MATTE & EFFECTS FILMS CELEBRATED: Part Eight

Greetings to all who are particularly partial to the long lost era of traditional, hand painted mattes and other ingenious motion picture 'tricks of the trade'.  It is indeed that time again - perhaps a little overdue according to some of my faithful correspondents - for a veritable cavalcade of amazing (and in a few isolated instances, perhaps not so flash) special photographic and miniature trick shots from across the long and wide cinema spectrum.

As is my self anointed vfx historian warrant, I've assembled a broad cross section of incredible films, with, in most cases, some terrific visual effects sequences.  There are a few films known to some; a bona fide Oscar winning classic; a cheesy 60's genre mish-mash; a couple of smaller gems that nobody will have heard of; a tiresome Technicolor musical; an expensive sci-fi mini-series from the late 70's; some more amazing Yuricich mattes that were thought lost; a selection of great Butler/Glouner shots from old Columbia pictures, and if that weren't enough, not one, but a pair of silent pictures - one a well known classic and the other a long, long, long forgotten disaster epic from the twenties that simply blew my socks off with the outstanding effects work!  Just because they don't have 'sound' or 'colour' doesn't mean they should be flagged as 'unworthy' my friends!

For the uninitiated, try to broaden your cinematic horizons and check out some incredible trick work from near on a Century ago of outstanding quality in today's post....

As this is the last post for 2024, what do I have in store for 2025?  Well, I'll be highlighting a series af never before seen matte paintings from French cinema that have just been generously shared with me.  Also, more from Matt Yuricich as well as the Butler/Glouner showreels.  I've been meaning to publish NZ Pete's 100 Best Special Visual Effects Movies (or individual shots)...  as well as a Matte Painted Journey Through Time, with a multitude of mattes from the beginning of time, as it were, through to the future!  That's a tall order, but will make for a fascinating adventure.

So, sit back, with your drink of choice, switch off that damned phone, and enjoy..........

Pete

***This vast and utterly exhaustive post, and all 186 previous blog posts known as 'Matte Shot', were originally created by Peter Cook for nzpetesmatteshot, with all content, layout and text originally published at http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/ 

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NZ PETE'S HALL OF FAME MATTE SHOT: Part Three

A favourite area of historic interest for me books and films about POW's and escape and evasion during the two World Wars.  I can't get enough regarding the infamous Colditz castle, and have many books on the topic.  There was a good British tv series back in the early 1970's and the classic Guy Hamilton film from 1957.  Today's 'Hall of Matte Fame' matte comes from that very motion picture.

This masterpiece of matte rendering was the work of long time Shepperton master matte painter Bob Cuff.  Fellow Shepperton artist, the late Gerald Larn once told me how this particular glass painting was, for a some time, mounted up on the wall of the painting room right opposite his own easel, and that Gerald found constant inspiration and admiration for the rendering.  The piece - along with various others such as old Poppa Day glass mattes like HENRY V - would decorate the walls, along with various miniatures from assorted pictures, and would occasionally be replaced with other works at odd times.  I asked Gerald whatever became of them when they came down.  His response:  "I really don't know where they went.  Maybe Wally [Veevers] had them stacked under his bed?"

Before and after on the studio backlot, and matte painter Bob Cuff shown here.  Bob started at Shepperton just after Pop Day retired and Wally Veevers took over the department.  Bob continued on until the mid 1960's and then went off with Les Bowie and Ray Caple as Bowie Films and later as Abacus Films, doing a great deal of work on things like ONE MILLION YEARS BC, THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH and YOUNG WINSTONE.

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MATTHEW YURICICH:  Some more old mattes dusted off.

As covered in several previous posts, the family of Matt Yuricich have been very generous in sharing many lost and rare paintings that Matthew did, with many being a bit of a mystery.  This one was marked as 'Borneo-Camels', which suggests to me it might have been for a Camels cigarete commercial, and set on the island of Borneo?  Anybody recognise this one?  Let me know.

The famous Lincoln Memorial matte from LOGAN'S RUN (1976).  All of the mattes from this film are now in somewhat rough shape due to the fact that Matthew was instructed to paint in hundreds of years worth of aging and vegetation directly over large format mounted photographic blow ups - which normally wouldn't have posed a problem as it was common practice at Fox and Matt was a dab hand at such methods - though for the LOGAN'S RUN work, effects boss Bill Abbott demanded they use colour photo enlargements to paint over rather than the old establish B&W prints.  The dyes in the chemistry were, in Matthew's own words, "a real son-of-a-bitch"...with the red chemistry seeping through, and even the most opaque green Windsor & Newton pigments from his brush coming out like "baby-shit brindle brown!"

For comparison, here's the shot from the final film, with even here a pinkish hue leeching through.

Matthew at work back in the mid fifties.  The film here is the MGM medieval period CinemaScope Lana Turner-Roger Moore costumer DIANE (1956), and one would never suggest a matte of any sort applied here.

The original matte art on masonite panel (that's hardboard to us) still in pristine condition in the care of Matt's family, who incidentally had no clue as to it's title till NZ Pete recognised it after some initial head scratching.

Close up, though sadly much was cropped out when the final tighter framed composite was made.

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COLUMBIA MATTES FROM THE BUTLER/GLOUNER FX DEPARTMENT:

In following on from the previous blog post, here are some more impressive old before and after mattes from Columbia Pictures matte department, supervised by Lawrence Butler and cameraman Donald Glouner.

Fascinating before and after photography with substantial set extension for the film IT HAD TO BE YOU (1947).

The final, flawless composite.  Interestingly, they must have had some camera registration problems because I viewed the showreel and the first take had so much 'jiggle' along the blend that it looked like a quake was in progress!  Second take was steady and good to go.

Columbia made a shitload of low budget 'Jungle Jim' quickie potboilers, often with matte work.  This excellent matte was from THE LOST TRIBE (1948) entry in the series.

Did Weissmuller ever do an 'urban' film?

A complete mystery here.  A military establishment somewhere, with almost everything rendered by the Columbia matte artist.  

The final shot, though in this extended out-take the soldiers marching along the lower left are all 'headless' as they are partially under the matte line. Bizarre to say the least!   I assume a subsequent take remedied this?

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THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES:  A very longwinded Ray Bradbury miniseries.

I originally saw this 1979 marathon back in the day on television, spread over many nights.  Quite good in parts, and utterly incomprehensible in other parts.  I think it may have been rehashed and updated recently?

