To start: Danish Cartoon History

The cartoon "Fyrtøjet":

The management and the creative staff

No attempt should be made here to give an exact description of the people who made up the day-to-day management of the company Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S during the production of the feature-length film "Fyrtøjet". These are only a few preliminary personal impressions of the persons in question, impressions which, however, can to a certain extent be documented and which are elaborated to a greater extent in the biographies of the persons in question. In this section, for some of the most prominent cartoonists and animators, links have been added to a discretionary selection of the scenes and characters for which they have been responsible. However, due to the limitation of only having to show a total excerpt of 10 minutes of the film, we have unfortunately had to limit ourselves, which means that no clips of the great work are shown, as several of the animators mentioned in this section also performed.

The director

As previously mentioned, Allan Johnsen (1908-83) was the director of Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A / S. Both before and after the war, he was a manufacturer and wholesaler in the textile industry, but due to the conditions during the occupation, he had to temporarily find other employment. As an avid sportsman, especially in the sport of rowing, he was in 1938 co-founder and chairman of Skovshoved Roklub.

As a specialist in textile manufacturing, Allan Johnsen wrote several books on this subject, including the first actual textbook for tailors. It was, as already mentioned, one of these books, "Fra Dyreskind til Celleuld", which in 1942 brought him together with advertising cartoonist and illustrator Finn Rosenberg Ammitsted, and which initially led to the production of the first Danish feature film "Fyrtøjet". It was thus a pioneering work of film historical format, the creation of which, on the basis of my personal experiences as an employee of the film, I will, to the best of my ability, continue the attempt to portray both here and in what follows.

When, in November 1952, I had written and personal contact with Johnsen on a particular occasion, to which I shall return later, he told me at my inquiry a little about what had been his background during the occupation. As former officer in the temporarily disbanded Danish army, he was obliged to offer resistance to foreign domination, and in this connection he and some other resistance fighters had set up what he called the "Gentofte group". In this resistance group there were men who later had to "go underground", as it was called when you had to stay hidden from the Danish authorities, i.e. the police, and for the enemy, viz. the Germans or more specifically the Gestapo.

Going underground would first and foremost mean that you changed your appearance and attire, got new, forged identity papers and that you left your previous address and possibly lived in shifts with reliable friends and acquaintances. However, when the Danish police were arrested by the Germans on 19 September 1944 and most of them sent to concentration camps in Germany, there were some who managed to escape before the arrest. The escaped police officers consequently went underground, and several of these, exactly four, were employed as employees of Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S, to which I will return later.

A couple of these officers were also members of the Gentofte group, and that was a contributing reason why Johnsen took them under his protection. Allan Johnsen was also active in connection with the dangerous evacuation of the Danish Jews to Sweden, during which it was a matter of helping and rescuing as many of these as possible, who were lucky enough to escape the German Jewish action on October 2, 1943 and the days after, where they had to hide from benevolent, non-Jewish friends and acquaintances.

During the occupation, Allan Johnsen, who was always very discreet about his private life, divorced his first wife, and he then married his fifteen-year-younger office lady and secretary, the then 21-year-old Gerda, called "Tesse", with whom he In 1946 had a daughter, called "Petitesse". In 1943, however, it was Johnsen's then secretary, Mrs Vinge, who on the aforementioned morning locked Otto Jacobsen and me into Johnsen's office.

Despite the critics' restrained reception of "Fyrtøjet", which had its Danish premiere in the Copenhagen cinema Palladium on May 16, 1946, Allan Johnsen had not lost the desire to produce long cartoons or cartoons at all. On the contrary, he had blood on his teeth, as they say, and a few years later he applied for state cultural aid for the production of a new feature film, "Klods-Hans", which was again based on one of H.C. Andersen's well-known fairy tales. The State Film Committee initially allocated DKK 10,000 for the preparatory work, and later DKK 100,000 for the production of a pilot film, i.e. a representative selection of some of the film's scenes, which should convince investors that the company and its staff of employees mastered the task.

The film "Klods-Hans" was close to being put into actual production in 1950, but when the pilot film at the presentation to the film committee did not fall out to the members' liking, it ended up withdrawing its promise of state aid. Johnsen then tried to find other ways to finance the production, but failed, after which the project was definitively abandoned in 1952. However, he managed to get the committee to cover part of the deficit the company had incurred as a result of the failed project. It should be added that Johnsen had not calculated any salary for himself, on the contrary. He and his wife Gerda had to move out and sublet their beautiful villa in Gentofte at some point, and even move into a rented apartment, where they lived for 5 years, until they could again afford to live in the house. (See more about the "Klods-Hans" film in the section: The feature film "Klods-Hans").

After the unsuccessful attempt to pile the production of the feature film "Klods-Hans" on its feet, Allan Johnsen then concentrated again on the industry, which he probably, despite his experience, knew better than the cartoon industry, and for many years after he still were manufacturer and wholesaler of textile products. However, at one point he moved his office from the stately building in Frederiksberggade 10, to the somewhat more modest property in Vestergade, where the restaurant "Gold Digger" was housed on the ground floor. He probably retired in the late 1970s and devoted himself to his private and family life. Allan Johnsen died on April 25, 1983, aged 75, leaving behind his wife Gerda, whom he called "Tesse" and his daughter Elisabeth, whom he called "Petitesse".

The screenwriter

Peter Toubro (1915-93), mag.art., Who was mainly responsible for the screenplay for the film "Fyrtøjet", I actually do not know much about his data and fate. I only know that he was mag.art. and a good acquaintance of Allan Johnsen and Henning Pade. When I tried to get in touch with Toubro in writing in 1985, in order to obtain some information about himself and his career, if possible, including not least about his time with "Fyrtøjet", he did not respond to my repeated inquiries. He lived at the time on Frederiklundsvej in Holte.

Several years after "Fyrtøjet", I met Peter Toubro when he gave a film lecture at the Alexandra Theater, which was about the Flemish painter Hieronimus Bosch (1450-1516). But apart from a friendly and recognizable nod to the greeting, I did not get to talk to him on that occasion.

Peter Toubro worked as a kind of director on "Fyrtøjet", however in collaboration with Finn Rosenberg, Børge Hamberg and Bjørn Frank Jensen. Especially from the autumn of 1944, he spent a certain number of hours daily at the drawing studio in Frederiksberggade 28, where he fiddled around and followed what the various artists were doing. However, he was so discreet that his presence, at least in the beginning, did not acquire the character of a kind of control. Later, in 1944, when Johnsen and the shareholders thought that production was going too slowly, a kind of "control clock" was introduced, which the cartoonists had to turn every time a drawing was finished, so that one could see that how many drawings the individual artist made per day. It became Toubro's unpopular and ungrateful task to ensure that the cartoonists did not "forget" to move the clockwise or possibly moved it, without having made a similar number of drawings.

This desperate attempt to force production, however, only led to the cartoonists opposing and making counterclaims, with the idea of creating a kind of trade union to look after the interests of the employees. Johnsen and the shareholders then bowed, removed the controls and raised salaries moderately as far as I know for all employees, but mostly for the key signers. On the other hand, the formation of a trade union was put on hold, and under completely different circumstances, such a union was not formed until sometime in the 1970s.

Peter Toubro died on July 25, 1993 and was buried from Holte Church on Thursday September 2 at 4 p.m. He left behind a wife, a son and a daughter. But Peter Toubro will forever have inscribed his name in the history of Danish cartoons in connection with his efforts in connection with the cartoon "Fyrtøjet". (See also Peter Toubro's biography here on the website).

Read Peter Toubro's entire biography here on the website.

The literary consultant

Henning Pade (1918-88), mag.art., Read comparative literary history at the University of Copenhagen in his younger days and at the same time took pedagogy in Danish and French. In his capacity as a literature student at the University of Copenhagen and through his friendship with the chairman of Skovshoved Roklub, director Allan Johnsen, Henning Pade became a consultant on the screenplay for the feature film "Fyrtøjet", when it was started by his friend Peter Toubro in the summer of 1942. In the following time Pade followed on the sidelines how the production of the film progressed, and he regularly appeared with Toubro at the studio in Frederiksberggade 28. However, Pade was also involved in illegal work, which led to him being taken on September 3, 1944 of the Gestapo and put in Vestre Prison, from which he was only released after the liberation on May 5, 1945. Henning Pade took his master's degree in 1946, and was otherwise re-enlisted in the army. After that, he worked for some years with publishing and translation work and was also an employee at Folkeuniversitetet. In 1948 he became program secretary at the Dramatic-Literary Department of State Radio. Together with the generation of writers to whom he himself belonged, several of whom were masters, he helped in the post-war period to renew the radio's cultural programs. It was especially theater life that interested him, and in the 1950s he helped start the radio's theater magazine Dramatisk Forum, which he edited for a number of years. In 1964 he became the deputy head of the drama-literary department with the title of program editor. The boss was Jørgen Claudi, who died in 1971, after which Pade took over his job as program manager.

In the following years, Henning Pade, as head, continued the Radio Theater in particular, and listeners could often hear his well-sounding and manly voice when he announced the Radio Theater's audition. Over the years, Pade retained his elemental delight in drama and literature and never allowed himself to be swallowed up by Radiohuset's internal diplomacy and bureaucracy, and this attitude spread to the mixed staff he headed. In 1982, Henning Pade chose to resign from his post as boss, and was replaced by author Mette Winge. In the years that followed, he was a consultant at the TV provincial department in Aarhus, i.a. on productions such as the Christmas calendar performance "Christmas at the Castle" (Jul på Slottet”), 1986.

In the late 1940s, Henning Pade was co-author of the screenplay for the planned feature film "Klods-Hans". Creative main force, however, was the playwright, mag.art. in Literary History Finn Methling (1917-). Henning Pade married at one point Helle Pade, born Schmidt, who in the first years of television was a well-known speaker face on screen. Henning Pade, who was a Knight of Dannebrog, died on 25 February 1988, aged 69, but did not want a funeral and was therefore buried in complete silence.

The studio's creative staff

The studio's permanent creative staff initially consisted of relatively few people, namely designer and background painter Finn Rosenberg, and the animators Børge Hamberg, Bjørn Frank Jensen, Preben Dorst, Otto Jacobsen, Frede Henning Dixner and Harry Rasmussen. Please note that all photos in this section were taken by in-betweening artist and 'house photographer' Arne "Jømme" Jørgensen during the production years 1943-45.

The idea man and the designer

Finn Rosenberg Ammnitsted (1920-55) was the only 22-year-old originator of the idea of making a long cartoon about the fairy tale "Fyrtøjet". In the years 1942-45 he was a leading force in the production of the said film. He was trained as an advertising cartoonist at the advertising agency Monterossi and had worked there for a few years, after which he became creatively involved in the production of Denmark's first long cartoon with a running time of 78 minutes. He lived privately with his mother in an apartment in Guldbergsgade in Nørrebro, and the mother was apparently financially dependent on her son, who in turn felt strongly attached to her. This meant, among other things, that even in 1947, at the age of 27, he had never been engaged or had gotten stuck with a girl. He also stated that he was somewhat shy towards the female sex because he only had one testicle in his scrotum, and this had also contributed to the fact that he had so far kept his distance from the beautiful sex.

