Note 12: At my request, Bjørn Frank Jensen wrote some notes about his
life and career as an artist and animator around 1985-86, and since I believe
that these notes tell a lot about the situation of the domestic cartoon
industry in the 1930s, I will quote the following: ”[…] When I was about 14
years old, Jørgen Müller had a studio in Vesterport, I went up to get his
autograph and a drawing of “Columbus”, but mostly out of curiosity to see what
a cartoon studio looked like.
I could not wait to get out of school, and was already aware that the
only way to get started with cartoons was through advertising. After my high
school graduation, during the summer holidays, I went up to Monterossi with a
style book I had filled with my own "humorous" ads, and to my great
astonishment, and against my father's wishes, I could start as the youngest man
in the studio. Most cinema commercials consisted of slides, colored by hand,
and my first works were of that kind.
There were lots of drawings in the drawing room by a German
"Michaëlis", who had made films for Monterossi, almost all "cut
outs", i.a. film for Houlberg with pigs jumping in a meat machine and
coming out like sausages. Michaëlis had moved to Sweden, and Monterossi had
made an agreement with Dahl Mikkelsen, who was in London with Müller, that Mik
should draw possibly. films Monterossi’s received orders for, and the studio
had to draw them up on cels, color and record them. The first film that came
out was an advertisement for "Gilders Magasin" in Valby. The drawings
came from London, and my job was to draw them up on cells and cover them in
shades of gray, as well as to assist with the recording that took place at
Ankerstjerne in Nørrebro. I remember that film quite clearly, it consisted of a
series of "repeats" of people (including a bid for a tricycle) that
went into Gilders Magasin and came out again in new clothes. Before I could
start pulling up, I first had to wash old drawings of the celluloids, and press
them dry between blotting paper in a press (this treatment was common at the
time, and was the cause of many reflexes on the films).
There were several films after this: "Krogs Driving
School". The first in color: "Houlbergs Sausages"
with 2 pigs, and later, when Mik had returned from London, a film of approx. 5
minutes: "Aladdin" with lots of advertisers who got
advertising on the film using subtitles. The drawing studio was at that time
expanded with, among others, Erik Christensen. […] (More quote follows later
below).
See also more about this below and in Bjørn Frank Jensen's biography
here on the website. - See also Lars Jakobsen, cited work, pp. 52-53, 53, who
believes that Mik came home to stay in the winter of 1937 and that
"Roepstorff lagged behind, Myller only in the beginning of 1938." As
mentioned in my text, it can at least be documented that Roepstorff was the
first to return home in the spring of 1937. But it is quite true that Myller
did not return home until the beginning of 1938, as he was the only one of the
three Danes back at Anglia Films, probably to complete one or more films.
However, it cannot be ruled out that Mik has also returned to London for a
brief remark, being credited for a couple of Anglia cartoons, which first
premiered in August 1938, namely All the Fun of the Air and The King
with the Terrible Temper. See Niels Plaschke www.plaschke.dk. Sorry, but
Plaschke's objectively well-founded website "Wonderful Danish animated
films" are unfortunately no longer available on the Internet.