Major Herbert M. Dawley, An Artist's Life: Dinosaurs, Movies, Show-Biz, & Pierce-Arrow Automobiles

by Stephen A. Czerkas

A biography pf Major Herbert Dawley, probably best known for his work on early animated films, some in collaboration with Willis O'Brien and Tony Sarg. The book also includes Dawley's diaries and many illustrations of his work and is accomapnied by a DVD of some of his most notable films.

348 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

A life story remarkable for a couple of reasons, this elaborately designed coffee-table volume is a lengthy account of the life of Herbert Dawley, hardly a household name. Dawley was a creative spirit in an age when a person could go from designing automobile aesthetics to making movies; he was a sculptor, photographer, painter, and inventor of sorts. This book was published primarily to focus on a brief period of his life when he worked with stop-motion animation master Willis O'Brien on The Ghost of Slumber Mountain, a dinosaur fantasy, and then went on to produce another saurian-rich short feature, Along the Moonbeam Trail -- a film believed lost until author Czerkas located a copy. The book is accompanied by a DVD that includes both films plus a selection of Tony Sarg animated shorts that Dawley worked on after his three dimensional stop-motion endeavors ended. Dawley also worked on experimental plays and an early television broadcast that I wish were better covered in the text. The last two-thirds of the volume is a daily diary kept by Dawley after he had resumed his main life work as a director of community theater. I found the diary amusing but overwhelming and couldn't bring myself to do more than skim it. As an account of an artist eking out a living in the age of Apollo, Kennedy's assassination, and changing American values, it's of some interest, but more than I wanted to read.

[Steve Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed this immensely. Naturally, I ate up the portions on Dawley's stop-motion, his very early TV/Radio work, his days working with animator Tony Sarg and ~ because I'm a Jersey Boy ~ his contributions to the Chatham Community Players. Oddly some of the parts I like best were his boyhood memories. Focusing on the the diary portions ~ while essential for documentation purposes, I guess ~ was a hard thing to always do.

I had trouble ordering Major Herbert M. Dawley, An Artist's Life: Dinosaurs, Movies, Show-Biz, & Pierce-Arrow Automobiles online so I had to speak with Sylvia Czerkas on the telephone to straighten things out. That for me was an added bonus.

In this book the pendulum finally swings over to Dawley's side in the great Willis O'Brien-Herbert M. Dawley debate. There is a wee tiny bit of me that wonders whether some discovery might yet again even things out in this "he said, she said" story which is now approaching 100 years old.