Around 1953, I happened to meet him at Nørrebro's Runddel, where he was sitting and getting a quiet object after work at the bodega "Runddelen"'s sidewalk café, and then he told me at my request that he still lived with his now old mother. He then worked as a copywriter for the advertising agency Harlang and Toksvig. Some years later, through another former employee at "Fyrtøjet", I learned about the artist Otto Jacobsen, whom I happened to come across inside the city. that Finn Rosenberg had passed away.

Several times during 1944-45 he traveled with Johnsen to Berlin, where the development and copying of the film negative for "Fyrtøjet" took place at Agfa's film laboratory. This was because people in Denmark did not yet have the facilities to develop and copy color films.

As for Finn Rosenberg's private relationship, my colleague and good friend Hans Perk has once again been able to contribute new information for me. In an e-mail of 30 September 2018, he announces that there is private information about Finn Rosenberg on the website

https://danskefilm.dk/skuespiller.php?id=30772.

This information has been further confirmed by the webmaster of this website, Jakob Koch, who has conducted his own investigation of Finn Rosenberg Ammitsted's private circumstances. The mentioned website states that Finn Rosenberg Ammitsted was married to a woman named (first name not given) Jørgensen.

According to the above sources, Finn Rosenberg is stated to have been born in 1920 and was thus 35 years old at his death in 1955. As far as I understand, the marriage should have been entered into in 1947, when both were around 27 years old. In that case, the marriage should have lasted only about 8 years at his death in 1955. When I last met him in 1953, he was 33 years old, myself 24 years old. But to me, he seemed like an old man.

Read Finn Rosenberg's entire biography here on the website

Click on the picture to see examples of Børge Hamberg's animation for Fyrtøjet.

Drawing room manager and chief draftsman

Børge Hamberg (1920-70) was born on March 14, 1920, and he lived with his parents in Ungarnsgade 21 on Amager, where he grew up. He went to school at Øresundsskolen by Amagerbrogade. Børge Hamberg had two brothers, Helge and Arne, of whom the former was a big brother and the latter a little brother. Helge later became a manager in a large clothing company in Copenhagen, and Arne was trained as a ceramicist at Bing and Grøndahl. The father, Holger Hamberg, was a mechanic by training and employed at B&W, but was very interested in his son's career as a draftsman. In addition to his work as chief illustrator and animator on "Fyrtøjet", Børge Hamberg also drew and delivered drawings for e.g. the satirical yearbook "The Rocket". Due to Børge's busyness, it occasionally happened that the father came up to the drawing room to pick up his son's satirical drawings, to hand them over to the magazine editors.

The mother's name was Jenny Hamberg, born Jacobsen, but I do not know her data and fate, except that she was a homemaker and otherwise a nice and kind lady. Both parents were, like the sons, dark-skinned, and without knowing it, I guess they may have been of Jewish or similar origin. Especially the father's facial features could indicate that.

As far as I know, Børge Hamberg came to Vepro in 1939, when he was 19 years old, and here he started as a colorist and later an intermediary. When the company in 1940 saw with goodwill that a creative part of the staff took on tasks of various kinds outside the company, Børge Hamberg got a temporary job as an intermediary for Erik Rus on the cartoon "Peter Pep and Shoemaker Lace Boot" or "Peter Pep's Assassination ”, Which was produced by" Teknisk Film Kompagni ". The film, which was silent and had a playing time of 5 minutes, was presented on December 6, 1940. It is, as previously mentioned, about the nimble little boy, Peter Pep, who by all sorts of tricks provides the shoemaker with customers, a little in the direction of what that is the case in Chaplin's "The Kid", in which the Vagabond acts as a wandering glazier, enlisted the help of his little hit son, who goes ahead and smashes people's windows, by throwing stones, thus providing work for his foster father. However, Erik Rus produced another short cartoon with the game maker Peter Pep, as a file entitled "Peter Pep: Quick release", but Børge Hamberg does not have credit for this film, which is why he was probably not an employee of it.

Since it was difficult to get paid cartoon work in Denmark, ie. in Copenhagen, in the summer of 1942 Erik Rus and Børge Hamberg, together with Erik Christensen (Chris), managed to get a job as animators at Hans Held at Bavaria Film in Potsdam, just outside southwest Berlin. Here they met several other Danish cartoonists, such as Arne "Jømme" Jørgensen and Otto Jacobsen, who had also been taken to Germany to work at Bavaria Film.

Børge Hamberg once told me that one day he had gone to a nearby street to buy bread from the baker, and here he witnessed a column of lousy-looking male concentration camp prisoners led by a couple of armed soldiers stopping outside the bakery. One of the soldiers went into the bakery and soon after came out again with a large bag of something resembling rolls. The soldier went out into the street and turned the bag upside down, so that all the bread fell out and down the street in front of the starving prisoners, who immediately threw themselves at it like a pack of hungry dogs fighting to get to and secure a share of " exchanged "because there was not enough for everyone.

After this experience, which seemed eerie and outrageous to him, Børge could not get himself to go into the store, to buy bread for himself, but instead went empty-handed back to the drawing studio.

Another time he was out, when he and probably Arne Jørgensen, one day was out for a walk in the area, that they got lost in the forest or plantation they had entered. Suddenly they were in front of a heavy barbed wire fence , where signs pointed out that electric power had been put to the fence. Inside the fence, they saw a number of people who looked like the ones Børge had seen in front of the bakery. But before Børge and Arne had time to think about it, they were attacked by a heavily armed patrol with furious and violently barking German Shepherds. The patrol leader asked in a stern tone what the two men were doing here on the spot and whether or not they had seen the warning signs with "Zutritt Verboten" (Access Prohibited). And where did they come from and why did they stay there in the area ?. When Børge and Arne unanimously explained that they were out to look around in the beautiful surroundings, and that they had strayed away from the road, he ordered them to disappear as soon as possible and forget all about what they thought they had seen. , otherwise it could get worse for themselves. To emphasize the seriousness of his words, the commander asked to see their credentials, and he wrote down their names in a notebook. Then they were allowed to go.

It was two nervous young cartoonists who hurried off back to their lodgings near the Bavaria Film. They hardly dared to talk to each other on the way home, but individually they decided that it was important to travel home to Copenhagen as soon as possible. But when they were forced to stay for the time that the contract with Hans Held obliged them to, they kept their teeth too heavy and concentrated on the work, while at the same time talking the days to the journey home.

One day after the end of working hours, Børge and Arne were visiting a restaurant near their accommodation. There were many people of both sexes present, mainly people of a mature age, as most men in their 20s and 40s were called up for military service. There was a pleasant buzz of talking people and the radio was playing entertainment music. Kl. 20 however, the music was suddenly interrupted and the speaker's voice announced that there would now be an important broadcast that all nationalist Germans should listen to. All conversation fell silent and people sat quietly in anxious anticipation, staring in the direction of the radio. There was a fanfare and immediately after, Hitler's familiar voice was heard in the loudspeaker, at first calmly and fatherly and self-righteous on behalf of the gross Vaterland, occasionally ironic, especially when he mentioned the Allies, but eventually he worked his way up to something resembling anger and rage . The latter was usually always the case when he talked about his favorite subject "die Juden", the Jews, who for a long time had sucked out that poor Germany and who now only intended to destroy it completely, from within and without. For Hitler, the Jews represented both capitalism and Bolshevism, which in turn meant the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively.

Hitler usually only addressed the German people when he was in a large assembly of loyal party colleagues, and this was also the case on the day when Børge and Arne sat down and had a cup of substitute coffee at the mentioned restaurant. Hitler was an expert in opening up a gathering of people, and his speeches therefore always resulted in a huge round of applause, during which people clapped and shouted and healed, either out of joy or out of anger and excitement. It also happened that day, and the German guests in the restaurant got up spontaneously and clapped, shouted and greeted, while Børge and Arne stood embarrassed and felt like strangers in the company.

One of the things that also made an indelible impression on at least some of the Danes who stayed in Germany at the beginning of the war was the Germans' treatment of the Jews who had not yet been arrested and taken to concentration camps. When Børge and Arne entered the local police station one day, presumably to get something done with their visas, they could observe that the waiting room was divided into two sections, one "Für Juden" and one for Aryans. The same was true in many other places, e.g. in trams, buses and trains. Similar to what was still the case for many of America's Negroes as late as the early 1960s. Everywhere in the big cities in the Southern States, one could see signs, such as. "For Blacks" or "For White Only", as was the case in South Africa until the late 1980s.

But even if the existence of the Negroes in the places mentioned above was certainly not enviable, it cannot be compared to the cruel and harsh fate that befell millions of Jews during World War II.

During the time Børge Hamberg worked for Hans Held at Bavaria Film in Berlin, he drew on films such as "Störenfried" and "Einigkeit macht stark". I remember he had brought home some painted cels with a column of mounted knights in armor from one of these films. As far as Børge knew, Hans Held was a Swiss German, and as such he was more or less forced to work for "der grose Vaterland". Moreover, it must probably be said in general that cartoonists are often people who live in their own inner world and creative imagination, and they therefore prefer not to engage or only rarely in external conditions and circumstances.

The latter did not apply to Børge Hamberg, however, because as a result of his experiences during his stay in Germany, he realized that it was necessary to fight a despot like Hitler, just as he generally believed that the factors and forces that were to blame for the great unemployment in the 1930s and later, should also be combated. Børge therefore became a convinced communist, but refrained from anything that tasted of party politics. What he sought and which he supported was economic, social and human justice, and he did not think that the political parties were able or able to establish it, nor the Social Democrats or the Communist Party. For a brief transition, however, Børge was inclined to believe that the Communist Party might be the only party that would work and fight for the ideals he himself believed in. After the war, however, he changed his view and became more philosophically and humanely interested, rejecting all forms of intolerance, use of force and violence, and over time became more and more spiritually interested, with particular connection to Martinus' cosmology.

Read Børge Hamberg's entire biography here on the website

Click on the picture to see examples of Bjørn Frank Jensen's animation for Fyrtøjet.

Animator and later also drawing studio manager

Bjørn Frank Jensen (1920-2001), about whom we have already learned that from the mid-1930s he was employed as an advertising drawing student at Monterossi's Advertising Agency, where he at one point came to work with Dahl Mikkelsen, and including also with Jørgen Myller, who in 1938 worked for Gutenberghus Reklame Film. In April 1939, Bjørn Frank followed Mik and Myller over to "Vepro" in Hovedvagtsgade, and followed when the company moved to Svanemøllevej in Hellerup at the beginning of 1942. As the talented cartoonist and animator, Bjørn Frank quickly turned out to be, he got his first independent animation assignment in the commercial cartoon "Pig of the Gods", in which he according to his own statement animated a small scene. Later, he probably got other independent assignments during the time he worked for this company.

Around the time when the start-up of the feature film "Fyrtøjet" had gradually begun, and where Müller and Mik were briefly in the picture as possible directing animators on the project, it is probable that Bjørn Frank has seen the possibilities that would be for him if he let himself be employed by Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S. The fact is, at least, that he joined the project at a relatively early stage of production. Here he was given the responsibility of animating figures such as the astrologer, the guard, the king, the queen, etc., a task he smoked with care and great talent.