Effects wise, the series was a definite 'mixed bag'. Veteran British all round effects expert John Stears oversaw it all.  Stears began his career as a matte painter for Rank, and gradually moved into models and physical effects on shows like the R.A.F true story REACH FOR THE SKY, the first STAR WARS and all of the early Bond pictures.  Ray Caple handled the many matte paintings quite efficiently, and presumably rendered them at his home which he usually did.  The show was severely let down by the atrocious model work sadly.  For such a big budget series with big name effects staffers, the miniature work was shoddy beyond belief, as will be demonstrated...

Matte artist Ray Caple.  Ray got his start when, at the young age of just 15 he was taken aside by Les Bowie and taught the technique of matte work on early, though important Hammer shows like THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT and many others.  Ray worked frequently with Les on and off up until SUPERMAN-THE MOVIE, which was Bowie's final film.  

Foreground miniature with what appears to be a large painted backing.

Some of the aforementioned model shots.  Seemingly shot all in camera with minimal - if any - depth of field, whereas second spaceship is totally out of focus.  For 1979 this was inexcusable.

Poorly lit and staged to minimal effect.

How NOT to do a miniature shoot,  with what looks to be a 500mm lens, at 48fps and at an f2.8 aperture.  Not even fx shots from the silent era were as clumsy as these, as you will see so brilliantly in subsequent coverage further on in this very blog post of THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD made in 1926 no less, though, I digress....

Overhead view a bit better.

Oh, brother... not even DAMNATION ALLEY (1977) got it so wonky as these exceedingly poor model shots.  Interestingly, the model shots were done and photographed by Bob Kindred who did similar work on the otherwise marvellous Richard Donner classic SUPERMAN (1978).  Kindred came in to do 'additional model photography' on the dam collapse sequence after Derek Meddings and Paul Wilson had left due to start dates on the Bond flick MOONRAKER looming.  Donner, in the SUPERMAN audio commentary said how much he fucking hated those 'additional' dam shots of the 'little town', with a passion.  Same problem:  long lens, very little depth of field.

Model foreground set and painted landscape.

Ray Caple matte shot.

Rocket ship is virtually all painted in, just above the lower visible descending hatch.

Variation on same view.  *Toggle through frames to see subtle matte transformation.

*Frame 2

*Frame 3

*Frame 4

*Frame 5

*Frame 6

Caple matte painted deserted city.

All painted just above headline of Bernie Casey and Rock Hudson.  As an aside, Casey was great in schlocky 70's flicks like DR BLACK AND MR HYDE (yeah, that's a real movie!) and a later 1981 top shelf fave of mine, the Burt Reynolds actioner SHARKY'S MACHINE.  Terrific cop movie.

Rock sets out on a voyage of discovery.  Actually a fairly under rated actor was Hudson, who, among the drek he was often thrown into, turned out some top shelf performances on occasion with the astonishing John Frankenheimer sci-fi thriller SECONDS (1966) being a masterwork.

Matte art rocketships added in.

'Didn't I tell you never, ever, to shoot a model set with a long fucken lens and focal depth the thickness of a sheet of paper!'

Location augmented with much Caple matte art.

The series was divided into three separate sub-storylines, with the first one being the most coherent as I recall.

Not sure here, but suspect a miniature structure.

Rather good matte here by Ray Caple, as the trek across the alien desert begins.

Another excellent Caple matte.  Love the distorted perspective.  

More matte work by Ray as Fritz Weaver and Roddy McDowell explore the environs.  I love character actors, and Weaver was an excellent actor in films as varied as Sidney Lumet's chilling nuclear threat masterpiece FAIL SAFE, John Schlesinger's thriller MARATHON MAN the frightening AI sci-fi flick DEMON SEED and many more.

I can't remember exactly why, but the whole kaboodle goes up like the 4th of July.

"I love the smell of napalm in the Martian atmosphere..."

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MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS:  An efficient little known film noir worthy of rediscovery.

I love older films, and it's gratifying when one of my very long time blog readers recommends a title to me, just as my NYC pal Steve did with this otherwise unknown little gem.  Thanks Steve for this and all the other 'matte notifications'.  :)

Made in 1945, JULIA ROSS only has two mattes, but the key shot is excellent.  

I was lucky to find this 'before' frame among the many shots on the Butler/Glouner showreels.  The 'Cory' slated here is Ray Cory, who was a long time vfx cameraman at Columbia for many years.

A superbly gothic matte in the classic sense.  It's shots like this that make me love that particular era of the matte art medium, the 1940's.

The only other shot was this night view, which looks like the same matte printed down a few stops.

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CAN'T HELP SINGING:  Lush yet tedious song-fest, out west.

The 1944 Universal film was filmed in near retina-blasting vivid Technicolor, though in it's favour it did have a few nice Russ Lawson mattes and old time character actor, the great Akim Tamiroff - who must have made near on 1000 flicks!

Although uncredited, John P. Fulton oversaw the effects, which boiled down to a handful of mattes. At left is the film's star Deanna Durbin astride a chopper with Fulton on the Universal backlot.  At right is a later photo of John with his three Oscars (I think they might have been lost in a devastating wildfire?) for WONDER MAN, THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

Deanna Durbin - not really my cup of tea, but I'd listen to her over that bloody Taylor Swift any day.

A dual-plane matte shot with the sky rendered on a background glass and animated to drift behind the main central matte art.  Veteran effects cameraman Roswell Hoffman was with the same studio for a massive career, stretching from the early 1930's through to 1974.  When he died, I found that he left a sizable bequest to either the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) or The AMPAS Academy - I forget which.

A follow up shot from a closer angle, and again, with the drifting clouds, which was something Russell Lawson did quite often, though only in a rudimentary single 'block' of cloud drift, as opposed to much later Universal exponent Albert Whitlock, who mastered the art of splitting the sky into 'bands' and creating an incredible 'depth' in such animation as never seen before. 

More matte work, with the distant tree line and wagons with horses all painted, as well as the sky with cloud 'drift'.

Universal backlot matted with Lawson's sprawling old west landscape.

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THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD:  An incredibly well executed silent era disaster picture

I love cinema in all of it's forms and all of the technical aspects therein.  Every genre, every era, every language!  THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD (1926) is a truly remarkable example of just how damned good film makers and technicians were in the early days of cinema. 

