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Auction History Result 7a0312 IT'S A BIRD 1sh 1930 Charley Bowers metal-eating bird, stop motion animation, ultra rare! Date Sold 12/27/2020 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Theatrical Folded One-Sheet Movie Poster (1sh; measures 27" x 41" [69 x 104 cm]) (Learn More) It's a Bird, the 1930 Harold L. Muller Africa stop-motion animation comedy short ("A Lowell Thomas 'tall story'"; "The metal eating bird"; "The most mystifying short ever produced"; "Original comedy novelty made by the Bowers' process"; about a junk man who goes on Lowell Thomas' radio show and tells him about a mysterious African bird that literally eats junk that no one wants, including metal, and in flashback, he tells how he went to Africa in search of this "Belgish Kongo" bird, and he is able to trap it with the help of a talking worm!) starring Charles R. Bowers (billed as "Charley Bowers"), and Lowell Thomas (who apparently was a friend of Bowers and appeared in the framing device, with Bowers as his radio guest). Note that Charley Bowers was a remarkable man, who is sadly completely forgotten today, except by major movie and cartoon buffs. He was born in 1877, and as a child, he worked in circus acts and also was a bronco buster! He became a cartoonist and was involved in early movie cartoons, writing, producing, and directing the entire Mutt and Jeff series of cartoons in the 1920s. In 1925, he became fascinated with stop-motion photography and he invented a new process that made it work much better, and allowed "animated" stop-motion creations to be side-by-side with live action (and this was years prior to the stop-motion used in King Kong in 1933)! Between 1925 and 1928, he made 43 silent comedy shorts using his techniques, and he appeared in many of them, often as an inventor. In 1930, he made his first sound comedy short, "It's a Bird", and it was many decades ahead of its time, and sadly, it did not get the acclaim it should have received, and Bowers' career after this time was pretty limited, only making a few more films. He passed away in 1946, after a long illness. He (and his movies) certainly deserves to be re-discovered by present day fans of film, cartoons, and stop-motion! NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography. If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know. Important Added Info: Note that we have only previously auctioned one example of this one-sheet, and it sold for $681! The person who bought it from us has reconsigned it to us so it is still the only example of this poster we have ever auctioned! Also note that, as noted above, this forgotten comedy short was Charley Bowers' masterpiece of stop-motion! Not only have we never auctioned any movie paper from it before, but we also have never auctioned any movie posters from his many other silent comedy shorts, just a few lobby cards! Condition: good to very good. The poster has 1" of separation at the bottom two crossfolds, with small paper loss at the middle crossfold in the solid green area. It has several extra long creases scattered in the poster, with tiny paper loss in the center of the top border. After a simple linenbacking, the poster will look fantastic and require next to no restoration paint anywhere in the poster. Learn More about condition grades 
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