In my opinion, Bjørn Frank Jensen is one of the key characters in "Fyrtøjet", which came closest to the Disney style, in terms of both design and animation of characters. A cartoonist like Kjeld Simonsen was also strongly Disney-influenced in his line and animation, but Simon, as he was called, had difficulty with the timing of the characters' movements, which he tended to make too soft, "rubbery", slow and almost "floating". In particular, it caused the characters to lose their individual character, so that they all seemed completely alike, despite their different appearance. Bjørn Frank did not have this unfortunate tendency in his design and in his animation, which was admittedly rounded and soft, but in such a restrained way that the figures nevertheless retained a distinctive character.

Simultaneously with his cartoon work, Bjørn Frank was interested in drawing illustrations and comics. As early as 1944, he began a cartoon called "The Good Knights," loosely based on a tale by Mark Twain. The series was printed in the then very popular joke magazine, the weekly "High Mood" (“Højt Humør”). In 1939 he had illustrated Johan Herman Wessel's satirical poem "The Blacksmith and the Baker" (“Smeden og Bageren”), and in 1948 he drew a series of cheerful drawings for the children's book "Little Peter Spider", for which the text and music are written by actor, singer, lyricist and revue director Knud Pheiffer. In 1994, this small modest book was republished in a photographic reprint, and for publication was Pheiffer's stepdaughter, actress, dancer and singer Susanne Breuning.

At a time in 1944, when there was a shortage of space in the drawing studio in Frederiksberggade, some of the in-betweeners were moved to the design studio that Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S had had arranged on the first floor on the corner of Nørrebrogade and Blågårdsgade, above Nørrebro's Messe. . The drawing studio was led by Bjørn Frank, and some of the in-betweeners he was responsible for were i.a. Kai Pindal and Ib Steinaa.

Read Bjørn Frank Jensen's entire biography here on the website

Click on the image to see examples of Otto Jacobsen's animation for Fyrtøjet.

Animator and background painter

Otto Jacobsen (1916-) was born and raised in Karise on Southeast Zealand. Here he came in 1930 as a carpenter and was apprenticed in 1934, after which he worked as a carpenter in the province, until he came to Copenhagen in 1940. Through a rental agency, he got a room in Nørregade, with a Mrs. Jørgensen, who ran a boarding house. Jacob, as we called him in everyday speech, wanted to be a draftsman, and therefore he applied to Jean Jallit's drawing school, called the Academy of Free and Mercantile Art (Akademiet for Fri og Merkantil Kunst), which was housed at the end of Vester Voldgade, adjacent to Nørre Voldgade.

As a resident, Jacob had a Baroness Lerche who lived on the other side of the stairs, and this lady knew the German cartoonist Hans Held, who at the time worked for Bavaria Film in Berlin, and she therefore asked Jacob if he would like to go to Berlin and make cartoons. He said yes to that. The baroness had already provided Mrs Jørgensen's son, Arne Jørgensen, with a job with Hans Held. It was probably also through the Baroness and "Jømme", as Arne Jørgensen was called among friends and acquaintances, that both Erik Rus and Børge Hamberg came to Germany. Here they worked on the cartoon "Störenfried", which I have not been able to find details about, and therefore do not know.

Otto Jacobsen returned home to Copenhagen at the same time as Børge Hamberg and "Jømme", and here it was that they got a job on "Fyrtøjet" via a newspaper ad, respectively as a key draftsman and background painter, drawing studio manager and key draftsman, and as an in-between draftsman.

After many years, in 1984-85 I had a short written and telephone contact with Jacob. At the time, it was my intention to write the history of Danish cartoons, but for several reasons it did not work out. Unfortunately. But here in August 1999, when these lines are being written, I see from the phone book that Jacob no longer lives at Ringerbakken 4 in Virum, where he lived at the time in 1984, when I had contact with him. He may have moved or may have passed away. But if he is still alive (in 2005), he must be around 90 years old.

It is my opinion that Otto Jacobsen was also of Jewish descent, which his appearance and name: Jacobsen spelled with c could indicate, similar to e.g. the politician Erhardt Jacobsen and his daughter, Mimi Jacobsen, who was also married to Bengt Burg, who is undoubtedly of Jewish descent. But this of course has no significance in itself, but will in any case be an example of how a number of people of Jewish descent could move freely in the Copenhagen of the time, surrounded by Germans with and without uniform, without any harm to those concerned, nor did any proper human think of identifying acquaintances or friends of Jewish descent.

When the feature film "Fyrtøjet" had been finished in the late summer of 1945, Jacob got a job at Gutenberghus Reklame Film in Vognmagergade, and here he was joined by colleagues such as "Jømme", Helge Hau, Elsebeth?, Grethe? and Edel Hansen. It turned out, however, that in the long run there were not enough orders for commercials for it to be possible to maintain a continuous production of this type of film, and the "team" was therefore dismissed. After this, Jacob came to Magasin du Nord's drawing studio and from there in 1952 to the daily newspaper Politiken, where he was employed as an advertising cartoonist for 30 years. Jacob retired in 1982, at the age of 66.

After many years, in 1984-85 I had a short written and telephone contact with Jacob. At the time, it was my intention to write the history of Danish cartoons, but for several reasons it did not work out. Unfortunately. But here in August 1999, when these lines are being written, I see from the phone book that Jacob no longer lives at Ringerbakken 4 in Virum, where he lived at the time in 1984, when I had contact with him. He may have moved or may have passed away. But if he is still alive (in 2005), he must be around 90 years old.

It is my opinion that Otto Jacobsen was also of Jewish descent, which his appearance and name: Jacobsen spelled with c could indicate, similar to e.g. the politician Erhardt Jacobsen and his daughter, Mimi Jacobsen, who was also married to Bengt Burg, who is undoubtedly of Jewish descent. But this of course has no significance in itself, but will in any case be an example of how a number of people of Jewish descent could move freely in the Copenhagen of the time, surrounded by Germans with and without uniform, without any harm to those concerned , nor did any proper human think of identifying acquaintances or friends of Jewish descent.

Click on the image to see examples of Preben Dorst's animation for Fyrtøjet.

Animator and character designer

Preben Dorsch Jensen (1923-). It is unfortunately not much I have to be able to tell about Preben Dorsch Jensen, apart from the fact that he was probably born and raised on Amager. At the time he was an employee at "Fyrtøjet", he lived in Tårnby. He must have been around 20-21 years in 1943, when we started working on "Fyrtøjet", where he came to make a number of different larger and smaller scenes. But he got his big and responsible task - some will think too big - when after various futile attempts with other artists, among others. Jørgen Claudi, the later head of the Radio's dramatic-literary department, including the Radio Theater, entrusted him with drawing and animating the film's princess.

Preben Dorst, as he soon called himself, changing his middle name and deleting the surname Jensen, was a pretty good cartoonist and a skilled, but - like several other of the employees - uneducated and inexperienced animator. The task was therefore doomed in advance to fail, as he only managed in a few single scenes, to give the princess the life and charm that she should have had throughout the film. It must be noted that Dorst's animation of the shoemaker boy, which i.a. fetching the uniform jacket for the imprisoned soldier, succeeded considerably better.

Dorst, who by the way had received an education as a decoration painter at the decoration company Brønsholm in Copenhagen, was not entirely unfamiliar with cartoons and animation, as before his employment with Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S in the spring of 1943, he had experimented with making puppet film in so-called table-top technique, and in addition he had a transition in the early 1940s was an employee of Richard Møller on one or more of his cartoons.

Dorst, as he was called in daily publicity and indictment, was a friendly and accommodating man, but with a delicate and nervous mind, which caused him a number of personal problems. When he felt exposed and uncomfortable, he became pale in the face and began to stutter, which caused him to usually close his mouth and be silent. He was otherwise a tall, quite handsome young man with naturally curly hair and always well-dressed. But apparently mainly because of his nervous mind and his tribe, he was very shy, especially towards girls. However, there was one of the girls in the coloring department he had fallen in love with but did not dare declare himself to. Her name was Anne Lise Clausen, and she had probably also a lot left over for the shy and awkward, but still gallant Dorst.

In May 1944, Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A / S held a dinner with a subsequent trip to Tivoli for all employees who wanted to participate. The dinner took place in the Officers' Association's Banquet Rooms, which were located behind the Industrial Building on the corner of Rådhuspladsen and Vesterbrogade. I do not remember the menu, only that some of the staff got so much to drink that they became very happy and elated. The subsequent Tivoli trip, where some of the employees continued to rinse their throats, was very enjoyable and cheerful. This good and enjoyable atmosphere was used by a clearly happy Dorst, who had only just wet his palate and was therefore, if not embarrassingly sober, then at least sober enough that he dared to face the rest of us that he and Anne Lise Clausen had ring engaged just this day.

Everyone congratulated the seemingly happy young couple, and everything pointed out that the two should start living and rejoicing with each other to the end of their days. But less than a few months later, we noticed others that Dorst had again become silent and confined, and the same was true of his chosen ones. The golden ring, the covenant on the promise of later marriage, had none of them on the ring finger of the left hand anymore. However, no one bothered to ask what had happened, for we knew it would be painful for Dorst to give us answers. At one point, he took sick leave and was away from the drawing room for a few weeks. The drawing and coloring department meanwhile moved to other premises, which were located in Nørrebro, and here most of the girls followed, including Anne Lise Clausen. Back in Frederiksberggade 28 were Jenny Holmqvist and one of the five or six of the girls. Upon moving to Nørrebro, the girls got a new female leader, whose name was Else Emmertsen, who had previously been head of the drawing and coloring department at VEPRO.

Shortly after, Dorst returned and resumed his work at the design studio. He was now more or less at his old self again and therefore able to work, and in the ensuing time he worked intensely and sought to catch up on what he had had to neglect. It was shortly before the time when he was selected to draw and animate the film's princess.

After the Fyrtøjet era, one day I met Otto Jacobsen in Jorck's Passage, and he told me that Dorst and a friend were experimenting with making puppet films, but it probably did not turn out to be a finished and useful result. By the way, Dorst had already experimented with making puppet films while he was working on "Fyrtøjet", which he himself told me in his time. Some years later I also heard, also from a mutual acquaintance, whose name I do not remember, that Dorst in an attack of depression had probably taken his own life, but according to the information I received in 2001 from Bodil Rønnow, so he was still alive but stayed permanently in a psychiatric ward at an unspecified location. Bodil Rønnow could also tell that Preben Dorst had some time later during the production of "Fyrtøjet" got engaged and had married Alice ("Bitten") Andersen, who was an employee in the drawing and coloring department at Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S. The couple had a daughter together and everything seemed to be going well for the small family, but Dorst's nervous constitution worsened and unfortunately proved incurable, so that at some point he had to be admitted to a psychiatric ward for the incurably mentally ill. But no matter what, we are still some pieces that remember Preben Dorst as a nice and pleasant person, and that he was also a really good artist and skilled animator.

Click on the image to see examples of Kjeld Simonsen's animation for Fyrtøjet.

An artist and animator of the great

The personally very modest and friendly Kjeld Simonsen (1920-88) was born in Aalborg, where he went to cathedral school. Here, the drawing teacher, Viggo Vagnbye, noticed the boy's distinct drawing talent. In 1933, Simon, as he was commonly called, saw for the very first time a black-and-white Mickey Mouse film in the cinema, and it seemed so overwhelming and inspiring to him that he decided on the spot to become a cartoonist (animator).

