on a story set in the eighteenth century, but did not like the end result. Cirici then proposed setting it in the Renaissance.

Escobar asked not to make the characters of Cinderella and the prince to be similar to reality, so Cirici decided to entrust this task to Juan Ferrandiz which had the approval of Escobar himself. Escobar participated in the realization of the other characters plus some new ones. Federico Sevillano was in charge of animation effects.

The production may have included 380,000 drawings, 80,000 cels, 915 kilos of paint, and 557 animated drawings.”

(source) (source)

Roughly 5 minutes of Érase una vez... is available on YouTube here and here.