It’s officially silent cinema month for Lunch Links!

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) dir. Winsor McCay

Even within the bounds of discussing silent films this one is an old one. Movies were playing and their grammar established – we’re over a decade out from “The Great Train Robbery” and one year away from Birth of a Nation. But there’s still novelty in seeing a picture move by itself across a wall. Hence, I assume, why we’re “treated” to several minutes of shadowy footage of dapper gentlemen traipsing around a museum before we get to the good stuff. Is this where Spielberg got his idea for delayed dino gratification in Jurassic Park?*

And there’s still movie magic to uncover. If I use too many superlatives, I’ll get called out by proper silent film historians, but this is the first instance of an animated character, as in, a frame-by-frame creation with its own personality. This isn’t the first instance of animation, not even of animation by Winsor McCay. But this is the first use of animation to create a personality. And what a personality she has! Wagging her tale at a bothersome sea serpent like a dog regarding a squirrel, crying dino-sized tears, dancing in celebration after tossing a mammoth into the water – the concept is primitive in more ways than one, but the care and time taken just in her nubby tail is better than much animation now.

There was an attempt a sequel, “Gertie on Tour” but it was never completed and only a couple short excepts exist (it at least treats us to Gertie messing with a street car, see header image). Eventually William Randolph Hearst discovered the animation experiments were taking time away from work on illustrations for his newspapers and put a stop to McCay’s whimsy. So thanks for that Hearst, a powerful man who of course would never run afoul of an independent filmmaker again.

*Actually this introductory footage in “Gertie” took the place of live introductions by McCay during his vaudeville act where Gertie would “respond” to his vocal commands given from the stage – which is what Richard Attenborough does during an animated sequence in Jurassic Park, so maybe that’s the actual influence.