However, Simon was only 13 at the time, so he had to arm himself with patience for a few more years. However, he had already begun to draw jokes for the newspapers, and by the way, he often sat in class for hours drawing in the Latin and French books. That, according to his own statement, led to him being kicked out of school! However, the relationship with the school and the teachers was no worse than arranging the contact with a local company, which had an English director named Graham Lokey's Advertising Agency, which then also adopted the hopeful young man as a student. Here he then spent three years learning about advertising drawing and advertising techniques.

But it was and became a cartoon that Simon wanted to make, and as soon as his apprenticeship was over - it was in 1939 - he went to Copenhagen, the main center of the country's film industry. Here he succeeded in becoming a student at Nordisk Films Kompagni A/S, where he as a teacher got the company's artistic director, the playwright Adolf Kobitzch (1901-45), who also worked as a director of documentaries. Here, Simon got the chance to make some cartoon features in a wash film for F.D.B. as well as some scenes in an anniversary film for "Brugsen".

However, Simon did not think he learned "the right thing" from Kobitzch, and no matter how it is connected, Nordisk Film's chief executive, director Holger Brøndum, came into the picture, and as he was also a board member of the then only "right" cartoon company in Denmark, "Vepro", which was housed in Hovedvagtsgade in Copenhagen, he made sure that Simon got a job here. Simon was set to "draw up", paint cells and draw in-betweens, processes that the company's artistic directors, Jørgen Müller and Dahl-Mikkelsen (Mik), rightly thought every aspiring animator should know about. "Vepro" later moved to Svanemøllevej in Hellerup.

It soon turned out, however, that there was no constant work at "Vepro", so Simon therefore got various freelancing drawing work, partly what he himself could find from commercial cartoons - and it was modest - and partly illustration and commercial drawing tasks. Occasionally he also drew comics and picture books for Per Carlsen and his Press and Illustration Bureau (P.I.B.). Probably at that time Simon drew some glorious illustrations for the children's book "Mads, Mogens and Mikkel", which I remember I bought and liked a lot. At that time, Simon also illustrated some poems by Harald H. Lund for Familie Journalen, and for Sylvester Hvid’s Advertising Bureau he drew posters, signs and advertisements, and also made some advertising cartoons, among others. one for the agency itself, namely the film that, in a sense, became my 'destiny' and carried me on when, at the end of May 1943, I was employed as a student at the agency.

At that time, Denmark had been occupied by Nazi Germany on April 9, 1940, an event that was to have tragic consequences for Simon as well, but about this later. Despite the oppressive seriousness of the occupation and the war, the Danes did not lose their temper, perhaps rather the opposite. And so it was with Simon, who steadily and tenaciously continued his diligent working life. As a freelancer, he managed to get various commercial cartoons to make, i.a. "The gallant Hedgehog", which advertised for Ilka Barbercreme, and one for the Book Dealers' Association: "The House with the Green Tree", which advertised for the author Kelvin Lindemann's then nationally known novel of the same name.

In his often sparse free time, Simon cultivated his great interest in horses and riding, and when he lived in Holte, it meant that he so often did so, taking the opportunity to go on horseback rides in the beautiful surroundings of this town. However, he rarely rode alone, but was often on horseback rides with some of his friends and acquaintances.

In the summer of 1943, Simon made a commercial for the Danish Book Service. The film was called "The Jubilee's Dream" and was part of a propaganda campaign to get people to read more fiction. It was shown in cinemas in July 1943. Shortly afterwards, Simon became a regular but home-based employee on "Fyrtøjet", where he was given a wide range of different scenes and sequences to draw and animate. A few days at a time, however, he also sat in the drawing studio Frederiksberggade 28. This was where I got to know him quite well. His diligence, productivity and animation quality quickly became legendary, and there is no doubt that without him, the film would have been in production longer than was the case, despite the fact that he only worked on it for a good year. Around the fall of 1944, Simon felt compelled to ask to be released from work because he eventually received reports that some of his old friends had been arrested by the Germans, and tortured and executed by firing squad, and he therefore found it best, that he himself so far went underground.

In the summer of 1944, I visited him in Holte, where he lived in a small brick house, which was located in the backyard of a large villa near Vejlesø. The house had a relatively large and bright garden room, and here Simon had arranged a drawing room. But the space on the floor was so cramped that you almost had to edge through it to get to his drawing board. This was because there were stacks of floor-to-ceiling drawings everywhere. Up in the attic above the drawing room, the then unmarried Simon had his diminutive bedroom, to which he had access only via an ordinary ladder. The room has only been about 8-10 m2 and then it even had sloping walls, as it was up under the roof.

The toilet and the bathroom were in a small brick outbuilding, where it must have been very cold in the winter, because the room could not be heated. The bathroom consisted only of a bare room with only a shower, to which the water could be heated by means of a gas water heater. It was certainly not the outward luxury that characterized the otherwise introverted and quiet Simon's life.

Read Kjeld Simonsen's entire biography here on the website

Cartoonist and animator

The cartoonist Erik Christensen (1923? -) was known during the occupation as a joker under the artist pseudonym "Chris", and especially for his well-built, sexy young girls, whom he had probably taken inspiration from in American role models, such as. in the cartoonist and animator Preston Blair's "Red Riding Hood", which in addition to cartoons at the time could also be seen in Walter T. Foster's Animation by Preston Blair. Learn how to draw Animated Cartoons. However, the inspiration may also have come from joke drawings in American magazines such as. Saturday Evening Post and Esquire, which at the time could be bought second-hand in a much-visited "Concerno", a second-hand magazine shop located on the corner of Gl. Coin and Sværtegade. The mentioned and other American magazines were in fact negotiated during the entire occupation period, without either the Danish or German authorities doing anything to prevent it.

Chris joined "Fyrtøjet" relatively early, namely already during the start-up at the design studio in Frederiksborggade. He probably came along because he too had worked for "Vepro" and been with Børge Hamberg and Erik Rus in Germany, but he actually animated only a few scenes in the film, namely the one in which the innkeeper takes a mug of beer and the cork jumps of a champagne bottle so that both the innkeeper and a little mouse jump in the air of fright, and another scene where the innkeeper again takes a mug of beer, as well as a scene with two chimney sweeps sticking their heads out of their respective chimneys and exchanging news. And finally an amorous scene with a baker and a sexy young lady. The scene was too daring by the standards of the time and therefore did not appear in the finished film. Chris had animated these scenes at the design studio in Frederiksborggade, a few months before I myself joined in June 1943. Chris only visited the design studio in Frederiksberggade a few times, but he was invited and participated in the big gala dinner at the Officers' Association's Banquet Rooms in in the summer of 1944, and he was also with us in Tivoli afterwards, which i.a. can be seen from some of the photos that Arne "Jømme" Jørgensen took on that occasion, and which are reproduced in chronological order in the main text here on the website.

Personally, I have no knowledge of why Chris was no more involved in "Fyrtøjet" than was the case, for he was a good cartoonist and a skilled animator. But rumor had it that he was also a bit of a bohemian and therefore did not like fixed working hours and obligatory work, at least not for quite a long time at a time.

At some point around 1944, Chris was loosely attached to a newly established advertising film company, "Illustra", which was located on Gammel Torv, and here one had to make one or more advertising cartoons with the cartoonist Holger Philipsen's then Copenhagen famous bicycle bidder or swayer, "Carlt", who had gone as a cartoon in "BT" since September 10, 1940. Chris should, at least according to what he has personally told me, as a relatively experienced animator assist Philipsen in animating these commercials.

When I had a short written and telephone contact with Holger Philipsen in 1985, he told me that only a single commercial had been made with "Carlt", and that he himself had drawn and recorded it at Nordisk Films Teknik in Frihavnen. When you have seen the film, which by the way advertised for the dinner newspaper B.T., you would think Philipsen, because the animation is certainly not something to write home about. But that does not have to rule out that Chris may have been the author of "Carlt" and draws helpfully with a few animation technical advice.

When Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S around 1948-50 produced a 10-minute pilot film for the feature film "Klods-Hans", Chris was engaged as one of the key animators who, under Jørgen Müller's supervision, was to try to animate the film figures. Chris animated some lantern men dancing around in the air.

In 1953, Chris was an employee of the cartoonist Bent Barfod, and here he animated, among other things. "A new and sad song" “En ny og sørgelig vise”), based on the poet Sigfred Pedersen's text. I have this information partly from Bent Barfod and partly from Chris himself. However, Chris has not received credit for this film in the Films Who-What-Where 1929-1967. Chris also animated a number of scenes in Bent Barfod's cartoon "ABC Spelling Game in Africa", which was released in 1962, but which had begun several years earlier and which several animators had otherwise worked on.

Later, Chris worked with the cartoonist "Pils" alias Poul Ilsøe, and together with the film director Bent Christensen made the various propaganda cartoons for the Social Democrats. In 1961, Chris was the first animator on Bent Christensen's and Poul Ilsøe's cartoons of H.C. Andersen's two "welded" adventures: "The Swineherd and the Princess on the Pea". Unfortunately, the film was not entirely successful in any respect, nor any success, either with the critics or with the audience. But the few cartoonists and others who worked on the film did not lack commitment. Chris' animation had nothing wrong with it, except that he did not feel comfortable having to make "save animation". He found himself best at unfolding the whole technique of ‘classical’ animation art, but unfortunately that was not the budget of the film. I myself had the perhaps dubious honor of having animated the court jester and his parrot in the film, an animation I would like to know.

When I had a brief written and telephone connection with Poul Ilsøe in 1985, he told me that the fate that befell the film "The Swineherd and the Princess on the Pea" hit Chris so personally hard that he had decided never to do cartoons again. That was because, Ilsøe thought, Chris had expected "The Swineherd and the Princess on the Pea" to have been his comeback in the cartoon industry.

All my attempts to track down Erik Christensen (Chris) have unfortunately been in vain. At the time we made "The Swineherd", he lived in Matthæusgade in Vesterbro, but a search for him there and other possible places has not yielded any results. Although he was a decidedly urban man, he may have moved out of town or he may have died. But if he is still alive, today (2011) he must be around the late eighties.

Addition: The Comics Museum's website states that Chris also worked under the pseudonym Echri (an abbreviation of Erik Christensen), and that in the 1950s he drew the series "Buksetrolden" for Dansk Familieblad, and in the 1960s the series "Rosita" for Politiken and the series "Beatnik Bob" for the Family Journal. Chris was from 1946 a transition also cartoonist of Dahl Mikkelsen's (Mix) cartoon "The Hansen Family", which was later drawn by Helge Hau and even later by Holger Philipsen.

Draftsman and animator

Erik Rus Christensen (1920-87) was probably originally an in-betweener at "Vepro", and later became one for Richard Møller on his short cartoon "Fyrtøjet", but Erik Rus, like most animators, dreamed of making his own cartoons. He got the chance for this in 1940, when he produced a small 5-minute cartoon for Teknisk Film Compagni: "Peter Pep and the Shoemaker's Lace-up Boot" (see the section Danish Cartoons 1930 - 1942 and under Børge Hamberg). However, the film was titled "Peter Pep's Attempts". The project was planned as a series of cartoons, but as far as is known, it only turned into two cartoons. Peter Pep cartoon no. 2 is entitled "Peter Pep: Quick Emergence". However, when it was difficult to get professional cartoon work here at home in the 1940s, Erik Rus, like several other Danish animators, chose to travel to Germany in the summer of 1942, where there were jobs available at the cartoon producer Hans Held at Bavaria Film in Berlin. See also the mention of Erik Rus ’Peter Pep cartoon here on the website in the section DANISH CARTOON 1930-1942.

