Comics master and animation pioneer Winsor McCay himself translated the surrealistic imagery of his celebrated newspaper comic strips into the animated LITTLE NEMO and DREAMS OF THE RAREBIT FIEND. McCay reportedly made 4,000 drawings for LITTLE NEMO alone, devising a wooden holder and marking the corners of his paper drawings with crosshairs to keep them in register. Backgrounds were painstakingly redrawn on each sheet of paper. GERTIE THE DINOSAUR, perhaps the most famous of all early animated films and the work that set the template for character animation to come, was unveiled as part of a vaudeville act. By the time McCay made THE CENTAURS (extant only in a haunting fragment), he had begun experimenting with drawing on cels.
LITTLE NEMO
1911 Director: W. McCay. 16mm, silent, approx. 12 min. (18 fps).
DREAMS OF A RAREBIT FIEND: BUG VAUDEVILLE
1921 Director: W. McCay. 16mm, silent, approx. 28 min. (18 fps).
Fragment from THE CENTAURS
1921 Animators: W. McCay, John McCay, John Fitzsimmons. 35mm, silent, approx. 4 min. (18 fps).
GERTIE THE DINOSAUR
1914 Director: W. McCay. 35mm, silent, approx. 9 min. (18 fps).

(18 fps), approx. TRT: 53 min.

Contemporary foibles get the irreverent treatment in this collection of cartoon mischief. Featured are the BOBBY BUMPS shorts based on R.F. Outcault's Buster Brown comic strip, two TAD-inspired shorts including the Prohibition parody BREATH OF A NATION, and a bacchanalian knock, once again, against Prohibition in THE BEER PARADE. This last stars Dick Huemer's Scrappy, a boy who took the less frequent route from animated cartoon to comic strip.
BOBBY BUMPS STARTS A LODGE
1916 Animator: Earl Hurd. Based on the Buster Brown comic by R.F. Outcault.
35mm, silent, approx. 9 min. (18 fps).
BOBBY BUMPS AT THE DENTIST
1917 Director: Earl Hurd. Based on the Buster Brown comic by R.F. Outcault.
35mm, silent, approx. 4 min. (18-20 fps).
INDOOR SPORTS
1921 Animator: William C. Nolan. Based on a comic by Thomas A. Dorgan
("TAD"). 35mm, silent, approx. 7 min. (21 fps).
BREATH OF A NATION
1919 Director: Gregory La Cava. Based on a comic by Thomas A. Dorgan ("TAD").
35mm, silent, approx. 7 min. (18 fps).
THE BEER PARADE
1933 Director: Dick Huemer. 35mm, 7 min.

Approx. TRT: 34 min.

The anarchic antics (and inimitable argot) of guileless Krazy Kat and brick-throwing Ignatz Mouse were first adapted to the silent screen in 1916. These early animations of George Herriman's ingenious comic hewed closely to the source's pared-down graphic style. In such later Charles Mintz talkie versions as THE APACHE KID, Krazy Kat becomes definitively male, more rounded and lovable à la that other famous mouse, Mickey. Felix the Cat, however, was already a silent cartoon star before being syndicated as a comic strip character in 1923. Who exactly created him is in dispute; credit has been claimed for cartoonist Otto Mesmer and producer Pat Sullivan. What is not in doubt is that with his saucer eyes, big grin and expressive tail, Felix has paced his way, hands tucked behind his back, into immortality.
KRAZY KAT GOES A-WOOING
1916 Animator: Leon Searl. Story/Based on the Krazy Kat comic by George Herriman. 16mm, silent, approx. 2 min. (18 fps).
KRAZY KAT AND IGNATZ MOUSE AT THE CIRCUS
1916 Animator: Leon Searl. Based on the Krazy Kat comic by George Herriman. 16mm, silent, 4 min. (18 fps).
THE APACHE KID
1930 Directors: Manny Gould and Ben Harrison. Writer/Based on the Krazy Kat comic by George Herriman. 35mm, 7 min.
FELIX THE CAT IN BLUNDERLAND
1926 A Pat Sullivan Cartoon. Director: Otto Mesmer (uncredited). 35mm, silent, approx. 6 min. (24 fps).
FELIX THE CAT WEATHERS THE WEATHER
1926 A Pat Sullivan Cartoon. 35mm, silent, approx. 6 min. (24 fps).

Approx. TRT: 25 min.

Shirato Sampei's classic 1959 manga tells the story of the son of an assassinated feudal lord who enlists a renegade ninja in his attempt to avenge his father's death. Together the two gather a band of peasants and farmers to rebel against a corrupt regime. Famed filmmaker Oshima Nagisa realized that a story about revolution demanded revolutionary storytelling. Oshima was determined not only to tell Shirato's sprawling tale but to challenge the definition of cinema in the process. Constructed using only manga illustrations with dialogue and sound effects, BAND OF NINJA is less an adaptation than a dazzling experiment in cross-pollination. Rarely screened and never equaled, BAND OF NINJA proved long before CG that with an "adventurous spirit," as Oshima said, "any kind of material can be brought to the screen."

Based on the comic by Shirato Sampei. Producer: Nakajima Masayuki, Yamagushi Takuji, Oshima Nagisa. Screenwriter: Sasaki Mamrou, Oshima Nagisa. Cinematographer: Takada Akira. Presented in Japanese and English dialogue. 35mm, Instead of subtitles, the print of BAND OF NINJA screening Saturday night contains an English-language narration, in place of the original Japanese narration, as well as some Japanese dialogue., 131 min.