Charley Bower's collaborator

[Steve Massa]

Over the years there hasn't been a lot of information available on comedian/animator Charley Bowers, and even less on his long-time partner and collaborator Harold L. Muller, who worked with him on his live action comedy shorts and up until at least the puppet film WILD OYSTERS ('41). All IMDB (for what it's worth) says is that Muller was born in London on 10/14/1893 and had two children. Here's some items I've come across that fill in some info before and after his work with Bowers. The first is his entry in 1923/24 Motion Picture Studio Directory (pg. 197):

"Muller, H. L.; b. and educ. London; screen career, with Paul Urban and Kinemacolor in London and U.S.; B.S. Moss ("THree Weeks"), Chas. K. Harris ("When It Strikes Home," "Hearts of Men," "For Sale a Baby"), Weber and Fields comedies; official photographer for U.S. Army in France during the War; chief photographer for Talking Motion Picutres, Inc. Ad., 150 N. Eigth Ave., Whitestone, N.Y.; Flushing 3764-W."

This locates him in Queens, New York where he and Bowers soon began making their series of Whirlwind Comedies. He died on Christmas Day 1963, and here's his obit from the 1/22/1964 Variety:

"Harold L. Muller, projectionist, died Dec. 25 in New York."

Steve

[Frank Flood]

In the 1970's or '80's (I think) animator Izzy Klein wrote a series of articles in Cartoonist PROfiles on his long career in animated cartoons. Charley Bowers was the star of a number of these stories, and they are worth hunting up for background on Bowers' pre-live action career.

Frank

[Rob King]

Interesting that Muller had no background as an animator - which raises the question about the division of labor on the Bowers films. Could one assume that Muller was responsible simply for the live-action components of the films, while Bowers handled the stop-motion sequences? (Perhaps not; after all, Joseph Losey is credited as the director of the later Bowers film Pete Roleum and His Cousins, which is ENTIRELY stop-motion ....)

Anyway, there's an article on Bowers' earlier career as an animator by Dick Huemer, in Funnyworld (Fall 1978), 35-36 (it's in the NYPL clippings file on Bowers). I don't have the whole thing - only my notes, as follows:



“As Uncle Remus might have said about Charlie Bowers, ‘He was de mos’ bodacious crittur.’ But bodacious or not, he was also one of the cleverest cartoonists that ever stooped to enter our then rather looked-down-upon animation profession. When I first saw the collection of his editorial cartoons for the Newark News, I drooled with envy. That such manipulation of pen and ink could be! … Then, too, he had done a series of extraordinarily brilliant commercial cartoons for a now defunct (I guess) beer called P.O.N., or Pride of Newark. …

His contribution to the animation scene of the period was equally outstanding. For a while he operated a branch of the ‘Mutt and Jeff’ studio out of town, in Mount Vernon. He had his own staff – only Carl Meyer comes to mind as one of his animators. Bowers animated too, I believe, as well as writing all the stories and gags, and we all thought his were the best of the cartoon shorts. …

Well, there you have some of the Mr. Hyde side of Charlie Bowers. The bodacity which kind of marred his image, and yet made him so colorful, is to me more interesting. There must be plenty of Bowers stories still around. Here are a few of them.

I don’t think anyone ever abhorred the truth as much as he did. I do believe that the gaudy falsification of almost any subject afforded him more pleasure than the bald truth. In extenuation I must add that most of the time he probably did it just to be entertaining. He was also a great mimic and could probably have been quite a successful actor. …