This amazing 1926 mini-epic (mini only because it runs not much more than an hour in length) was based on the actual real life disaster that occured in 1889 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania - a disaster of mega proportions as I saw in a History Channel doco ages ago.

Made by a Mr 'Fox' (not his real name BTW... born Wilhelm Fuchs in fact) long before he turned it all into the massive enterprise 20th Century Fox.  To think of it as '20th Century Fuchs' you are just asking for trouble!

The only tech credit was for cinematographer George Schneiderman, with not a mention of 'Technical Effects' or such, which was surprising seeing as the FX work was of the highest calibre.

Janet Gaynor.... as cute as a button!

Our square jawed hero and one of the two dames he has 'on the go'.

Johnstown in pre-flood times.  An excellent trick shot which with much study I feel was a superbly arranged in camera shot, likely a hanging miniature positioned near the camera entailing the upper floor and roof of Joe Gallager's store, across the roof line and adding in most of the buildings from about halfway up the backlot street and on up the hillside.

All of the various establishing shots from vantage points of the town were miniatures or combination shots, and all of a very high standard.  Note the train going over the viaduct.

The large dam up in the hills above Johnstown - again, a miniature set.

All miniature, complete with a model steam train passing across lower frame.

This chap, Mr Hamilton, was the slimy mill owner who cut costs on safety and had his own prosperity sole of mind, not unlike his namesake half a century later in the classic JAWS, played by, ironically, actor Murray Hamilton ("Nah...we ain't gonna shut the beaches because of some errant goldfish... Amity needs tourists, and tourists mean $$$")

Spoiler alert:  Peyton was one lying bastard.

All miniature setting with steam train.

That damned dam will cause much damage...

The miniature sets must have been constructed to quite a large scale as the water scaling is really impressive and not at all an easy thing to pull off, especially back in the day.

Now, the attention to detail in so many of the vfx cuts is quite incredible.  Outlined here is pretty young Janet Gaynor on horseback in full gallop riding the ridge of the dam as it starts to crumble.  Many subsequent shots involve complex optical burn-ins of people and models to great effect. 

The cloudburst was all it took to overfill the dam and push the mass of logs forward...

Everything, naturally, was shot in actual daylight, which is always a plus for such work.

The train vs the dam.... guess which comes off second best?

Pity the illiterate citizens of the town, for whom these intertitles will be meaningless!

Large miniature setting with steam train at lower right heading into doom...

As for what I regard as important effects sequences, I use as many frames as I can to demonstrate the efforts put in by the visual effects people.  No shortcuts or cheats on this blog site.  Note the substantial scale that really lends a dynamic, physical event to the proceedings.  Very, very impressive indeed.

Finding any research or credits for JOHNSTOWN has been a bit of a blank.  The best I could come up with was a Wikipedia page and a couple of old clippings which state the visual effects were supervised by E (Elmo) Roy Davidson, with miniatures by Jack Smith.  On Smith I know nothing, but Davidson I do.  Roy was a very experienced effects cinematographer (born 1896 - died 1962) who did some amazing work a few years later on the big budget Howard Hughes epic HELL'S ANGELS (1930), with some of the best miniature sequences of the time involving WWI airships, biplanes and ground offensives - all of them involving extensive model work and extremely well orchestrated and photographed (I must do a special on that flick as I have some great material).

The film relies quite heavily on early travelling matte optical photography, with scenes such as these where the cast are wiped out by a massive deluge, though all done optically.

Isolated frames show people being inundated with the water, and done so well as to have body parts still 'struggling' the torrent.  Jesus, this stuff was good!

As to camera speeds, I really don't know?  I assume the 35mm gear was all hand-cranked still?  Were there means to 'overcrank' for higher frame rates? Remember, this was nineteen-fucken-twenty six folks!  So impressive, and I've seen stuff made 40 years later that paled in comparison (they will be mentioned later...)

A word about the transfer.  I've seen a lot of silent era stuff, and even much of the 'remastered' and cleaned up footage of various titles never came even close to the incredible, pristine quality of the JOHNSTOWN BluRay edition.  The original nitrate 35mm elements were well protected, and the Eastman House did a jaw dropping job of cleaning up the near on 100 year old material.  Kudos to all involved.  I've seen far more 'recent' (40's & 50's) films on HD that didn't hold a candle to this one!

I guess the 'hard of hearing' in the town were out of luck when the alert was silently made(!)  Think about it,

My favourite vfx sequence sees a bunch of terrified townsfolk running for their lives as a massive deluge of foaming water and hundreds of logs come speeding down the mountain.  

It's so damned(!) impressive that I've set out a multitude of frames below to toggle through, and even better on a proper sized screen.  *Users of those idiotic palm sized devices... go and stick to your inane Tik-Tok garbage please!

Incredibly, it's a sizable miniature set - house, forest, logs and water.  The people have been added quite brilliantly through an early travelling matte process, more than likely the Dunning Composite technique, which was quite common in the twenties and on into the thirties, competing with the opposition's Williams TM process on the other side of town.

Frame 2

Frame 3

Frame 4

Frame 5

Frame 6   *(note how the people are gradually enveloped with debris - a remarkable detail and a sign of much care in the optical process)

Frame 7

Frame 8

Frame 9

Frame 10  *(note the superb 'break-away' prep work on all of the models.  Brilliant)

Part of an article by the Dunning company which appeared in American Cinematographer, 1929.

Effects director Roy Davidson went on to have a highly regarded career at Columbia Pictures, with shows like ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS and LOST HORIZON among many more.  Roy then went over to Warner Bros and became director of the famed Stage 5 trick shot department for some years in the 1940's, with huge films like PASSAGE TO MARSEILLE and FIGHTER SQUADRON being two examples.

Another impressive and complex vfx sequence, again involving a large miniature setting, with a perfectly 'lined up' live action element of horse and buggy racing across the (model) bridge.  

The cuts are brief but the studious viewer will spot ghosting and a small degree of transparency visible in the live action element - an artifact often seen in early optical TM composite photography.

The father and son developers of this optical process, Dodge and 17 year old inventor Carroll Dunning always promoted their technique in the Hollywood trades as "Shoot it today, view it tommorrow", with results available in a very short timespan.

The Dunning method was used quite extensively and could be seen in films such as TARZAN THE APE MAN and it's immediate sequel; KING KONG (log sequence), THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII  and another water logged disaster epic DELUGE.

