Gertie the Dinosaur
About Gertie the Dinosaur
In the theatrical version, Winsor McCay and fellow cartoonists have a flat tire outside the American Museum of Natural History. Looking at a brontosaurus skeleton, McCay bets a dinner that he can bring a dinosaur to life in drawings. The film then shows Gertie. She comes out of a cave, eats a boulder and a tree, bows, cries when scolded, is calmed with a pumpkin, throws a mammoth named Jumbo into the lake, drinks the lake, and carries McCay off while he bows.
Cast & crew
More about Gertie the Dinosaur
McCay drew about 10,000 images on 6 1/2-by-8 1/2-inch sheets, using key poses, registration marks, and tracing paper. The drawings were photographed on 35mm nitrate at Vitagraph. He first performed the film in vaudeville on February 8, 1914, giving Gertie orders with a whip. William Randolph Hearst cut back that stage work. For theaters McCay added a live-action opening and retitled the picture Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist, and Gertie. The theatrical release was December 28, 1914. The short runs 12 minutes.
Themes
Background
McCay was still Hearst's editorial cartoonist when he put a dinosaur on a vaudeville bill and then into theaters.
In film history
It is the first animated film with a dinosaur, and the National Film Registry selected it in 1991.
Making
On stage McCay stood in front of the screen and timed his commands to Gertie's replies. The theater print replaces that live patter with the museum bet and the dinner screening.
Look
The drawings were photographed on 35mm nitrate at Vitagraph.
Technique
McCay used key drawings, registration marks, and about 10,000 traced sheets so Gertie could breathe, shift her weight, and lift a foot.
Music
Silent. In vaudeville McCay spoke to the picture from the stage.
Preservation
The best preserved of McCay's films. Named to the National Film Registry in 1991. The Cinémathèque québécoise has looked after his films since 1967. About 400 original drawings survive.
Notes
- George McManus, Tad Dorgan, Roy McCardell, and Tom Powers appear in the live-action scenes. McCay's son Robert is the camera-room assistant.
- Hearst refused a paid ad from the Victoria Theater and, on March 8, barred his artists from vaudeville. McCay's new contract kept him from performing outside greater New York.
- He started a sequel, Gertie on Tour, around 1921, and left about two minutes in which Gertie toys with a trolley and dances among other dinosaurs.
- About 400 original drawings survived in Irving Mendelsohn's fabric shop and were found by animator Robert Brotherton. Fifteen of them are not in the extant prints.
- The Library of Congress put the film on the National Film Registry in 1991.
Scenes
- Gertie cries, then takes a pumpkin.
- She throws Jumbo into the lake and drinks the lake dry.
- She walks off carrying McCay.
Also available
- Internet Archive (Gertie)
- Wikimedia Commons (Winsor McCay (1914)Gertie the Dinosaur.webm)
