Peace on Earth (film)

Good Will to Men
Directed by	William Hanna; Joseph Barbera;
Produced by	Fred Quimby; William Hanna; Joseph Barbera;
Music by	Scott Bradley
Animation by	Lewis Marshall; Kenneth Muse; Ed Barge; Irvin Spence; Reuben Timmins;
Layouts by	Dick Bickenbach
Backgrounds by	Robert Gentle; Don Driscoll;
Color process	Technicolor; CinemaScope;
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Peace on Earth
	Title card
Directed by	Hugh Harman
Produced by	Hugh Harman; Fred Quimby (uncredited);
Written by	Jack Cosgriff; Erdman Penner; Frank Tashlin;
Starring	Mel Blanc; Bernice Hansen; Sara Berner; (all uncredited)[1]
Music by	Scott Bradley (unc. in 1939 version)
Animation by	George Gordon; Arnold Gillespie; Stan Quackenbush; Carl Urbano; Irven Spence; Emery Hawkins; Don Tobin; Cecil Surry; (all uncredited)
Production; company	Harman-Ising Productions; MGM Cartoons;
Distributed by	Loew's Inc.
Release date	December 9, 1939 (Original); December 23, 1955 (Remake);
Running time	9 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Peace on Earth is a one-reel 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon short directed by Hugh Harman, about a post-apocalyptic world populated only by animals, as it is claimed in the short that human beings have gone extinct due to war.

Plot

Two young squirrels ask their grandfather (voiced by Mel Blanc) on Christmas Eve who the "men" are in the lyric "Peace on Earth, good will to men." The grandfather squirrel then tells them a history of the human race, focusing on the never-ending wars men waged. Ultimately the wars do end, with the deaths of the last men on Earth, two soldiers shooting each other, one shoots the other soldier and the injured soldier kills the last, but slowly dies as he sinks into a watery foxhole while his hand grasps into the water. Afterwards, the surviving animals discover a copy of an implied Bible in the ruins of a church. Inspired by the book's teachings, they decide to rebuild a society dedicated to peace and non-violence (using the helmets of the soldiers to construct houses). The short features a version of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" with rewritten lyrics, and a trio of carolers sing this song outside of the squirrels' house.

Accolades

According to Hugh Harman's obituary in The New York Times[2] and Ben Mankiewicz, host of Cartoon Alley, the cartoon was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.[3] However, it is not listed in the official Nobel Prize nomination database.[4] Mankiewicz also claimed that the cartoon was the first about a serious subject by a major studio. In 1994, it was voted #40 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.[5]

It was also nominated for the 1939 Academy Award for Short Subjects (Cartoons). It did not claim that honor (which instead went to Walt Disney's Silly Symphony The Ugly Duckling).

Remake

Fred Quimby, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera remade the cartoon in CinemaScope in 1955.[3] This post-World War II version of the film, entitled Good Will to Men, featured updated and even more destructive forms of warfare technology such as flamethrowers, bazookas, missiles, and nuclear weapons.[6] This version used a choir of mice as the main characters including a deacon mouse who tells the story to his charges, and also had more direct religious references (though the Bible is simply referred to as "the book of humans' rules" in both), Good Will to Men includes a reference to the New Testament, while Peace on Earth only includes verses from the Old Testament). This new version was also nominated for the Best Animated Short Subject Oscar. This film would be the last animated production for producer Fred Quimby before he went into retirement in 1955 and died in 1965.

References

McCall, Douglas L. (1998). "The Black Cauldron". Film Cartoons: A Guide to 20th Century American Animated Features and Shorts: 178. Voices—Mel Blanc, Sara Berner, Bernice Hansen.
"Hugh Harman, 79, Creator Of 'Looney Tunes' Cartoons". New York Times. November 30, 1982.
Barbera, Joseph (1994). My Life in "Toons": From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century. Atlanta, GA: Turner Publishing. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-1-57036-042-8.
"The Nomination Database for the Nobel Peace Prize, 1901–1955". nobelprize.org.
Beck, Jerry (1994). The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals. Turner Publishing. ISBN 978-1878685490.
Crump, William D. (2019). Happy Holidays—Animated! A Worldwide Encyclopedia of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's Cartoons on Television and Film. McFarland & Co. p. 121. ISBN 9781476672939.

External links

Peace on Earth at IMDb
Good Will to Men at IMDb
The short film Peace On Earth (1939) is available for free download at the Internet Archive

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[1] McCall, Douglas L. (1998). "The Black Cauldron". Film Cartoons: A Guide to 20th Century American Animated Features and Shorts: 178. Voices—Mel Blanc, Sara Berner, Bernice Hansen.

[2] "Hugh Harman, 79, Creator Of 'Looney Tunes' Cartoons". New York Times. November 30, 1982.

[BarberaAutoBio-3] Barbera, Joseph (1994). My Life in "Toons": From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century. Atlanta, GA: Turner Publishing. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-1-57036-042-8.

[4] "The Nomination Database for the Nobel Peace Prize, 1901–1955". nobelprize.org.

[5] Beck, Jerry (1994). The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals. Turner Publishing. ISBN 978-1878685490.

[6] Crump, William D. (2019). Happy Holidays—Animated! A Worldwide Encyclopedia of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's Cartoons on Television and Film. McFarland & Co. p. 121. ISBN 9781476672939.