Another Dunning sequence with towns people in terror.  Scenes like this must have given audiences nightmares back in the day.

The physics of the collapse were so impressive, with a true 'weight' and bulk in the proceedings.

Once again. look at that break-away house... just outstanding.  When compared with much, much later and utterly dismal fx efforts such as AVALANCHE and the twenty million dollar flop METEOR (1979), this silent footage is in a class of it's own.

I would give my left kidney to be able to see behind the scenes photos of this work!  Screw CGI, this was real creativity, with the most basic of tools available.

I presume the reader is 'toggling through' these successive frames?  If not, why not??

Note the careful (rotoscope perhaps?) work where folks are in, under, in front of or tossed aside!  Magic!

Apparently, Davidson and Smith went to the actual locale and sized things up first before retreating to Hollywood to replicate the many sets and props in miniature at the studio.

Vast miniature set, with the raging torrent coming down onto the town.  

Water is impossible to 'miniaturise' well, so these must have been big-arsed model sets.

Arguably one of the most spectacular scenes is this where we see this massive tidal wave at the top of the street washing all away in it's path.  Oh, brother, this is a ripper of a set piece. Very similar flood/tidal wave opticals were attempted by Frank van der Veer for the extremely poor 1979 mega epic METEOR, with utterly dismal results that fooled no one, with water elements crudely doubled into the streets of Hong Kong.  

A puzzling sequence to pull off.  Partial 'town' full size, with top of nearest building added on - as with the majority of the buildings from around the midway mark - probably as a foreground miniature, suspended strategically in front of the camera.  The torrent of water has been added as an optical element, and so well done it was too!  Remember... 1926 was the year they made this.

Actually, some outstanding vfx pictures were produced around this time such as the truly epic war film THE BIG PARADE (1925), which I covered in detail a while back.  Tons of glass shots, opticals and miniatures - often all combined in single amazing shots, supervised by the great Maximillian Fabian. My coverage of THE BIG PARADE may be found here.

I do wonder whether they did extensive hand drawn roto mattes for some of this scene, to articulate the water around the people who were clearly shot 'live' on the exterior set?

Overhead view of town under water.  Note the train passing over the viaduct.

Totally convincing miniature setting with church, as the floodwaters close in...

Down comes the (packed) church.  Yeah... where is your God now?

Wedding in progress as the walls cave in.

Stunning and jarring at the same time.  Excellent application of the Dunning matting process again.

Basically, the Dunning process involved a bi-pack camera containing a special orange-dyed master positive of the background plate/action, with this positive running through the camera in contact with raw negative film.  The foreground live action was illuminated with orange light, and was filmed in front of a blank screen illuminated by blue light.  The blue light caused the pre-filmed background action on the master positive to be printed onto the negative, while the orange light reflected from the actors passed straight through the dyed master positive, and exposed the negative in the normal way.  The actors - blocking the blue light with their bodies etc - became 'living mattes', so were combined onto the negative with the background action around them.  This variation only worked with black and white films, though later on, further developments came about for colour matting techniques.  I don't know how they did the other major long shot TM's, unless the people element was optically reduced substantially?

He never even got to kiss the bride...

The logs are quite a bit out of scale here with the buildings.

As from the History Channel doco I saw ages ago, it was a mass disaster for the area.

Just when you'd think it couldn't possibly get any worse........

.....it bloody well does!!!

Survivors afloat on debris now are confronted with an inferno.

Miniatures and matte split screen work for the fire sequence.

The film ended on a bizarre comedic, slapstick note, which seemed quite out of place, and belonged in a Harold Lloyd or Laurel and Hardy short, involving a steam driven motorcar(!)  But what the hell, I was extremely impressed by this film, not to mention the eye-popping resolution of the transfer.  I'd rate it as a visual effects classic.

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THE THIEF OF BAGDAD:  The Korda classic of tales from The Arabian Nights.

The Academy Award winning THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940), helmed by no fewer than four directors; Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Zoltan Korda and Tim Whelan.  I read that Production Designer William Cameron Menzies may also have had a hand in directing.

Sabu, June Duprez and John Justin star in this 1940 version.  Out of interest, I covered a fairly obscure 1961 Italian remake a while back, which had some good matte art in it, and that can be found here while in an attempt to be complete, I've reviewed the original 1924 silent version as well, which follows on in this very post.  Note, the dreadful 1978 version I think I covered briefly ages ago, buried in some post...

A mammoth undertaking which began production at Denham Studios in the UK, but then shifted gears and relocated to the USA due to the war, which the States at that time wanted no part in.

An interesting on-set photo with, I believe, Michael Powell at left, with possibly a couple of the Korda's at right(?)  Note behind them we can see part of one of the incredible 'hanging miniatures', which were utilised extensively throughout the shoot, and to superb effect.

For the most, the huge vfx workload was carried out by British artists and technicians.  The matte unit shown here was supervised by Walter Percy Day (top left); assisted by his son, Thomas Day, who photographed the mattes (top right).  A young Peter Ellenshaw (lower left) assisted Pop Day with the painting; while another of Day's sons, Arthur, assisted with layouts (middle).  Wally Veevers (lower right), who would go on to have a long career with Poppa Day, was visual effects cameraman, specialising at that time with photographing the hanging foreground miniatures.

A most revealing snapshot from the past.  Matte artist Pop Day, actor Sabu and special effects supervisor Lawrence Butler take a snooze during a break in set ups.

A large roster of effects talent were involved, though only Butler and Day received any screen credit.  These pics are of the optical printer set up devised by Larry Butler for the many THIEF blue screen composites.  There was some discussion later as to who and where the bulk of the TM shots were assembled.

A nice candid snapshot taken 7 years later on the Pinewood set of BLACK NARCISSUS (1947), with Percy 'Poppa' Day in a rare smiling attitude, while director Michael Powell and actor Sabu look on, possibly in bewilderment.

Nice model work, possibly shot in the tank at Denham?  I don't know who built the many non-hanging miniatures.  Future effects guys like Ted Samuels and Chris Mueller were on the crew so may ahve participated?

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Bagdad - Evocative matte art by Percy Day and staff.

Toggle these two frames to appreciate the nice cloud drift above the city, which was painted on a separate glass.