Once, we were having trouble with the portable oil heaters with which we tried so vainly to heat the great ‘Mutt and Jeff’ barn during a hard winter. Right away, Bowers came up with a fantastic tale of how he had once walked a tightrope between two buildings in Chicago, carrying a lighted oil stove in each hand! I looked intently for the tongue in his cheek, but it wasn’t there. I [36] think he really believed that silly story himself!
I particularly like the yarn about when he was a small boy. Don’t ask me what he was doing in a covered wagon crossing the western plains on its way to Lord knows where. Nor do not ask me how it came about that he fell off said wagon – or rather fell UNDER it. And that heavily loaded wagon, with its huge iron-shod wheels, rolled right over poor little Charlie’s body. Was our little hero hurt? Cut in half? Miserably mashed? Well, you won’t hardly believe this (neither did I) but right at the time he fell off, the wagon just happened to be crossing a very sandy desert and when the horrified parents rushed back to collect their poor child’s severed body, they beheld a miracle! You see, the sand was so soft that the wheels had merely pressed their broth of a boy deep down into the sand, passing harmlessly over him. And, when he stood up, smiling and unhurt, there in the sand of the desert was a perfectly formed impression of his little body – from head to toe. WOW!
The Lord only knows about all our bodacious friend’s financial peccadillos. His bilking of Raoul Barre is common knowledge. … "

[Richard M Roberts]

Interesting that Muller had no background as an animator - which raises the question about the division of labor on the Bowers films. Could one assume that Muller was responsible simply for the live-action components of the films, while Bowers handled the stop-motion sequences? (Perhaps not; after all, Joseph Losey is credited as the director of the later Bowers film Pete Roleum and His Cousins, which is ENTIRELY stop-motion ....)

Definitely perhaps not! Mueller was Bowers total technical expert, full-time cameraman (both live and stop-motion) and lighting and special effects person. In some ways, it might be said that it was Muller was the one that brought Bower's art into real life. Bowers background was only in drawing and animation, he needed a technician like Muller to figure out how to create and film the mad visual bowers came up with. He was to Bowers what Fred Gabourie and Elgin Lessley were to Buster Keaton.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Rob King]

Fair enough, Godfather. It certainly wasn’t my contention that Bowers was some kind of solitary genius who only needed Muller to thread the camera! But I think it goes too far in the other direction to describe Bowers’ background as “only in drawing and animation” while Muller was the “total technical expert” who figured out Bowers’ tricks – as though Bowers was just some eccentric doodler. I can’t think of a single instance of Bowers’ mad visuals that is not, in some way, derivative of animation techniques – and that was obviously Bowers’ bailiwick.

Muller’s background in Kinemacolor and early talkie technology shows that he had an abundance of technological savvy, and this was surely a crucial and indispensable resource for devising the films' trick effects. But I don’t think Bowers could have been inept on that score either. (It’s interesting to note that, on the 1930 census, Bowers actually listed his career as that of “inventor” – much like Walter Wright, I think – although it’s not clear what he actually “invented.”) Perhaps the relationship was a collaborative meeting of minds between a skilled camera technician and an eccentric tinkerer?

Anyway, all hypothesis and speculation on my part. I haven’t come across any evidence myself that gives any concrete indication of the nature of their collaboration.

[Richard M Roberts]

Fair enough, Godfather. It certainly wasn’t my contention that Bowers was some kind of solitary genius who only needed Muller to thread the camera! But I think it goes too far in the other direction to describe Bowers’ background as “only in drawing and animation” while Muller was the “total technical expert” who figured out Bowers’ tricks – as though Bowers was just some eccentric doodler. I can’t think of a single instance of Bowers’ mad visuals that is not, in some way, derivative of animation techniques – and that was obviously Bowers’ bailiwick.

Muller’s background in Kinemacolor and early talkie technology shows that he had an abundance of technological savvy, and this was surely a crucial and indispensable resource for devising the films' trick effects. But I don’t think Bowers could have been inept on that score either. (It’s interesting to note that, on the 1930 census, Bowers actually listed his career as that of “inventor” – much like Walter Wright, I think – although it’s not clear what he actually “invented.”) Perhaps the relationship was a collaborative meeting of minds between a skilled camera technician and an eccentric tinkerer?

Anyway, all hypothesis and speculation on my part. I haven’t come across any evidence myself that gives any concrete indication of the nature of their collaboration.