During his stay in Germany, Erik Rus met his future wife, Erika, who was one of the best inkers at the Bavaria studio, and together they went to Copenhagen in the autumn of 1944, where they settled. Erik Rus then worked for a short period as an animator on "Fyrtøjet", where he drew some scenes that take place in the banquet room for the inn where the soldier has his lodgings. Erik Rus, who was an excellent animator, had a very pertinent and precise line, which actually did not resemble the other animators' way of drawing, perhaps just with the exception of Preben Dorst, but without comparison otherwise.

How it went Erik Rus, I do not know in detail, but shortly after "Fyrtøjet" he tried to establish a small cartoon studio in Larsbjørnsstræde, and here Kaj Pindal, who for a short time had been an in-between cartoonist on "Fyrtøjet", got a job in same property. Erik Rus made an advertising cartoon for Bergenholz, and also worked on a shorter cartoon about "Ole Lukøje", probably based on H.C. Andersen's fairy tale or fairy tale comedy of the same name. But Erik Rus was not able or sustained in the long run to maintain his small cartoon studio.

When I had a short written and telephone contact with him in 1985, he told me, among other things, that over the years he had worked on various own cartoon projects, including a feature film, but none of these films had ever turned into anything. Back in 1985, he was a disability pensioner, suffering from muscle wasting. At the time, he had been divorced from Erika for a number of years, but was now married to a woman who was a kindergarten principal.

Erik Rus died on December 7, 1987, barely 67 years old.

Designer and animator

Mogens Mogensen (data unknown) Mogens Mogensen has so far been mentioned in almost all sections here on the website, which deals with the feature film "Fyrtøjet" and its history. Research regarding Mogens Mogensen's personal data and fate is underway.

Click on the image to see examples of Harry Rasmussen's animation for Fyrtøjet.

Designer and animator

Harry Rasmussen, born June 12, 1929 in Nakskov. He began his schooling in 1935 as a 6-year-old in Tillitse School, and went here to 2nd grade. Then came when his parents moved to Nakskov in 1937 in Tårsvejens School, where he continued in 2nd grade and came in 3rd grade. The parents moved to Copenhagen in April 1939, where the now 10-year-old boy first went to Kapelvejen’s School for a year and then to the Holy Cross School until the 2nd Free Intermediate, which corresponds to 7th grade. With a good graduation and a diligence prize in the form of a wristwatch, Harry Rasmussen left school in May 1943 as a barely 14-year-old because he wanted to learn and make cartoons.

In 1943, at the age of 14, he auditioned with Sylvester Hvid Reklamebureau, which turned out to be a misunderstanding, as no cartoons were made at the agency. Director Sylvester Hvid then mediated the contact to Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S, where the production of the first Danish feature film "Fyrtøjet" had just begun.

June 1943 to June 1945 animator student, assistant animator and key animator at Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A / S, with Børge Hamberg as teacher. Harry Rasmussen's first task as a student was to draw the scene in which the three lackeys help the king of his nightwear and put on his royal robe, crown, scepter and apple. The scene, which was animated by Børge Hamberg, was over a thousand numbers, and with four characters on each and every drawing, it therefore took the as yet untrained student a good month to make the intermediate drawings.

At the beginning of October 1943, Harry Rasmussen was confirmed, and on that occasion the staff at the design studio in Frederiksberggade sent a homemade 'telegram' on heavy parchment in folio format, as well as a sum of money. The telegram contained the following text, which was written by Torben Strandgaard and handwritten by Finn Rosenberg:

A GREETING FROM US DRAWERS AND COLOR GIRLS

TO LITTLE "DISNEY" ON THE BIG DAY

WELCOME AMONG THE ADULT’S ARTICLES

SURELY YOU WILL BE VERY GOOD IN THIS TRADE

WITH PINS ON CHAIRS YOU ARE NEVER BARRIED

PROBABLY IT WILL END AFTER YOU BECOME MR. HARRY.

On the document there were 25 signatories, and 11 of these had each drawn a small vignette. The signatories were, in the order in which they were written, the following:

Mogens Mogensen, Bodil Rønnow, Birthe Pedersen, Helge Hau (havus), Torben Strandgaard (Graham), Allan Johnsen, Frede Henning Dixner (Septimus Dix), Anne Lise Clausen, Jytte Claudi, Arne Jørgensen (Jømme), Børge Hamberg, Preben Dorsch , Karen Bech, Ea Johnsen, Bjørn Frank Jensen (Bjørn), Peter Toubro, Finn Rosenberg, Henning Pade, Mona Irlind, Henny Hynne, Pat Bjørn, Jenny Holmqvist, Kaj Johnsen, Alice Kjærsgaard and Otto Jacobsen (OJ).

At the same time, the following signatories had each drawn their own little vignette:

Mogens Mogensen, Bodil Rønnow, Helge Hau, Frede Henning Dixner, Arne "Jømme" Jørgensen, Børge Hamberg, Bjørn Frank Jensen, Finn Rosenberg, Kaj Johnsen and Otto Jacobsen.

The young Harry Rasmussen got on well with his somewhat older ‘colleagues’ at the design studio in Frederiksberggade. He was quickly respected for his abilities as an artist and animator.

After approx. half a year as an intermediary, the still only 14-year-old Harry Rasmussen advanced to assistant animator for Børge Hamberg, especially on the witch, the crow and the smallest of the three dogs. After another six months, in the early summer of 1944, the now approximately 15-year-old Harry Rasmussen was given independent tasks as key animator, both of the witch, the crow and the smallest of the three dogs, and also on several supporting characters, which he even designed.

In the spring of 1944, when it was thought that the end of the production of "Fyrtøjet" could be seen, Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S had plans to continue with the production of a series of short adventure cartoons, which together could constitute a film program of about an hour. It was, of course, still a film adaptation of H. C. Andersen's adventures that one had in mind, and therefore the company's management asked the key animators to come up with suggestions and drafts for what adventure they each would like to be responsible for. Finn Rosenberg chose "The Swineherd" as motif, Børge Hamberg chose "Klods-Hans", Bjørn Frank Jensen "Elverhøj", Preben Dorst "The Princess on the Pea", Kjeld Simonsen "What the Father Does…", Otto Jacobsen "Little Claus and Big Claus ", and Harry Rasmussen chose "The Emperor's New Clothes".

However, it dragged on with the production of "Fyrtøjet", which took longer than anticipated, and it meant financial problems for Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm. That was, as far as is known, the main reason why nothing came of the plans for the adventure short films.

In the late summer of 1944, it was clear to Allan Johnsen, Peter Toubro and the main characters Finn Rosenberg, Børge Hamberg, Bjørn Frank Jensen and Preben Dorst that they would not be able to get "Fyrtøjet" ready for the planned premiere at Christmas time the same year. The management therefore decided to speed up the production, first and foremost by pacing the key animators and cartoonists to give their absolute utmost every single day. For this purpose, a kind of dial with numbers from one to fifty was set up on each drawing desk, and the individual designer then had to move the rotating arrow of the dial as the number of drawings in question increased.

This situation aroused the indignation and irritation of the cartoonists, who intended to give all their individual enthusiasm and commitment to the work of getting the many characters in the film as vivid and believable as the individual animator was able and powerful.

The indignation of the employees led to a special committee of these deciding to hold a meeting where the creation of a possible professional organization to look after the interests of the employees could be discussed. Mentioned in alphabetical order, the reduced and eleven-man 'selection' consisted of the following persons: Erling Bentsen, Preben Dorst, Børge Hamberg, Otto Jacobsen, Bjørn Frank Jensen, Arne "Jømme" Jørgensen, Mogens Mogensen, Harry Rasmussen, Finn Rosenberg, Bodil Rønnow and Kjeld Simonsen.

The meeting was held on a Saturday afternoon after working hours at the tractor site "Sluk Efter" on Strandvejen in Hellerup, and it lasted for a few hours. It was agreed that Allan Johnsen would be given the ultimatum that the 'control clocks' on the light desks should be removed and that the employees should have increased overtime pay, just as the company should pay an amount that could cover the cost of dinner for the staff who had to work overtime. It was also agreed that these demands should be presented to Allan Johnsen on Monday morning by the spokespersons Børge Hamberg, Finn Rosenberg and Bjørn Frank Jensen.

Allan Johnsen had virtually no choice but to meet the employees 'wishes and demands, and already on Monday noon, the famous' control clocks 'were removed from the employees' light desks. The spokespersons and the management, led by Allan Johnsen and Peter Toubro, then agreed that production could and should be significantly increased, partly by employing more middlemen, more drawing and coloring girls, and partly by letting especially the key animators and the intermediaries work over. Working hours Monday to Friday were usually at. 8-17, Saturday at 8-14, but now many of us had to work over Monday to Friday at. 17-23.

Overtime meant more in the paycheck, but it was tough with a 15-hour workday. Harry Rasmussen, who in the autumn of 1944 during normal working hours had a weekly wage of DKK 350, came in the six-month period during which work was done, up to a weekly wage of DKK 575. A high wage at that time, especially for a 15 -year-old man.

Read Harry Rasmussen's entire biography here on the website

Drawer, background painter and hypnotist

Frede Henning Jensen (1925-) was from Grenaa, where he was born and raised and had received an education as a furniture upholsterer. He had a good drawing talent and was also gifted and interested in science, philosophy and occultism. This was partly reflected in the fact that he studied Einstein's theory of relativity and various forms of philosophy as well as occult psychology, including hypnosis technique. He lively discussed Einstein's theories and similar topics with several of the others in the drawing room, but I do not think there was anyone at the time who really understood what it was he meant. But he impressed the staff of the studio when he demonstrated his hypnotic abilities, as when he e.g. could make someone believe that the person was in a flowering meadow, where a lot of butterflies were fluttering around, which the person in question should try to catch with a fictitious net. When the hypnosis was lifted, it turned out that he could not remember what had happened.

Or when he e.g. had a couple of the strongest guys in the drawing room place one of the young girls who had agreed to it, in a stretched position between two chairs, so that her neck rested on the back of one chair and her heels on the back of the other chair. He then hypnotized her to be able to stay in this position on his own, and when he thought the girl was ready for it, he told the two men to let go of the girl and move. To everyone's great surprise, the girl was lying stiffly stretched out in this position until the hypnotist made the two men understand that they were to grab hold of the girl again, whose hypnotic state he then brought to an end. When the girl woke up, she told that she had no idea what had happened.

At one point, Frede Henning Jensen began to call himself Septimus Dix (from Latin, respectively, "the seventh" and "has spoken", ie "the seventh has spoken". The number seven is considered in mysticism as a number of wisdom or sacred number). Septimus Dix alias Frede Henning Jensen, had discovered his hypnotic talent by studying some of the fakir Louis Brinkfort's books on hypnosis. Brinkfort was a professional magician and hypnotist, and one of the numbers he performed when he performed on e.g. variety’s, was a so-called fakir number, where he, wearing only a pair of Indian fakir shorts, lay down on a board full of large nails facing the pointed end upwards. Here he lay for a few minutes, but when he got up again, no trace could be seen on either his back, arms or legs that he had been lying on the impossible bed.

