Moonland - Neil E. McGuire


Rental Format(s): Digital File

Co-makers: Neil E. McGuire and William O'Connor
Original format: 35mm silent film 1.33:1
Script: Neil E. McGuire
Featuring: Mickey McBan
New music: Eric Beheim

Through the use of Neil McGuire's' limited motion graphics technique, a conventional program filler transforms itself into a psychedelic science fiction illustration gone berserk. While famed child actor Mickey McBan searches for the "man in the moon," he wanders across fantastic vistas of the strange places he visits in his dreams, actually oversized and wildly elaborate background paintings superimposed with the live action. The effect is stunning and reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz film minus the Technicolor. The lineage of this type of painted process shot should be of no surprise seeing McGuire's former film art business partner Warren A. Newcombe had collaborated together and invented a similar method in 1922 for the experimental short The Enchanted City, and 17 years later in 1939 Newcombe made the process paintings of Emerald City for MGM's Oz. -Bruce Posner

Neil E. McGuire (1893-1972), a film director, producer and various other capacities on budget shorts, such as The Crooning Composer (1932), The Man on the Flying Trapeze (1944) and There's a Girl in My Heart (1949). Of special interests are the 29 inventive "Hymnalogue" films of the 1940s and 50s. These short low-budget visualizations of church hymns were created by Neil McGuire Productions and (ADA) Audio-visual Devotional Aids of North Hollywood, all distributed by Post Pictures Corporation of New York. They include the 1945 Christmas releases: O Little Town of Bethlehem, Silent Night, Jingle Bells, and O Come All Ye Faithful.
-IMDB and James R. Stewart, Jr.

William O'Connor was born on May 26, 1900 in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. He was an assistant director and director, known for Her Splendid Folly (1933), Playthings of Hollywood (1930), A Man's World (1942) and many Westerns for film and television. -MDB Neil McGuire (1893-1972)

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