About

Known credits:
97
Birthday:
1908-11-12
Place of birth:
Wareham, Massachusetts, USA
Website:
N/A

Shamus Culhane

Overview

Culhane worked for a number of American animation studios, including Fleischer Studios, the Ub Iwerks studio, Walt Disney Productions, and theWalter Lantz studio. He began his animation career in 1925 working for J.R. Bray studios, and is known for promoting the animation talents of his inker/assistant at the Fleischer Studios in the early 1930s, Lillian Friedman Astor, making her the first female studio animator. While at the Disney studio, he discovered while working on Hawaiian Holiday's crab sequence an animation method that involved stewing for multiple days, before drawing the entire thing in rough sketches all at once, straight ahead, without invoking the left side of the brain. He was a lead animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, animating arguably the most well-known sequence in the film, the animation of the dwarves marching home singing "Heigh-Ho". The scene took Culhane and his assistants six months to complete. During this time he developed his 'High-speed' technique of using only the right side of the brain and animating with quick dashed-off sketches. In 1944, he collaborated on The Greatest Man in Siam with the layout artist Art Heinemann. In that animation, "the king of Siam bolts past doorways that are distinctly phallic in shape and peers at another that mimics a vagina."[3] Later in his career, Culhane worked briefly in Chuck Jones's unit at Warner Bros, before moving on to being a director for Lantz, where he helmed Woody Woodpecker's 1944 classic, The Barber of Seville, the cartoon famous for one of the first uses of fast cutting, after taking the idea from Sergei Eisenstein. At Lantz, he introduced Russian avant-garde influenced experimental art into the cartoons. In the late-1940s, he founded Shamus Culhane Productions (Culhane had gone by his birthname of James up until this point, before going by its Irish variant Shamus), one of the first companies to create animated television commercials. It also produced the animation for at least one of the Bell Telephone Science Series films. Shamus Culhane Productions folded in the 1960s, at which point Culhane became the head of the successor to Fleischer Studios, Paramount Cartoon Studios. He left the studio in 1967, and went into semi-retirement. Culhane wrote two highly regarded books on animation: the how-to/textbook Animation from Script to Screen, and his autobiography Talking Animals and Other People. Since Culhane worked for a number of major Hollywood animation studios, his autobiography gives a balanced general overview of the history of the Golden Age of American Animation. At his death on February 2, 1996, Culhane was survived by second wife, the former Juana Hegarty, and by two sons from his first marriage to Maxine Marx (the daughter of Chico Marx) which ended in divorce: Brian Culhane of Seattle and Kevin Marx Culhane of Portland, Ore. -From Wikiepedia

Known for

Directing
1980 Last of the Red-Hot Dragons Directing Director N/A
N/A
1977 King of the Beasts Directing Director N/A
N/A
1976 Noah's Animals Directing Director N/A
N/A
1970 The Night the Animals Talked Directing Director 58
Average
1967 The Opera Caper Directing Director 58
Average
1967 Robin Hoodwinked Directing Director N/A
N/A
1967 The Squaw Path Directing Director N/A
N/A
1967 The Plumber Directing Director N/A
N/A
1967 The Trip Directing Director 59
Average
1967 My Daddy the Astronaut Directing Director N/A
N/A
1967 Think or Sink Directing Director N/A
N/A
1967 The Blacksheep Blacksmith Directing Director N/A
N/A
1967 The Space Squid Directing Director N/A
N/A
1966 Geronimo and Son Directing Director N/A
N/A
1966 Potions and Notions Directing Director N/A
N/A
1966 A Wedding Knight Directing Director N/A
N/A
1966 Throne for a Loss Directing Director N/A
N/A
1966 A Balmy Knight Directing Director 58
Average
1966 The Defiant Giant Directing Director N/A
N/A
1966 I Want My Mummy Directing Director N/A
N/A
1957 The Big Fun Carnival Directing Director N/A
N/A
1956 Showdown at Ulcer Gulch Directing Director 59
Average
1946 Fair Weather Fiends Directing Director 59
Average
1946 The Reckless Driver Directing Director 59
Average
1946 Who's Cookin Who? Directing Director 59
Average
1946 Mousie Come Home Directing Director 59
Average
1945 The Loose Nut Directing Director 59
Average
1945 The Dippy Diplomat Directing Director 59
Average
1945 Woody Dines Out Directing Director 59
Average
1945 Chew-Chew Baby Directing Director 59
Average
1945 The Pied Piper of Basin Street Directing Director 59
Average
1944 The Painter and the Pointer Directing Director 58
Average
1944 Ski for Two Directing Director 59
Average
1944 The Beach Nut Directing Director 59
Average
1944 Fish Fry Directing Director 59
Average
1944 Jungle Jive Directing Director 59
Average
1944 The Barber of Seville Directing Director 59
Average
1943 Meatless Tuesday Directing Director N/A
N/A
1943 Boogie Woogie Man (Will Get You If You Don't Watch Out) Directing Director 59
Average
1943 Take Heed Mr. Tojo Directing Director 58
Average
1935 The Merry Kittens Directing Director 59
Average
1935 Old Mother Hubbard Directing Co-Director 59
Average
1935 Little Black Sambo Directing Co-Director 58
Average
1934 Jack Frost Directing Co-Director 59
Average
1934 The King's Tailor Directing Co-Director N/A
N/A
1934 The Headless Horseman Directing Co-Director 59
Average
1934 Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp Directing Co-Director 59
Average
1933 Jack and the Beanstalk Directing Co-Director 59
Average
1931 The Herring Murder Case Directing Co-Director 58
Average
1931 Alexander's Ragtime Band Directing Co-Director 59
Average