Several years later, I realized that some of the thoughts and ideas that Frede Henning Jensen discussed with some of his colleagues must have originated from the Danish intuitive thinker and mystic Martinus (1890-1981). The interest in precisely his so-called spiritual science, which at the time was partly presented in the form of the first volume of the main work "Book of Life" and the introductory book "Logic", and partly in the form of lectures, has probably been conveyed by Louis Brinkfort. The latter was a sincere and serious supporter of Martinus' teachings and did his part to convey this to his own students and followers, but preferably by referring to Martinus himself.

It was probably also through Frede Henning Jensen and at least through Louis Brinkfort that Børge Hamberg and his schoolmate Bjørn Olsen around the end of the occupation came in connection with Martinus at his institute at Mariendalsvej 96 in Frederiksberg. Both were gripped by Martinus' teachings, but especially Børge Hamberg was from then until his untimely death in 1970, only fifty years old, an eager and deeply committed supporter of the world of thought that Martinus has presented in the form of his so-called spiritual science or cosmology.

Frede Henning Jensen at one point tried to take a registered name change to Septimus Dix, but the name could not be approved, so he instead got the surname Jensen replaced with the more pompous Dixner, and as Frede Henning Dixner he settled after the occupation as an independent fine mechanic, and it became as far as I know his way of life. After all, after the Fyrtøjet era, he did not assert himself as a draftsman.

Frede Henning Jensen started as an intermediate draftsman, but later also and especially came to paint backgrounds, although he had reportedly never tried it before. It must also be said that the relatively few backgrounds he has made for "Fyrtøjet" are not among the best that this film can show. He was a skilled draftsman, a cheerful and nimble guy, full of ideas and inventions, and then he had his very own opinion about things. But what reason there was for him to appear on the film's preface and in the film program in line with Børge Hamberg, Bjørn Frank Jensen, Kjeld Simonsen and Finn Rosenberg, has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Septimus Dix must certainly have lived up to its pseudonym and spoken seven times to the objectively undeserved position.

A short transition in 1944, Frede Henning Jensen and I entered into an informal collaboration on a cartoon, which I no longer remember either the title or plot of, except that there was a small worm that lived in an apple, and the worm could talk, and I had made some animation of it, which was filmed on test film at Nordisk Films Teknik in Frihavnen. The result was so acceptable that Dixner entered into some negotiations to get director Rosenvinge, Grenå Dampvæveri (as I think it was called), to sponsor the planned film project. However, it failed and the project was shelved.

Shortly before the liberation, Dixner drew and executed a bouncer doll of Hitler, which was hoisted from the drawing room windows on the second floor down to street level so that all passers-by could see it. This was also the case on the day in the month of liberation in May, when General Montgomery drove in a procession from the Town Hall Square and through Strøget to Amalienborg, where he was to be in an audience with the king and apparently receive an order of some kind. Whether Montgomery saw the bumblebee is doubtful, for he had enough to do with standing upright in the open car and waving to the overwhelming number of people who had lined up along the streets of the route, and who hung out of all the windows and where otherwise it was possible to get a glimpse of the famous "Denmark's liberator".

Many years later, I became aware by chance that there are film recordings of the Hitler bouncer, where he is lowered from the drawing room windows in Frederiksberggade 28 to street level. The recording probably dates from May 12, 1945, when Field Marshal Montgomery visited Copenhagen and drove in a procession through Strøget to Amalienborg, where he was received by the king and the royal family. This film strip is part of the documentary "When the English came in May 1945", in which I, to my own great surprise, also happened to be on some recordings myself. The same is the case in the documentary "It applies to your freedom" (1946), where I involuntarily participate in some film clips from August-September 1943, and which is thus included in the latter film, to which I must return in a relevant context.

The printed sheet with Hitler and Goebbels, which towards the end of the war was included in one of the illegal magazines, was probably drawn by Frede Henning Dixner, and it became very popular in those days to cut out the Hitler figure and the other Nazi dignitaries. and make them bounce. At that time there were not many, and certainly not of us in the drawing room, except for i.a. Børge Hamberg, who knew something about the atrocities that the Germans had committed during World War II, especially in the concentration camps around Eastern Europe and in Germany itself. As far as I know, the original drawings for the scrap sheets with Hitler et al. at the Freedom Museum.

See, in that way, Frede Henning Dixner has made an indelible impression on me personally, and I can only regret that he has not received a more factual mention here. But that is because he did not respond at all to the inquiring letters I sent to him around 1984-85, where he as far as I know still had his photo shop in Vanløse. As far as is known, he is still living here in 2005, and must therefore be around 80 years old.

The studio's reproductive staff

Cartoonist and clean-upper and in-between draftsman

Helge Hau (1922-2006) was a trade graduate in one of Scandinavia's leading companies in the textile and clothing industry, but had also thrown himself into drawing, especially joke drawings. But the cartoon also interested him. When in the summer of 1943 he saw an advertisement in Berlingske Tidende, where Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A / S was looking for young talent for the completion of an all-night cartoon, he felt that this had to be something for him. Hau therefore showed up at Johnsen's office with some work samples, which he presented to Rosenberg and Hamberg, and he was then hired as a reindeer and intermediate draftsman, especially for Bjørn Frank Jensen.

At the time when Hau arrived, the design studio in Frederiksberggade 28 was filled with key artists, middle artists, drawing and coloring girls and a few coloring men. Therefore, at one point, Hau wanted to work at home in his own studio, which Allan Johnsen accepted. As one of the reasons for wanting to work at home, Helge Hau stated that there was a lack of space in the drawing room, which is true, but there was, after all, a space for perhaps the fastest intermediate artist who worked on "Fyrtøjet". It was my personal impression that his second reason was probably so significant, namely that he wanted to work at home because he felt at work hampered by the free and informal tone of conversation that was in the drawing room. He worked on a part-time basis and it was therefore important for him to make as many drawings as possible per day. At the same time, he had started producing joke drawings, which he sold to newspapers and magazines.

At home, for Hau’s, he would say in Bagsværd close to Hareskoven and Bagsværd Lake, not far from Kurvej, where he later got a home. In addition, he had rented a studio apartment in Halls Allé, where he also worked for periods. Once a week, Hau came into the drawing studio and handed over what he had made of drawings for the past eight days.

Helge Hau worked on "Fyrtøjet" until the autumn of 1945, but had previously had the opportunity to also work for Dahl Mikkelsen (Mik) on his two Ferd'nand films: "Ferd'nand on a fishing trip", 1944, and "Ferd'nand on bear hunting", 1945. Hau himself says that his collaboration with Mik was excellent, and that "the execution of the drawing work took place in such a way that Mik very often on a single piece of paper made a rough, which illustrated a course of action , from which I had to complete an entire scene. Thanks to my experience from "Fyrtøjet" it went very well and saved MIK a lot of time. " (Helge Hau in letter of May 8, 1985 to Harry Rasmussen).

Hau also mentions that for a period he drew Mik's series about "The Hansen Family". In 1946 he got a job with Otto Jacobsen at Gutenberghus Reklame Film, but it lasted only a short time, as Hau in 1948 settled in Stockholm. According to his own statement, this was due to the fact that Stockholm "at that time was an oasis for new currents in the area. I quickly gained a foothold and devoted most of my production to Stockholmstidningen and Aftonbladet. Had a good collaboration with the editor of Aftonbladet. "Bruno Engström and was the son of the well-known cartoonist and humorist Albert Engström. Alongside the joke drawing, I got a job at Sago-Konst, which had been producing cartoons for several years." (Helge Hau in letter of May 8, 1985 to Harry Rasmussen).

In 1950, Helge Hau traveled to Paris, where he had previously stayed for a short period, during which he visited the company "Les Gèmeaux", which was working on a feature film, based on H.C. Andersen's fairy tale "The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweeper". The main man of the company was the artist Paul Grimault (1905-1994) and its artistic director was Jacques Prèvert, a well-known poet and writer. Hau wrote an article about his visit to the European famous Grimault and his partner, Jacques Prèvert, and he sold it to various magazines in Scandinavia.

However, these years Hau lived "in a suitcase", as he puts it, traveling around the capitals of Europe and "depositing thousands of white drawings." In 1953, it was intended that Hau should have been to the United States to work for Walter Lantz, him with i.a. Woody Woodpecker (Søren Spætte), but that year Hau married and he and his wife settled in their own house on Kurvej in Bagsværd, where he still lived in 1984. But later he and his wife sold the house and moved into an apartment in Hedeparken in Ballerup.

By 1955, Helge Hau had grown tired of the, after all, somewhat uncertain life as a joker, and he, who had a solid commercial background, felt the urge to get solid ground under his feet. As a result, he was employed in the advertising department of the pharmaceutical company Ferrosan, where he later became advertising manager, a position he resigned on 1 August 1985 after 30 years of service.

During his time at Ferrosan, Helge Hau produced a small cartoon in collaboration with Jørgen Müller. That was in 1972 and at a time when Müller had ended a long-standing collaboration with the weekly magazine "Hjemmet". Hau states that he had a connection with Müller in the years 1970-80. (Helge Hau in letter of 8.5.1985 to Harry Rasmussen).

Read Helge Haus' entire biography here on the website

Joke artist, in-between artist and 'house photographer'

Arne Jørgensen (1922? -), with the nickname "Jømme", was as previously mentioned among the first employees at "Fyrtøjet". He worked as an in-be-tweener, but by virtue of his great hobby as a photographer, he recorded countless snapshots of the staff during the two years that the production lasted. In his spare time he had also started drawing joke drawings, which he sold under the signature "Arne", which was shaped like a small worm-like, cheerful figure, to Danish newspapers and magazines, and later, after the occupation, also to foreign ditto. Some years after the war, joking became a relatively lucrative way of life for the tall, slender, dark-haired and extremely nice and sensitive "Jømme", who in private life was only for men. Back then, homosexuality was a subject and a sexual orientation that was highly shrouded in prejudice, condemnation, and silence. But for several reasons it was impossible not to know that "Jømme" belonged to the category of men who, despite their discretion, were usually subjected to harassment and assault by intolerant and primitive younger men, who found homosexuality disgusting. The male homosexuals were therefore forced to hide their sexual identity as much and as best they could and walk quietly through the doors. Lesbian women had it easier then, even then, because they were generally very little visible, and moreover, had it easier to hide or camouflage their sexual disposition. There were only a few who were offended by two women walking arm in arm or as sling friends on the street.

Like several of the other employees at "Fyrtøjet", "Jømme" also began his cartoon career with Hans Held in Germany, where he apparently worked for a couple of years. This was because the cartoon-loving young friend got to know a baroness who was next door to his mother's boarding house in Nørregade. He was employed by Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S in the late summer of 1943 and worked here until around the late summer of 1945, where he went freelance and then, in 1946, was employed by Otto Jacobsen at Gutenberghus Reklame Film. Here he was employed until the cartoon department closed around 1950, after which he, as far as I know, again went freelance as a joke artist. He organized his production so that the drawing work could take place intensely one half of the year, while the other half of the year was spent traveling around Europe, selling his joke drawings in great style.

