Saturday, October 31, 2020

Danse Macabre Filmstrip (1963)




A re-post from 2017, and 2013 before that:

For Halloween, here's something haunting that I remember watching in music class in late elementary school, around the same time I discovered D&D (1982). It's a 1963 educational filmstrip with fantastic watercolors by Harold Dexter Hoopes, set to the eerie music of Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens. It was unavailable on the web until a few years ago but now there are multiple versions on YouTube, one of which has better colors but includes a loud "filmstrip advance" beep throughout. There isn't much info available on the internet about the artist Hoopes. There was even a blog dedicated to restoring the individual frames of this filmstrip but it seems to have stalled out at frame 20.

There's also a later second edition of the filmstrip done in the mid-80s with art by David Prebenna, later an illustrator of Sesame Street/Muppet toddler books. It's cartoony and less haunting, but also worth watching.

Memories of this filmstrip led me to include "Danse Macabre" in my One Hit Point Monsters.

Happy All Hallow's Evening!

2020 Update:

Re-posted with an improved video now available on YT.

6 comments:

  1. My elementary school music teacher had a little illustrated "party" of undead creatures, with skeletons, ghosts and pumpkins, with each monsterling representing a particular recurring theme so as to sort of map out the entire piece visually in a doodled grave-yard.

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  2. I seem to recall a short called Dance Macabre that was done by one of the Raimi brothers that ended up in or redone for one of the Evil Dead movies.

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  3. There was another Halloween film strip from my childhood that I wish someone would find/restore/make available. It was a collection of common songs (mostly folk songs, I think) with the lyrics Halloweenized and illustrated accordingly. Thanks for linking this one, by the way. I have fond memories of it from the 1970s.

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    1. You're welcome! I'm glad someone else remembers watching this. It always comes to mind around this time of year.

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  4. Sorry, I might have made the same comment on this post the first time you posted it in 2013. If so, please disregard it.

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    1. I don't think so, since there is no other comment by you above. : )

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