Note 4: Margaret J.Winkler owned the film distribution company
Winkler Pictures, 42nd Street, New York, such as Distributed Max Fleischer's
Out of the Inkwell series and Earl Hurd cartoons. At Disney's initiative was
Margaret Winkler in 1923 Distributor of his short film series Alice Comedies,
in which in the years 1922-27 was made a total of 57 short cartoons. 1924
Margaret Winkler married with Charles Mintz, who was a subcontractor for the
film company Universal Pictures. Mintz took over shortly after the management
of Winkler Pictures, while his wife retired to private life. Mintz was a tough
businessman, which Disney got to feel differently.
In 1926, it became clear that Alice series may have a replacement,
and Mintz therefore suggested Disney to make a series of cartoons of Oswald the
Lucky Rabbit in the lead role. The idea for the series belonged to Carl
Laemmle, who was the top boss of Universal Pictures, while it was Mintz who had
named the figure. The collaboration between Disney and Mintz continued, but
with increasing friction between the parties. The strictly business
relationship between Mintz and Disney culminated and ended when Mintz in 1928
made good his threat to commit the vast majority of Disney's employees to its
own newly created animation studio. Disney had unfortunately for himself and
his company not secured the rights to "Oswald", which admittedly was
designed by Ub Iwerks and Disney, but the figure and its name belonged to
Universal and Mintz jointly. The latter took over and continued the production
of animated series Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which Universal However, some years
later left for animation producer Walter Lantz, who much later was especially
known for its world famous cartoon series Woody Woodpecker (Søren Spætte).
Charles Mintz' studio in Hollywood produced later include also
short film series about the boy Scrappy, but ended when the company by Mintz's
death in 1939 was acquired by Screen Gems / Columbia. The break with Mintz and
Winkler Pictures was the prelude to the great success under the name Mickey
Mouse founded the Walt Disney's international reputation as a "king of
film animation." It was also the beginning of the musical series of short
cartoons that got the title Silly Symphonies, which was produced by Disney in
the years 1928-39, which began with the Skeleton Dance. So far as is known,
there are 73 short films in the series, which ended in 1939 with a remake of
The Ugly Duckling ("Den grimme Ælling") from 1931. The series
continued under the name "Special Cartoons", which in 1938 began with
the glorious Ferdinand the Bull ("Tyren Ferdinand") and which in any
case was continued until around 1978 when they produced The Small One. The
latter cartoon is about the little colt that Jesus according to the New Testament
was riding when he made his last entry into Jerusalem during Easter
celebrations of the year 33. The Specials series includes at least about 60
short and slightly longer cartoons. (Sources: various books about Disney.)
The studio United Artists Corporation was founded in 1919 by world
celebrities Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Mary Pickford, William S. Hart, David Wark
Griffith and Charles Chaplin. United Artists was both production and
distribution company, which was created as a countermeasure against Hollywood
movie moguls patriarchal exercise of power and monopoly on both the domestic
and world markets. They by movie moguls owned production companies, First
National, Paramount, Columbia, Fox, RKO, MGM, Universal, Warner Bros., And
others, had in fact come together and dictated the result that every theater
director in the United States may bind for a five-year contract, for being able
to rent films for display in their cinemas. The name United Artists came
initially to deal with the concept of quality film in every respect. Sources:
Charles Chaplin: My Life, pp. 198-201. Richard Griffith and Arthur Mayer: the
Movies, see especially chapter: The Nickleodeon Age.