A revealing before and after, from the original 35mm nitrate takes.  *Courtesy of Susan Day

An interesting comparison with the remastered BluRay shots, where these very old and fragile Technicolor clips hold surprisingly well, given they date back around 80 years plus!  There was nothing as permanent as the old Technicolor IB process, where colour stability remained incredibly well and permanently, compared with more modern film processing which simply turned 'pink' after a decade or two.

In addition to the fifteen painted mattes that did get used in the film, Day had also rendered and composited another eleven shots such as this one that would ultimately fall to the cutting room floor, sadly.   *Courtesy of Susan Day

Another deleted matte, similar to the above shot but with the ship added.  Shame about these being tossed, as they were really good and could have been used.   *Courtesy Susan Day

Effectswise, THIEF really set a standard with the extensive use of foreground hanging miniatures, often in creative and always undetectable ways.  This frame is the start of a pan following John Justin out of the market and into the city, with a great deal of that city being a carefully positioned miniature.

Englishman Johnny Mills was in charge of all of the hanging miniatures, with Wally Veevers photographing the set ups.

Revealing before and after.

Another on set snapshot showing the sparse physical set which the suspended 2 Dimensional miniature facade will eventually 'fill' and expand successfully.

A Percy Day matte shot which extends the view considerably.  See below...

Before and after matte extension.

Hanging miniature perfectly merged.

More hanging miniature work by Johnny Mills and Wally Veevers.  The method allows for camera pans and tilts once a special nodal head is utilised with the taking camera.

Latent image Percy Day matte shot.  See below...

Before and after originals from over eight decades ago, which to my eye, look better than the various video and other incarnations which I've seen, some of which looked awful.   *Courtesy Susan Day.

We pause briefly in our vfx coverage to momentarily take in the ethereal beauty of our leading lady, June Duprez.

...and now, we return to our advertised vfx coverage.  A matte painted set extension to cover up the lighting rigs and studio roof.  See below...

Before and after Percy Day matte.   *Courtesy Susan Day

An unused alternate take.

City at night via hanging miniature.

Panning across a hanging miniature.

A great cost saver.

Before and after Percy Day matte, though I don't think it's in the film.   *Courtesy Susan Day.

The quite magical 'toy palace' sequence where the bad guy, Jaffar (Conrad Veidt) entertains with his tiny dancers.  A multi-part set up here, with a pair of matte paintings, performers and this rear projected into the 'magic box'.  See below...

Before and after for the first view of the 'toy palace'.   *Courtesy Susan Day

Before & after for a second view.

Palace interior with painted top up.  Peter Ellenshaw had been working for Day for about six years at this point, though he would break things off not long after THIEF in order to join the RAF in World War II.  Upon his return after the war Peter resumed the working relationship for a bit but found it somewhat strained, and went off on his own.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Matted in top up on set.

The Sultan goes for the ride of his life on an automaton magical horse.  Soundstage set and backing, extended with matte art, and completed with the blue screened in horse and rider.

Set up for the above shot, where we can clearly appreciate the need for additional minor matte work to conceal the soundstage walls and ceiling, which was a common requirement in matte work for decades.   *Courtesy Susan Day

Sultan and flying horse blue screen shot.  See below...

Before and after where once again Day has painted in the upper set, though not so you'd ever notice.

Hanging miniature Bagdad with horse added via travelling matte.  According to visual effects man Jim Danforth - whose favourite film, THIEF happens to be - there were around 55 blue backing TM shots made, which were used in some 99 cuts.

There has been some debate surrounding the TM shots.  Larry Butler took credit (and an Oscar for the work), though some articles and interviews report English vfx man Tom Howard as having carried the blue backing workload.  In an interview with author John Brosnan, Tom stated:  "I did a great deal of work on Thief of Bagdad.  I had a hundred travelling matte shots in that film, and I'm credited with, according to Kine Weekly, the trade magazine, as being the inventor of the TM process in colour."

We once again interupt our scheduled vfx coverage to be stunned by the smile of the THIEF Princess, leading lady June Duprez.

We resume our advertised vfx coverage with this rather clever, though unused Percy Day matte painted set extension, where none would be anticipated.   *Courtesy Susan Day.

Our divine and fetching Princess is abducted by the evil Jaffar.  Who knows what awaits her?

Meanwhile, little Sabu has his hands full when washedd up on a desert island and unleashing a genie.  Some nice optical transition work here.  According to Poppa Day's grand daughter, Susan, her father Tom - who was Poppa's matte camerman - played the little 'Sabu' figure in this sequence when they filmed it.

More examples of the 55 odd blue screen scenes.

The Genie, as played to the hilt by Rex Ingram, with a voice that sounded suspiciously like actor Clark Gable(!)   'Frankly Sabu, I don't give a damn' 

Not the best of prosthetic 'bald cap' appliances, which generally rarely ever passed a casual glance in many a film.  As an aside, the best and most convincing 'bald' appliance ever applied was by the great Dick Smith on Robert DeNiro for the mohawk in Scorcese's TAXI DRIVER.  Flawless, as one would expect from Mr Smith.... though I digress.

The Genie flies Sabu up to his mountain top temple.

Blue screen photography was by Wilkie Cooper, Stanley Sayer and Henry Imus.

The temple - a really nice shot.  I don't know whether it was a miniature or a painted matte?  It does have a 'painterly look' about it.

Interior a miniature with blue screened in people scuttling about.

Is this what they mean by a Tiny house?

Beautiful miniature set and stone idol.  The tiny Sabu is barely visible lower frame.

A tremendous model set.  Various tiny characters matted in scurrying around.

Part full sized set on the soundstage, augmented by matte painting.  *Courtesy Susan Day

Close up of the huge Vincent Korda designed set prior to matted add ons.

Test with Percy Day's artwork added to giant set.

Final as seen in the release prints with the red glowing all seeing eye.

Alternate view where Sabu inches his way around the idol in this masked take.

Unfinished test composite.

Before and after original 35mm nitrate frames with the original painting by Percy Day.   *Courtesy Susan Day

The final as seen in the BluRay editions.

Inside the idol's head before and after, though this shot never made the final cut.

I love the design of these massive spider web scenes.  I assume it to be a miniature (due to shallow depth of field focus) with Sabu doubled in.

Another terrific view in the spider's web.  Love that creative design.  Possibly matte painted, with Sabu, again, doubled in.

Sabu comes face to face with the biggest, bad-assed spider you ever saw.  The spider may have been constructed by Chris Mueller(?), though it was all shot by a separate unit by Edward Cohen.

