ANIMATOR BREAKDOWN: "Der Fuehrer's Face" (1943) (Patreon)

Click here to watch the video!

Originally produced as Donald Duck in Nutzi Land, the title of this cartoon changed after a song written by Oliver Wallace became a popular recording by Spike Jones and His City Slickers for RCA Victor a few months before the film’s release. After Jones recorded his version, country singer Johnny Bond cut his own rendition of “Der Fuhrer’s Face” for Okeh records.

JB Kaufman has been kind to lend his notes based on the animator draft used for his ongoing research on the vast career of Donald Duck (co-authored by David Gerstein). However, this information is culled from “semi-final” draft, dated July 9, 1942, which shows a number of discrepancies with the finished film. As of this writing, the exposure sheets for Der Fuehrer’s Face have not been analyzed at the time of this writing. When Donald looks up from dipping the coffee bean in the cup, an insert of a soldier's silhouette on the window shade does not appear in the draft; likewise for the long scene of Donald marching at bayonet-point to his station on the assembly line. The end title, with the EFX animation of the tomato thrown at Hitler and forming the words of the title card is not present in the draft, either.

On the other hand, there are some scenes that do appear in the draft but have been cut from the film. When Donald is working on the assembly line, there were going to be a couple of scenes in which he received his pay (on a little tray moving along the line), tried to keep some of it for himself, but was forced to give it back. Later, during his "vacation," when the offscreen voice describes the beautiful scenery and the birds, a sad little bird appears and is forced to sing.

The breakdown video lists both Hugh Fraser and Les Clark for the montage sequence near the end of the picture. The July 1942 draft simply credits the entire montage to Clark and Fraser—without any detail at all; it simply has a 71-foot section described as "Montage section." It certainly seems plausible that Fraser animated the scenes of Donald while Clark animates everything but Donald, given that Fraser had animated the Donald action leading up to the montage. However, in Richard Shale's book Donald Duck Joins Up: The Walt Disney Studio During World War II—written from information supplied to him by Dave Smith, which may have included a more later draft—actually claims that the entire montage is animated by Clark.

Though the film’s release is often listed as January 1, 1943, Motion Picture Herald revealed an earlier date as December 18, 1942, with a reported review the following day. In addition to the title song’s popularity, Der Fuehrer’s Face earned an Academy Award for Best Animated Short.

This post will be up on Patreon for two weeks, and the link will be deleted Saturday, 5/8. I'm sure there are some of you who are worried this is the permanent home for these animator breakdown videos. I can assure you that is not the case - many of these will be on Cartoon Research in the near future, with more in-depth background.