When, many years later, more precisely in 1985, I had a brief written and telephone contact with "Jømme", I understood from him that he had married, I had almost said married a lady, because he was, as mentioned in his time gay. The couple lived at the time in Skovfogedhuset in Barager on Langeland. "Jømme" had previously lived in the nearby Longelse, where he had apparently lived for a number of years. He preferred the quiet and unassuming life of the province, rather than a life in the noisy, hectic, ambitious and competitive physical and mental atmosphere of the capital.

"Jømme" had allegedly not been involved in cartoons since 1946-50, when he collaborated with Otto Jacobsen at Gutenberghus Reklame Film. In all the years since then he had lived off his old and new joke drawings. What has become of "Jømme" since 1985, I do not know, only that all attempts to find him so far have been in vain. Possibly he has moved abroad, perhaps to Greece, more specifically Corfu, where he at least for a change owned a house.

In-betweener Bodil Dargis, b. Rønnow (1925-)

Bodil Rønnow went to school in Skovshoved and in 1941 became a student at the School of Drawing & Art Industry for Women. Here, however, she only went the first school year, as her family unfortunately could not afford to pay for tuition.

As a child, Bodil Rønnow had experienced some of the very first Mickey Mouse films, and as a 13-year-old she saw "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", which fascinated her so much that she copied the characters and played the melodies. In other words, she wanted to make cartoons, and in the summer of 1943 she was employed as an intermediate illustrator at Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S, where they produced the first Danish feature film, "Fyrtøjet". Here she was supervised by the chief animators Børge Hamberg and Bjørn Frank Jensen, but was especially associated as an in-betweener for chief animator Preben Dorst, who was responsible for the animation of the film's princess. He rightly believed that a woman and artist like Bodil Rønnow would be best suited for this work.

During the three years of often intense drawing work on "Fyrtøjet", it happened regularly that the "house orchestra" held jam sessions on Saturday afternoons after the end of working hours at. 14. Members of the orchestra were Finn Rosenberg (violin), Bodil Rønnow (jazz mandolin), Erling Bentsen (guitar), Børge Hamberg (banjo) and Torben Strandgaard (double bass).

The daily work at the drawing studios in Frederiksberggade, Nørrebrogade, Stengade and Willemoesgade continued largely unaffected by the external circumstances, except for the people's strike in 1944, when the drawing studios were closed for a few days. Not because the staff participated in the strike itself, but because it was impossible for most to get back and forth between the home and the drawing studio. But it was primarily a matter of getting the film finished as quickly as possible, so the work in the studio was resumed as soon as possible, and fortunately it did after a few days.

In the autumn of 1944, it was clear to the management and the senior employees that "Fyrtøjet" could not be completed for the premiere that had been planned to take place in the same autumn. It was therefore required that all employees, in addition to increasing the daily work result, also work overtime until the film was completed. This led, as described elsewhere, to the employees protesting and coming up with a counterplay that led to an acceptable compromise for all parties. Later the same year, A/S Filmcentralen Palladium became a co-producer of "Fyrtøjet".

But before it got there, employee representatives had held a meeting at restaurant "Sluk Efter" in Hellerup, and below it was agreed on what counterclaims should be set and met by Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S' management, to one would agree to several months of intense overtime. Bodil Rønnow also attended the meeting.

During the three years that Bodil Rønnow was the in-betweener cartoonist for the princess in the film “Fyrtøjet”, it became several thousand drawings, and since both the animator Preben Dorst and his assistant Bodil Rønnow were good and careful cartoonists, they had to rub their fingers to get something from the hand. But they never compromised on the quality of their drawings.

The work with the princess also included the side characters that pertained to her, namely a couple of lovebirds and the swallows. Bodil Dargi's (Rønnow's) talent for drawing was greater than what she needed during her work on the feature film "Fyrtøjet" 1943-46. At that time she was mainly an assistant to the animator Preben Dorst, who was especially responsible for drawing and animating the princess.

Read Bodil Dargi's entire biography here on the website

In-betweener artist

Erling Bentsen, born 30.03.1923 - died 13.09.1985. Son of dr. med. Axel Bentsen, died 1955, and wife, nurse, Countess Ingeborg Bentsen, born Trampe, born 1887 - died 1980.

Erling Bentsen was musically talented and in addition to being a self-taught artist, he also played guitar, with a penchant for jazz music. It was the mother's wish that the son should have been an academic or an officer, but he himself would rather live as an artist. However, in July 1943 he was employed by Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S, where he became an in-betweener artist on the feature film "Fyrtøjet".

During the winter of 1943, the then 20-year-old Erling Bentsen established a house band at the drawing studio in Frederiksberggade 28, 2nd floor, where jam sessions were usually held on Saturday afternoons after the end of working hours (2 pm). The house band and its members, which are described in the general story about the creation of the cartoon "Fyrtøjet", came to work in the approximately two years when Erling Bentsen was employed by Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm.

During the production of "Fyrtøjet" it soon became a habit for the cartoonists that they occasionally drew small comic drawings for each other. The working day could often seem long and at times a little trivial, perhaps especially for the in-betweener characters. It was therefore a welcome opportunity to relax during breaks in the painstaking work by indulging in completely non-committal small drawings, where the imagination and personal creativity had free rein. In the case of Erling Bentsen, it turned into a large number of small drawings of mainly baby elephants in all possible positions and situations, as examples are shown in his biography elsewhere here.

It is so fortunate for posterity that Erling Bentsen thought it might be of some interest and value to collect what he was able to grasp from drawings from the "Fyrtøjet" era. But he also collected his own and some of the other artists' non-committal small drawings. It can be stated with some certainty that already during 1944 he began to paste such drawings into a scrapbook, which he also continued to collect drawings for after the work on "Fyrtøjet" was completed during 1945, and he continued to do so until at least 1957.

In the daily work on "Fyrtøjet", Erling Bentsen was, as mentioned, an in-betweener, and as such he worked for several of the animators: Preben Dorst, Børge Hamberg, Otto Jacobsen, Mogens Mogensen and in a few individual cases for Harry Rasmussen. He had no prejudice against having to work for an artist who was much younger than himself.

Erling Bentsen was a quiet and sociable person who did not demand anything more than being a skilled in-betweener artist. But at the same time he was full of humor and spirits, which, among other things, his small drawings in the scrapbook testify to. He was in his ace when he on Saturday afternoons after working hours ended at. 14 often gathered in the drawing studio with the other band members. Then he grabbed his beloved instrument, the guitar, and joined forces with violinist Finn Rosenberg to set the tone and beat.

The role model for Bentsen-Band was Svend Asmussen and his orchestra. It must be said without exaggeration that with musicians such as Torben Strandgaard on double bass, Børge Hamberg on banjo and Bodil Rønnow on mandolin, the Bentsen-Band jazzed and swung roughly on a par with his famous role model.

Read Erling Bentsen's entire biography here on the website

In-betweener artist

Kaj Gøtzsche Pindal (b. 1927) began his cartoon career on "Fyrtøjet". The then 16-year-old cartoon-enthusiastic, but at the same time very shy and modest young guy, had heard that a cartoon was being produced about the fairy tale "Fyrtøjet".

In 1943, King Chr. X birthday on a Sunday, and therefore there was a school holiday on Monday, September 27th. Pindal used the opportunity and cycled to Frederiksberggade 10 and ran straight into the arms of director Allan Johnsen with company. He had drawings with him, which they all looked at, and Johnsen decided on the spot that the young man was an obvious animator candidate. Then he was shown around the drawing room in Frederiksberggade 28, but since Pindal at that time was still in the third middle school class in Gentofte, there could of course be no question of employment with Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S. In return, he was given a tap bar, animated paper and some celluloids, and with all this he went home and started animating the first scenes of a little cartoon with a monkey, called "Garibaldi", and a little dog. The strange thing was that the figures were drawn quite small on the A4 sheet, but Pindal still managed to get them to move fairly reasonably. Pindal's animation drawings were then recorded as a line test, which to Pindal's own great surprise showed that the dog was walking backwards, which had certainly not been his intention. The error was, of course, corrected immediately.

But this little film thus became Pindal's introduction to the world of cartoons, to which he with shorter interruptions, especially in his young years, came to belong right up to retirement age. In September 2001, at the age of 74, he was still active as a teacher of animation at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, Canada.

Pindal spent the autumn holidays in 1943 at the drawing studio in Frederiksberggade, where he sat and painted the cells for "Fyrtøjet", but later he had the opportunity to draw. It happened when a number of cartoonists under Bjørn Frank Jensen's management had moved out into some rented premises on the corner of Nørrebrogade and Blågårdsgade, above Nørrebro's Messe, where later Bagger Radio was housed. Every day after school, Pindal cycled from Gentofte and into this drawing studio, where he sat and struggled to draw. Here he met his colleague and later friend and collaborator, Ib Steinaa, who was also an in-betweener artist at the time, and who had initially been sitting in the drawing studio in Frederiksberggade.

When the work on "Fyrtøjet" was over in the spring of 1946, the artists and other employees were fired, but before that Ib Steinaa had managed to get some drawing work for Henning Dahl Mikkelsen, who at the time had a drawing studio in Dronningegården, Dronningens Tværgade, partly because interest drawing on the "Ferd'nand" comic strip and partly with some in-between drawing work on the Ferd'nand films, Ferd'nand on a fishing trip (1944) and Ferd'nand on a bear hunt (1945). Ib Steinaa also got Pindal a job with Dahl Mikkelsen, but it was short-lived because Pindal suddenly had to go underground. He was part of a group that produced an illegal magazine, and he had provided anti-Nazi cartoons for this magazine. The Germans had come on the trail of the group and had arrested some of its members.

One month before the liberation, Pindal returned to school, where he graduated. After "Fyrtøjet" there was no more cartoon work to be had, so Pindal - and others - had to look far for new cartoon projects.

Read Kaj Pindal's entire biography here on the website

In-betweener artist

Ib Steinaa (Jensen) (1927-1987) began his cartoon career on "Fyrtøjet", where he appeared as an intermediary. He was at that time a tall, slender and serious young man who made no creature of himself. No one at the time had any idea what abilities this slightly shy and shy youngster possessed, perhaps just apart from his immediate family, who knew he was a talented draftsman and musical genius who played the piano for more than household needs.

In the period 1946-50, Steinaa and Pindal were employees of Ring & Rønde, which produced all kinds of cartoons, but mainly commercial cartoons. The company was housed at Vesterbrogade 163, but moved in 1949 to Fredensvej 3 in Vedbæk, where in 1951 it was taken over by Nordisk Film and renamed A/S Nordisk Tegnefilm.

In 1950-53, the couple worked for Puck Film in Stockholm, where they came in contact with trick film photographer Poul Dupont, who later also continued the collaboration with Steinaa and Pindal in Copenhagen.

In 1954, Ib Steinaa and Kaj Pindal returned home to Denmark because they had both been called up for military service. After the recruitment period, they both became employees of the Armed Forces Film Service, of which film producer Jørgen Bagger was then head. Here, in 1954, the couple produced the military instructional film Night Vision.

After the military service, Steinaa and Pindal collaborated on cartoon features in short films and commercials for A/S Nordisk Film Junior.

The collaboration between Steinaa and Kaj Pindal ended in 1957, when the latter chose to work independently and initially marked himself as someone who was good at making instructional films. This soon led to him receiving an invitation from the National Film Board of Canada, which wanted to hire him to make a similar kind of cartoon. So therefore Pindal left Denmark and only occasionally returned to the homeland, either during holidays or in a work context. See also Biography for Kaj Pindal here on the website.

