George Pal


George Pal was a Hungarian-American animator, film director and producer, principally associated with the fantasy and science-fiction genres. He became an American citizen after emigrating from Europe.
He was nominated for Academy Awards for seven consecutive years and received an honorary award in 1944. This makes him the second-most nominated Hungarian exile after Miklós Rózsa.

Early life and career

Pal was born in Cegléd, Hungary, as Gyula György Marczincsak the son of Gyula Marczincsak, Sr. and his wife Mária Tikó; in 1936 he officially changed his last name Marczincsak to "Pál", becoming György Pál. He graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 1928. From 1928 to 1931, he made films for Hunnia Film Studio of Budapest, Hungary. In 30th June of 1930 in Budapest, he married Elisabeth "Zsóka" Grandjean, and after moving to Berlin, founded Trickfilm-Studio GmbH Pal und Wittke, with UFA Studios as its main customer from 1931 to 1933. During this time, he patented the Pal-Doll technique.
In 1933, he worked in Prague. In 1934, he made cigarette advertisement films in his hotel room in Paris, and was invited by Philips to make two more ad shorts. He started to use Pal-Doll techniques in Eindhoven, in a former butchery, then at villa-studio Suny Home. He made five films before 1939 for the British company Horlicks Malted Milk. In December of that year, aged 32, he emigrated from Europe to the United States, and began work for Paramount Pictures. At this time, his friend Walter Lantz helped him obtain American citizenship.
As an animator, he made the Puppetoons series in the 1940s, which led to him being awarded an honorary Oscar in 1943 for "the development of novel methods and techniques in the production of short subjects known as Puppetoons". Pal then switched to live-action film-making with The Great Rupert.
He is best remembered as the producer of several science-fiction and fantasy films in the 1950s and 1960s, such as When Worlds Collide, four of which were collaborations with director Byron Haskin, including The War of the Worlds. He himself directed Tom Thumb, The Time Machine, and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm.

Death

In May 1980, he died in Beverly Hills, California, of a heart attack at the age of 72, and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California. The Voyage of the Berg, on which he was working at the time, was never completed.

Awards and honours

Pal has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1722 Vine St. In 1980, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founded the "George Pal Lecture on Fantasy in Film" series in his memory.
George Pal is among the many references to classic science fiction and horror films in the opening theme of both the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show and its cinematic counterpart, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
In 1975, Pal received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, as well as the San Diego Comic Con Inkpot Award.
Pal's Puppetoons Tulips Shall Grow and John Henry and the Inky-Poo were added to the Library of Congress 1997 and 2015 National Film Registry. One of the Tubby the Tuba models along with a frog and three string instruments were donated to the Smithsonian Institution for the National Museum of American History.
In 2023, film historian Justin Humphreys released the biographical book George Pal, Man of Tomorrow.

Preservation

The Academy Film Archive has preserved several of George Pal's films, including Radio Röhren Revolution, an advertising short for Philips, Jasper and the Beanstalk, and John Henry and the Inky Poo.

Filmography

Puppetoons

Live-action feature films

Unreleased, unfinished, or projected films

  • Gulliver's Travels
  • Sinbad
  • Three Little Princes
  • Casey Jones
  • Davy Crockett
  • Johnny Appleseed
  • After Worlds Collide
  • Odd John
  • Logan's Run
  • When the Sleeper Wakes
  • War of the Worlds Unfinished TV pilot
  • Doc Savage: The Arch Enemy of Evil
  • The Time Traveller aka Time Machine II. A novelization with Joe Morhaim was published posthumously in 1981.
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
  • The Disappearance
  • ''Voyage of the Berg''

    Posthumous collection

  • The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal
  • The Puppetoon Movie
  • The Puppetoon Movie Volume 2
  • ''The Puppetoon Movie Volume 3''