The fact, especially considering Bowers own considerable ego, that Bowers was willing to give both directorial and writing credits to Muller speaks volumes as to the amount of Muller's contributions. Despite the "famous Bowers process" which was nothng more than stop motion animation and a combination of still photographs combined with live miniatures (was Bowers ever actually able to patent this as something truly of his own?), Bowers was indeed getting into new territory for himself when he started making two-reel, live action comedies. Even some of the Educational Press Releases gives Muller credit for his contribution, in and around Bowers various tall tales about himself. The final fact that Bowers made practically no live-action films without Muller is also indication of the man's importance. However, a symbiotic creative relationship is exactly what I was implying, Bowers had the crazy creative side, Mueller was able to make it happen, and may have also been the one to be able to turn Bower's rambling visuals into something coherent narratively.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Mark Mayerson]

Izzy Klein's articles on Charles Bowers from Cartoonist Profiles can be found here:
http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/sp ... mit=Search

[Steve Massa]

Here's a bit of a puff piece from the 5/8/1926 issue of the Moving Picture World (pg. 164) about the begining of Bower's Whirlwind series:

"F.B.O.'S "WHIRLWIND COMEDIES" FINE INNOVATION IN DIVISION OF SHORT FILMS
Imagine the Leviathan, a ferryboat and a tug playing lep-frog up the Hudson River! Just think of Jack Dempsey and Harry Wills as pals. Or Washington Monument bowing every time the President passes, or anything that you can conjure up that seems impossible, and you will have an idea of the startling and surprising nature of the "Whirlwind Comedies" which Film Booking Offices will present during the coming season.

Not animated drawings, but real honest-to-goodness people and objects which are made to do the seemingly impossible through the "Bowers Process," which has been perfected by Charley Bowers, producers of the comedies which F.B.O. describe as "gales of laughter."

INVENTOR WORKED FOR YEARS ON PROCESS
Charley Bowers has been working for years on his process. Although he does not use double exposure, superimposing nor drawings, he is able to make both animate and inanimate do almost conceivable things on the screen. No one else konws the process. No one else can make such pictures and no one but Film Booking Offices wil distribute them.

Starting his career at the age of six, when he was kidnapped by a curcus and kept until he was nine, Bowers has had a unique and busy life, finally becoming one of the most widely known newspaper cartoonists in the country. Then he became an actor and later stage director, putting on some of the most successful plays shown on New York's Broadway. Naturally he got into motion pictures, as actor, director and scenarist, and all the time he has been working on his process.

STUDIOS LOCATED IN LONG ISLAND CITY
When it was perfected he built his own studios in Long Island City and made, for one of the biggest oil operators in the country, a six-reel history of the oil industry, using his extraordinary process for gushers and other surprising effects.

Then Bowers made a two-reel comedy, first of what will be the "Whirlwind" comedies released by Film Booking Offices. He called it "Egged ON," and showed it to exhibitors. They all wanted to release the series. One of the most important London distributors, who was in the country, offered to pay for the entire cost of the negative for the Great Britain rights. One of the largest pictures corporations in the country asked Bowers to quit making the comedies and take himself and his process to its studio and make big feature pictures. The officals made out and signed a check, leaving the amount blank.

BOWERS REFUSES LARGE SUM TO SELL OUT
"Fill in the amount to suit yourself," Bowers was told.

"I can't write in less than seven figures," said Bowers.

"Make it even more," was the answer.

But Bowers elected to make his own pictures and continue with his comedies. He looked the situation over and decided that he liked Film Booking Offices and its methods the best. So Film Booking Offices got the contract to distribute the comedies. And the exhibitors and motion picture goers will reap the benefit next season for there is and never has been anything like Bowers' "Whirlwind" comedies."


The bio information must have come from Bowers, and while the newspaper cartoonist info jibs (The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Star, among others), I haven't been able to verify anything about his work as a stage actor and director "putting on some of the most successful plays shown on New York's Broadway." I work in the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, where we have possibly the largest collection of New York theatre info in the world, and there's not a scrap about him in any theatre work, only animation and film.

Steve