Man of Action

MAN OF ACTION (1955) is an industrial film oddity that can be viewed at Archive.org. The character designs and animation are both pretty weak, but there’s some good expressionistic background layouts and paintings that would look even nicer if the print weren’t so faded. The film was produced by Transfilm, a major New York TV commercial/industrial film producer and designed by Digby Turpin, a British designer and director. Judging from the animation style and Turpin’s involvement, I’m guessing this film was produced in England even though Transfilm is the production company and it’s promoting urban renewal in American cities.

There’s not much info available about Turpin, but during the Fifties, he did quite a bit of work for Halas & Batchelor, including background design on the first British animated feature ANIMAL FARM (1954). Turpin also won a BAFTA (the British Academy of Film and Television Arts’ equivalent of the Oscar) in 1958 for his short film PAN-TELE-TRON, a promotional film for the BBC2. Another curio of his that I’ve seen is BEEP PEEP ( 1959), a bizarre theatrical commercial for British Petroleum that is done in an experimental style a la Norman McLaren and has absolutely nothing to do with its sponsor except for an intermittently flashing BP logo that appears throughout the film.