The creature was a string marionette and looked better in rapid cuts than the longer ones.

Another unused matte shot from the spider sequence.

I've always liked this Day matte, even though it never made the final cut of THIEF OF BAGDAD.  *Courtesy Susan Day

A different, higher quality frame from the same deleted matte shot.   *Courtesy Harrison Ellenshaw

Now this is an interesting shot I barely noticed in past viewings.  Sabu stumbles across a sort of mirage in the desert, from which an entire Bedouin encampment slowly appears.  The background is kind of washed out with luminence fall-off around the edges as all Technicolor rear projection work tended to be around the time.  Presumably two paintings lap dissolved over each other?   I don't know whether the desert view was a Percy Day rendering perhaps or that of a studio scenic painter?

An ingenious use of matte work here.  The flying carpet and it's physical wire rig above the set needed to have Percy Day 'fix' the shot so as to conceal the wire rig.   *Courtesy Susan Day

The magic carpet starts it's journey... with no evidence of the mechanical rig above the set.

Matted in top half of the tent.  Clever.

Back in the city... the carpet in full flight.  I think this was a physical wire-rigged gag for these views.  I wonder how hard it was to maintain balance for the actors?

Now, this sequence was really impressive.  The crowd gaze in awe as the carpet circles the minarets.  Now, what was really cool was the fact that the flying carpet casts a shadow on the building as it flies by.  Very neat indeed, and entirely practical.  The city of course was a foreground hanging miniature, and the carpet with occupants was an additional model, presumably 'flown' on wires to deliberately cast that shadow.  Really nice subtle touch and so convincing.

These shots were made in front of a blue screen and optically printed.

This page from Jim Danforth's indispensible memoir, Dinosaurs, Dragons & Drama, illustrates the general idea of the blue backing process.   *Courtesy of Jim Danforth

Probably Poppa Day's best shot in the film.  All of these Technicolor mattes were done as latent image shots - the standard technique employed by Day up until BLACK NARCISSUS around 1947 whereby the dupe process was the standard from that point on.  Day detailed some of the difficulties in shooting 3-Strip colour mattes on productions prior to switching to the duping method.  "One of the chief complications using latent was the 'build up' of the photographic latent image, resulting in a difference between the magenta, green and blue images after the first exposure, when the film was held before development.  When shooting the painting a different exposure was required for each of the 3-strip negatives, in order to obtain the same results as in the part already exposed.  As an example, in a scene in the film COLONEL BLIMP, a painting required to reproduce as 'grey' had to be made vivid green."

Rare before and after frames from Percy Day's original 35mm nitrate clips.   *Courtesy Susan Day

An excellent frame enlargement from the original 35mm print, which, as with most of the originals I have illustrated, look far better than the myriad video and tv incarnations, where colours are often skewed and hues 'all to buggery'.  I think there is still a place for the DEFINITIVE edition to be finally released.  Any takers out there?

The evil, and somewhat questionable Jaffar, played by the wonderful Conrad Veidt, figures it's time to, ahem, 'cop a free feel' of our comely princess.  The forces of 'good' take exception to this, with little Sabu firing an arrow right between Jaffar's eyes!!!  An astonishingly graphic bit of 'Arabian Nights' violence which, when viewed, had me dumbfounded as to exactly how the physical effect was pulled off.  Hell, not even latter day ultra-violent movie classics like SOLDIER BLUE even managed to pull of a gag like this (we actually see the arrow strike and penetrate his forehead... no 'dummy' as the actor 'reacts'.  I know I've digressed again, but old school prosthetic and make up fx are a passion of mine.)

Sabu - our thief of the title - makes his way into the wild blue (screen) yonder, and goes on to appear in scores of other films, some most notable like BLACK NARCISSUS, until his untimely early death at just 39.   :(

THIEF OF BAGDAD was but one of 14 films nominated in the Best Special Effects category, 1940.  I've seen 12 of those pictures myself and could probably narrow the field down a bit, with excellent vfx shows like BOOM TOWN and REBECCA, though for me Fox's THE BLUE BIRD would be a very close candidate for winner, as the huge effects load in that film really was in a class of it's own, as detailed in a recent blog post, which may be read here.  I guess THIEF OF BAGDAD was worthy, though I'd like to have seen other technicians named along with Larry Butler, who actually took the award.

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THE THIEF OF BAGDAD: The original 1924 Douglas Fairbanks silent version

In my continuing efforts to leave 'no cinematic stone unturned', I've included the original 1924 version here as well.

Arguably the biggest star in Hollywood - the Tom Cruise of his day - Fairbanks was an international box office sensation and was instrumental in the creation of an independent film studio, United Artists, which he founded in partnership with Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford in the twenties.

The massive outdoor set mid construction for THIEF OF BAGDAD.

As extensive as the physical set was, other methods such as glass shots and hanging miniatures would still be needed to add to the grandeur.

One of several publicity pieces that appeared in print revealing the magic behind the film.

Production Designer was the legendary William Cameron Menzies, who, among other notable projects, would also be associate art director with Vincent Korda on the 1940 Technicolor version.

Special Photographic Effects man Phil Whitman (left) and associate art director Anton Grot (right).  Whitman was in charge of all of the glass shots and composite photography.  Ned Mann supervised the hanging miniatures, with assistance from a young Theodore Lydecker.

The picture was directed by one of the most versitile directors in the business, Raoul Walsh, who directed a number of my own favourite pictures such as WHITE HEAT, OBJECTIVE BURMA, THE BIG TRAIL, THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON and THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT - all 'tough' and unapologetic films for their day.  He was pretty much the Samuel Fuller of his day.

I'm not sure whether this is a glass shot or a foreground hanging miniature?  Possibly the latter, as we see it several times with different 'time of day' lighting.

Same view, this one at night.  Characters act in the lower portion of the frame.

One of the large sets on the Fairbanks lot which has been extended even more through hanging miniatures by expert Ned Mann.  Mann was an extraordinary talent, and talent scout for that matter.  A number of later high profile trick shot exponents got their start through his training, such as Lawrence Butler, Cliff Richardson, Wally Veevers, Ross Jacklin, Eddie Cohen and others.

Miniature by Ned Mann.  Other films Mann supplied amazing trick shots for included the H.G Wells THINGS TO COME (1935); DELUGE (1933), and one very interesting and inventive show called THE BAT WHISPERS (1930), which had some eye-popping miniature set pieces in it.