In July 1957, Ib Steinaa and his wife Kirsten, together with Nordisk Film Junior's director, Ove Sevel, revived the dormant company A/S Nordisk Tegnefilm. Steinaa became artistic director and Kirsten became production manager. A number of younger people of both sexes were employed here, who were trained in the technique and procedures of the cartoon. In the following years, the company produced commercial cartoons, cartoon features in feature films and short films, cut-out animation films, rag cut films, pre- and closing texts for feature films and short films, as well as several attempts to realize planned feature-length film projects, including prepared for the cartoon movie, which was renamed "Robinson Columbus" in the late 1960s and premiered in 1975.

Read Ib Steinaa's entire biography here on the website

Inking - and coloring

Jenny Holmqvist (left in the picture), who had previously been employed by VEPRO, was employed by Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S in January 1943 as head of the drawing and coloring department, first in Frederiksborggade and then at the drawing studio in Frederiksberggade 28. Unfortunately, Jenny Holmqvist, married to Balkert, did not want to take part in this cartoon story, so I do not see myself able to tell anything about her and her career other than what I myself know and have heard from others.

Else Emmertsen, head of inking and coloring department, has so far not been able to be traced, so the information about her is based on other people's statements. But it is known with certainty that Else Emmertsen was head of the inking and coloring department at VEPRO, and since around 1944 at Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S at the drawing studio on Nørrebrogade and later on Strandboulevarden and even later on Vesterbrogade. Since I unfortunately do not have much information about Else Emmertsen and her life and career, this version of Danish cartoon history has mainly had to refer to, partly what Karen Egesholm and partly Mona Ipsen have been able to tell about her.

It has not been possible to obtain a portrait photo of the film and trick film photographer Marius Holdt, so this photo from his daily work as a trick film photographer at VEPRO from around 1941-42 must be said to 'portray' him quite well, because you usually only saw him from behind as he stood bent over the trick table. - Photo: © ca. 1941-42 VEPRO A / S.

Cartoon photographer

Marius Holdt (data unknown) was a man who gained great importance for the production of "Fyrtøjet". He was a professional film photographer and had set up his own production company Daku-Film, and had specialized in filming cartoons and tricks. For this purpose he had acquired his own trick table and trick camera, and it had previously been installed at "VEPRO", where Marius Holdt was for a time a trick photographer. Among other things, he also used the trick table and camera to record the texts and so-called "scroll texts", i.e. prefixes or end texts that, for the latter, move through the image, e.g. from the bottom up, to some of the movies he was also a photographer on. Before "Fyrtøjet" he had thus produced and photographed the tourist film "Storbyens symfoni" (1935) and the following year was a cinematographer on the feature film "Sol over Danmark", which premiered in Copenhagen cinemas on 24 August 1936. Among the participating actors was Gerda Neumann and Sigrid Horne-Rasmussen. That same year, 1936, Holdt was the cinematographer on the revue film "The Circus Revue," directed by Alice O'Fredericks and Lau jun. The film had its Copenhagen premiere on November 2, 1936.

As mentioned, it has not yet been possible to recover personal data for Marius Holdt. But during his professional career he was in 1941 a trick photographer on the Vepro cartoon "The brave Tailor", which was based on Grimm's fairy tales, and which Jørgen Myller and Dahl Mikkelsen are credited for the animation of, but which at least Jørgen Myller did not will know that he has been involved in making. According to Filmens Hvem-Hvad-Hvor 1929-1967 - Danish titles and biographies, page 186, it is alleged, however, that the film is mentioned in Politiken for October 17, 1941 and Berlingske Tidende for October 20, 1941, but this is incorrect. However, the author Lars Jakobsen documents in the book "Mik - a biography of the cartoonist Henning Dahl Mikkelsen" (2001) that the film has at least been planned at "Vepro".

This year, 1941, Marius Holdt was also a cinematographer on a 7-minute film about the embankment of Kalvebod Strand as an employment measure. The title of the film was "Amager gets bigger" and it was produced by Dansk Kulturfilm for MFU and the Ministry of Public Works. The film was presented in Dagmar Bio on September 20, 1941.

In the autumn of 1943, Marius Holdt was hired as a trick photographer for "Fyrtøjet", and on that occasion his large and heavy equipment was installed in the previously mentioned room with wooden walls and blinded mansion windows in the drawing studio in Frederiksberggade 28, 2nd floor. to the right. The installation, which was carried out by Marius Holdt himself, proved to be cumbersome and time-consuming, because the trick table and the associated columns required that everything should be in precise weight and vague, so that for example the camera elevator could slide freely and effortlessly up and down the middle between the pillars.

But finally one day the trick table was ready for use, and as far as I remember, some of the first scenes Marius Holdt recorded were the ones that Bjørn Frank Jensen had made with the astrologer at Rundetårn and the ones with the guard down the street. In both cases there was what was called panning scenes, and here I saw for the very first time how panning was done on the trick table. In one case, the astrologer is seen running down the wide aisle, which extends from the street all the way up to the top of the Round Tower. Each time the astrologer has come around the corner to the left of the image and again has disappeared down the snail's passage to the right of the image, the camera "tilts" down to the underlying floor, where the same thing repeats itself, and so the same thing repeats a total of twice. And if the repetition had not already seemed boring after these two times, one could, for that matter, have continued indefinitely.

This effect was achieved technically in the way that on the background of the stage were painted two identical floors from the interior of the Round Tower. The photographer started with the top floor on the background, which stood still, while the astrologer phase by phase and image by image "ran" from left to right, and as he "disappeared" behind the wall to the right in the image, the photographer panned the horizontal background to the next floor, also move by move, exposing an image for each move. But a few pictures before the panning had reached the position marking the floor below, the photographer switched the background back to the starting position, after which he repeated the process over and over again until the astrologer had apparently passed three floors down.

Another form of panning occurred in the scene in which the astrologer is seen running towards the castle, which, however, is not seen in this scene, but which lies to the right of the figure, which therefore runs to the right. The astrologer runs in the middle of the picture, looking as if the camera is following him. This effect is achieved technically by the figure being animated at the "place" in a so-called repeat movement, ie. that the same movement, here running movement, can in principle be repeated indefinitely. The background is painted in a length that is carefully calculated according to the astrologer's size and the distance between each movement phase, as animation phase no. 1 e.g. is equal to No. 5, ie: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 = 1, etc. During the recording, the background is placed so that it can be moved (panned) a certain number of millimeters from e.g. right to left for each exposure.

After working on "Fyrtøjet", Filmens Hvem-Hvad-Hvor 1929-1967 credits only Marius Holdt as producer and photographer of the cartoon "Grævlingen og harerne" (1950), which he had hired Bjørn Frank Jensen and Børge Ring to draw and animate . What has happened to Holdt since then, I do not know, but since he was already up in the years when "Fyrtøjet" was made, he has probably long since retired and has probably now also long since passed away.

Henning Ørnbak (1925-2007) born in Copenhagen December 4, 1925. baptized in the Church of the Holy Spirit as the son of blacksmith Carl Johannes Ørnbak, born approx. 1880 in Copenhagen - died 1959 in Gentofte, and wife Carla Ørnbak., B. Petersen, died approx. 1933 in Hellerup. - Henning Ørnbak died on October 26, 2007, 81 years old, and is buried in a mass grave at Gentofte Cemetery.

The family later moved to Charlottenlund, and here the boy went to school from 1932 to 1940, and here he was confirmed on April 7, 1940 in the Church of the Messiah. Henning Ørnbak continued in Gl. Hellerup Gymnasium, from which he graduated as a new language student in 1944.

After graduating in 1944, Henning Ørnbak was employed as a production assistant at Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S, and in this capacity he remained in the company until 1950. He was therefore production assistant for Allan Johnsen and editing assistant for Svend Methling (and Edith Schlüssel) at "Fyrtøjet" and on the pilot film for" Klods-Hans ".

Similar to what was the case with Finn Rosenberg, there are also indications that Henning Ørnbak is of partly Jewish descent. His facial features were clearly Jewish and became more and more so over the years, but neither was he arrested during the German Jewish action on the night of October 2, 1943 or later, just as he did not flee to Sweden either. On the contrary, he uninterrupted his daily work at Dansk Farve- og Tegnefilm A/S, partly in Frederiksberggade 28 and partly in no. 10, and later in the premises on Nørrebrogade, where cutting rooms had been arranged.

In 1950, Ørnbak became an independent film producer, and in 1951-54 head of the Marshall Plan's Scandinavian film program. From 1955 he was supervisor of United States Information Service's films in Denmark, and freelance director at various Danish film companies, including Arnø Studio, Ib Dam Film and Laterna Film. He has also increasingly worked as a stage director for both theater and TV.

The majority of the film productions that Henning Ørnbak has directed have revolved around all genres within short films. In 1953-54, however, he dared to make a feature film, as he staged "Our Little City" for Arnø Studio, a provincial satire in the form of folk comedy. The film premiered at World Cinema on November 8, 1954 and was shown here until the 21st. It had a number of popular Danish actors in the roles at the time, but was not an audience success. By the way, the tone master of the film was the previously mentioned Leif Beck (later surname: Beckendorff).

Ørnbak then concentrated on short films, and it was not until 1967-68 that he really dared to jump into the TV theater, staging the very gripping TV play "Farewell Thomas", with Buster Larsen in the all-dominating lead role as the man , who has been divorced from his wife and child, but who is unable to manage on his own, and therefore goes more and more into the dogs, humanly and socially.

But even though Henning Ørnbak after the success of "Farewell Thomas" continued to record short films, he was occasionally also needed as a feature film director. In 1970, he directed the TV series "Bella", which again had Leif Panduro as screenwriter. In 1974 he recorded the films "Me and the Mafia" and "The Mafia - it's me too", both with a script by Lise Nørgaard, followed in 1975 by the crime novel "Only the Truth", with a script by the author Leif Petersen, whose play "Everything - and a Post Office ”, Ørnbak had staged at the theater, and which he later reworked into the feature film “It's Night with Mrs. Knudsen ”, 1972.

In 1976, Henning Ørnbak was the screenwriter and director of a short film for the Association of Insurers. The film was called "It is completely safe" and was about mutual solidarity insurance between the insurance companies. For this film, Flemming Jensen and I made some cartoon features that were relatively successful.

In 1978, Laterna Film produced a short film for "Bing & Grøndahl". The film was produced by Laterna Film and directed by Henning Ørnbak, and I made the cartoon features for it. The same year, 1978, followed the crime series "Strandvaskeren" in 6 episodes, which Ørnbak made in collaboration with the film director and film producer Bent Christensen.

1990-93, Henning Ørnbak was a film consultant at the Danish Film Institute. See also Henning Ørnbak's biography here on the website.

There were, of course, many more people in the drawing studio at Frederiksberggade 28 than those mentioned above, not all of whom played an equal role during the creation of "Fyrtøjet". But all as one, they each contributed in their own way to the film being made at all. In addition to those already mentioned, however, several other of the employees will be mentioned as I get to write myself through the good two years it took to produce Denmark's first feature film.

Read Henning Ørnbak's entire biography here on the website

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