Writing
1980 Last of the Red-Hot Dragons Writing Writer N/A
N/A
1977 King of the Beasts Writing Writer N/A
N/A
1976 Noah's Animals Writing Writer N/A
N/A
1967 Keep the Cool, Baby Writing Story N/A
N/A
1967 The Opera Caper Writing Story 58
Average
1967 The Stubborn Cowboy Writing Story 59
Average
1967 My Daddy the Astronaut Writing Story N/A
N/A

Production
1967 Keep the Cool, Baby Production Executive Producer N/A
N/A
1967 The Stubborn Cowboy Production Executive Producer 59
Average
1967 A Bridge Grows in Brooklyn Production Executive Producer 59
Average
1967 Brother Bat Production Executive Producer N/A
N/A
1967 Forget-Me-Nuts Production Executive Producer N/A
N/A
1967 High But Not Dry Production Executive Producer N/A
N/A
1967 The Squaw Path Production Executive Producer N/A
N/A
1967 The Plumber Production Executive Producer N/A
N/A
1967 The Trip Production Executive Producer 59
Average
1967 Alter Egotist Production Executive Producer N/A
N/A
1966 A Wedding Knight Production Producer N/A
N/A
1966 A Balmy Knight Production Executive Producer 58
Average
1958 The Unchained Goddess Production Producer 58
Average
1957 The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays Production Producer 59
Average

Visual Effects
1957 Hemo the Magnificent Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1956 Around the World in Eighty Days Visual Effects Animation 62
Fair
1943 Puss n' Booty Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1941 Two for the Zoo Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1940 Popeye Meets William Tell Visual Effects Animation Director 59
Average
1939 Gulliver's Travels Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1939 The Autograph Hound Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1939 The Pointer Visual Effects Animation 58
Average
1939 Beach Picnic Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1939 Donald's Cousin Gus Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1939 The Hockey Champ Visual Effects Animation 60
Fair
1939 Society Dog Show Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1938 Polar Trappers Visual Effects Animation 58
Average
1938 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Visual Effects Animation 70
Good
1937 Pluto's Quin-puplets Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1937 Hawaiian Holiday Visual Effects Animation 60
Fair
1936 Donald and Pluto Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1936 Mickey's Circus Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1936 Orphan's Picnic Visual Effects Animation 58
Average
1935 Balloon Land Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1933 Coo Coo the Magician Visual Effects Animation N/A
N/A
1931 Minding the Baby Visual Effects Animation 58
Average
1931 Minding the Baby Visual Effects Animation Director 58
Average
1931 Please Go 'Way and Let Me Sleep Visual Effects Animation 59
Average
1930 I'm Afraid to Come Home in the Dark Visual Effects Animation 58
Average
1925 Just Spooks Visual Effects Animation 59
Average