Fairbanks on the prowl in what is either a foreground glass painted shot or a hanging miniature?

Enter the dragon.... Our athletic hero confronts a beast of volatile temperament.  According to a contemporary article, the effects team afixed fake horns to a crocodile and filmed it on a miniature set from a distance of some six feet.  Fairbanks was then photographed from around twenty feet away to diminish his scale.  The article states that "both were exposed on the same piece of film", though I would presume the Fairbanks footage to be shot against black and high contrast travelling mattes generated later to carefully time the action with the beast.

I'd suggest either the Dunning or the Frank Williams TM processes were utilised here.

I reckon that this sequence must have inspired Ray Harryhausen, as he did an almost exact duplicate of it in THE 3 WORLDS OF GULLIVER (1960), camera angles and all.

Now this sequence was quite beautiful.  The 'underwater' scene was done as an elaborate painted glass shot, supervised by Phil Whitman, and filmed 'dry'.  The apparently swaying kelp was moved with the aid of wires.

Another quite exquisite vfx sequence was the flying horse, upon which the Thief rides to the Citadel.  The Citadel was a miniature,  the horse and rider were filmed seperately against a black, velvet backing, while the clouds were painted on glass and moved slowly.

A beautifully designed and executed flight of fantasy.

Early travelling matte composite photography combining live action with glass painted clouds.

Miniature with foreground glass painted clouds.  Note the live action figures low in the frame.

The flying carpet takes to the skies...

Closer view of the magic carpet.  This shot was done in the studio (see below) against, what looks like, a painted scenic background.

A rare glimpse at the mechanical rig for the flying carpet.

Keeping one's balance must have been tricky.  Not at all one for heights myself.

Another wonderfully designed and photographed sequence with the flying horse.

Miniature setting with Fairbanks either 'added' in, or possibly filmed in situ akin to a Shufftan shot?

  The horse has been doubled in optically, and very smoothly too.

Do I smell a Steppenwolf song about to kick off.....

 

The show also features a couple of very nifty scenes involving what amounts to a sort of cloak of invisibility.  These shots were well done, involving double exposure dissolves, possibly made on the set, in camera.

A second 'invisibility' gag that worked a treat.  It was only with repeat rewinds that one can detect the very minor 'shift' among a couple of extras where it seems Douglas did his bit, everyone else 'froze in space' while he quickly exited the scene, and then the action carried on.  A nice lap dissolve 'takes him out' in the final scene.

The magic carpet stuns the locals.  Wire rigged from a huge construction crane with an 80 foot boom.  You still wouldn't get NZ Pete on the bloody thing!

Apparently, this not only impressed the film crew and cast, but blew the audiences away back in the day.  Done so well, with long, sweeping shots as the carpet glides and dives through Bagdad.

The wires are faintly visible here.

All miniature, including the carpet and riders.

Soundstage with wired rig and rolling painted backing.

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ATLANTIS-THE LOST CONTINENT:  Not at all among George Pal's better efforts.

This is one of those flicks we all loved as a kid, though looking at it in more recent times it's as hokey as they come.  The poster however was sensational - as most movie ad-art was in the sixties - and it was enough for me to buy a ticket.

Made in 1961, and packed to the brim with variable visual effects, though a great many of those were lifted shamelessly from other films, which was nothing new for George Pal.

Celebrated maker of many memorable fantasy films (this one arguably less so), George Pal, shown here shaking hands with MGM's very own in house wizard of countless productions, A.Arnold Gillespie.  *Courtesy Mr Gillespie's grandson, Robert Welch

Veteran MGM director of special effects, A.Arnold Gillespie - known to all and sundry as Buddy - is pictured here with visual effects cinematographer Clarence Slifer in what I suspect was Buddy's favourite haunt... the MGM tank on the backlot.  So much of Gillespie's remarkable career revolved around miniature ships (and aircraft) in this very tank.  Some of my all time 100% fx favourites were created by Buddy right here:  30 SECONDS OVER TOKYO;  GREEN DOLPHIN STREET;  MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY and on and on....  *Courtesy Robert Welch

An evocative lobby card that completely sold the flick to kids like moi.  I think I saw it on a double bill at the dire Astor theatre, here in Auckland on Dominion road (for any potential Kiwi readers out there, if in fact any exist??) - an absolute 'fleapit', famous for the chocolate ice cream stain on the right side of the screen.  Infamous also for the image gradually fading darker, and darker, and darker.... which, as it turned out from a recent conversation with a projectionist was due to that shady outfit using old 'carbon stubs' in the 35mm projectors, which would only last a while till they burnt out, and 'newer' carbon stubs (not a full carbon rod... they cost money!) would be inserted, and the image on the screen would magically become 'bright' again... at least till that fucken stub was reduced to ash!   Ah.... the bad old days!.... long before Xenon's, though, I digress, again.

As mentioned, many of the vfx shots in ATLANTIS were stolen from other films.  This severely cropped shot was originally a splendid CinemaScope matte shot from a fifties MGM epic with Lana Turner, THE PRODIGAL, as we can see above. 

I reckon this too was lifted from another show, as no setting really resembles this in ATLANTIS.

Buddy Gillespie model shot.

A revealing look at the substantial outdoor tank set.  Note the 'wingless' airplanes mounted at the side to provide serious wind and storm effects for countless movies filmed here, such as BEN HUR, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, THE PLYMOUTH ADVENTURE and many more.  *Courtesy Robert Welch

I'm pretty sure this is a matte painted shot, as opposed to a tank with miniature & cyclorama backing.  Lee LeBlanc was in charge of the mattes.  Lee had a long career in the industry, starting off in the art department at Disney and then getting a job at 20th Century Fox in 1941.  Initially involved with miniatures he soon made his way into Fred Sersen's highly regarded matte department where he would stay for a number of years painting alongside artists such as Ray Kellogg, Emil Kosa, Jim Fetherolf and Matthew Yuricich until a prime opportunity arose over at MGM when Warren Newcombe retired in the late fifties.  LeBlanc, Yuricich and fx cameraman Clarence Slifer all went over to Metro, with Lee assuming head of that department. Lee would head that department until the early 1960's, from whence he retired to concentrate of wildlife artwork.  Many of LeBlanc's MGM mattes still survive with his family.

Under Lee, Matt Yuricich executed some of the mattes on ATLANTIS.

Oddly drawn out perspective here in this edge of your seat view down a canyon.

As I said, many mattes in ATLANTIS were pinched from other, often far more reputable productions, and this is another such example...

...and here's the original, glorious matte as painted in England by the legendary Peter Ellenshaw for the wonderful epic QUO VADIS (1951).  Note, the upper recycled shot has been slightly modified with a triangular pool thing matted into the foreground.

Before and after taken in Rome in 1950 for Mervyn LeRoy's QUO VADIS.  Don't believe any lying bastard who tries to sell you on the prospect that LeRoy stole the shot (and many others) from Pal.  As the 'comb-over orange man' says "That's fake news!"   ;)

An actual ATLANTIS matte shot, by all accounts.

Another shot shamelessly ripped off by Pal, and again, with a fresh slice of live action matted into the middle area on the steps...

A rare before and after from Ellenshaw's showreels, reveal the real deal...

....and again, we have the true provenance of the shot, another Peter Ellenshaw masterpiece from QUO VADIS - a film that not only never gave Peter his 'promised' screen credit (bastards!), but should have been an Oscar contender for the outstanding visual effects.  Some of Ellenshaw's best ever work.  Seriously!

Oh, and they just keep on coming, don't they.  Yet another pilfered matte!

Another rarely seen before and after that mysteriously appeared in ATLANTIS, horribly cropped and duped, but we all know different, don't we?

Yes folks, you guessed right... QUO VADIS from 1951, which was made in the UK and had Peter Ellenshaw rendering incredibly good matte paintings.  They should have given Peter a full screen credit on ATLANTIS, for Christs sake!

Large miniature on the MGM backlot, with what looks like painted cut-out city in the foreground.

The set up in the MGM tank, with the top of the huge painted cyclorama visible here.  *Courtesy Robert Welch

Huge landslide in ATLANTIS was another shot definitely borrowed from elsewhere....

...and here is the original miniature sequence as it was seen in the Stewart Granger adventure GREEN FIRE (1954).  In it's favour, Buddy Gillespie made this effects shot in the first place.

The volcanic eruption, with all of these cuts taken straight from George Pal's previous film, the wonderful THE TIME MACHINE (1960), which itself had shots in it from even earlier flicks!

Definitely taken from an older movie, though I can't place the title.

The mythical city of Atlantis is about to come crashing down in flames.  An admittedly well executed and shot sequence of events with much destruction and mayhem, all supervised by Buddy Gillespie and his very able team.

Dare I say it?  While these shots and most of the 'action' was shot for ATLANTIS, the many miniature structures were in fact old models that the great Donald Jahraus built for, yes, you guessed it, QUO VADIS.  They have evidentally been kept in safe storage for a decade and found a new use.

I well remember being utterly enthralled with this extended climatic sequence as a kid.

You just knew it was too good to be true.... more action and visual effects stolen (at gunpoint I ponder?) from QUO VADIS.  A remarkably well done flaming set piece, involving Donald Jahraus' miniature destruction and excellent optical compositing by Tom Howard.

More QV action that, as I mentioned, should have worked in favour of a Best Special Effects nomination, or even an outright win, for QUO VADIS.

Sick of hearing about QUO VADIS yet?   Well, this flaming vista of Rome going up in smoke was still another sequence from that famous epic.  Buddy Gillespie and Donald Jahraus supervised.  **Note:  The extended family of Mr Jahraus have been in contact with me and I'm dying to hear back from them, as Don was an absolute legend in the model business, and Gillespie regarded him as invaluable to the MGM fx operation.

The large MGM tank set prepped for destruction for ATLANTIS-THE LOST CONTINENT.

Mayhem in times of olde.

I found all of this very inspiring as a kid interested in 'trick shots'.

Everything was carefully pre-rigged with hidden spring activated cables and release devices timed to topple the pre-scored buildings on cue.

One of Gillespie's effects riggers in the ATLANTIS tank.  Joe Regan was what Gillespie termed a 'wave specialist', as many of Buddy's assistants had highly specific skills in certain areas such as: miniature trees-vegetation; scale pyrotechnics; model plane wire work; miniature process projection and so forth.  *Courtesy of Robert Welch. 

All hell breaks loose in the luxury getaway resort that was Atlantis.

This all looked sensational on the big theatre screen, even though that happened to be the ice-cream stained, dingy screen at the Astor theatre here in Auckland!  Those were the days!  Young folk today have no idea how we enjoyed double, triple or quadruple bills back in the day. 

I had an absolute fetish(!) for fx scenes with collapsing miniatures back in the day.  So many such scenes and flicks stay with me to this very day.

It worked so well shot in sunlight juxtaposed against the dark hued backing, which just added to the forboding sense of doom.

...and wouldn't you credit it.... the god-damned insurance policy expired just last week!  

Just when the Atlantians figure things couldn't possibly get any worse, the whole damned thing explodes like the fucken' Death Star.  

Splendid ad campaign, as was the norm in the day, and unsurprisingly promised somewhat more than it delivered.

***This vast and utterly exhaustive post, and all 186 previous blog posts known as 'Matte Shot', were originally created by Peter Cook for nzpetesmatteshot, with all content, layout and text originally published at http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/ 

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FINAL WORD FOR 2024:

The world's outrage and anger just grows and grows, with the generously financed and militarily enabled genocide enthusiastically perpetrated by Israel upon the Palestinian and Lebanese populations.  The State of Palestine alone has suffered more than 46'000 brutal and deliberate deaths at the hands and jackboots of the Zionist ultra-extremist regime, and their powerful foreign benefactor, and that count doesn't include the many, many thousands of Palestinian people (small children routinely included) targeted, assassinated, arrested and tortured on a regular basis for the past 80 years.

The malignant tumour that is Benjamin Netanyahu, is widely acknowledged by the United Nations and most world leaders -  with the courage to speak up - as a war criminal, as are his key partners in crime among his fascist government.  The deliberate and targeted ethnic cleansing by way of the planned maiming and destruction of women, children, medics, religious,  journalists, humanitarian workers, the sick, the infirmed and innocent civillians of The State of Palestine as well as Lebanon.  

Netanyahu, an 'off the leash' Zionist swine and his smirking 'holier-than-thou' bastard regime must be stopped.

STOP  SUPPLYING  ARMS  TO  ISRAEL  NOW!