FAT FEET or FLAT FOOT? Gotta watch this early animation from Mimi Gross & Red Grooms

We are way too excited about this cinematic gem by artists and poet-collaborators Mimi Gross and Red Grooms. "Fat Feet" was recently unearthed by and is viewable at PennSound, along with an extended commentary on the piece. An animated film made in 1965-66 and inspired by the likes of Georges Melies, Emil Kohl, and "the marvelous movie, The Invisible Moving Co, all of which [they] saw from the collections of Joseph Cornell (via Robert Whitman and Rudy Burckhardt)," "Fat Feet" was made with the help of Rudy Burckhardt, Yvonne Jacquette, George Kuchar, Yvonne Andersen, Dominic Falcone, and other "life-sized props with live actors," as Gross put it, recollecting in August. She also said:

When Yvonne Andersen and Dominic Falcone visited us in New York, we planned to make a film together the following summer where they lived near Boston. Red and I had just moved into lively “Little Italy”(1964), a neighborhood where daily fires, violence, and long term elderly residents lived near the Bowery, filled with bums, and (pre-immigration quota) Chinatown. I was busy drawing in the streets, and making objects based on street life, and Red was obsessively chasing fires, fire engines, street life, he was incorporating into his work.

The explosion of making FAT FEET resulted from our excitement living in the new neighborhood. Later, we made an ad, and called FAT FEET: “A day in the life of ‘nervous city’!’”

There are few funny stories making the film. It was pure blood, hard work, but in the end it came out very funny.

We lived at the Falcone’s house (at the time ten feet wide, then a new extension, was added. ) The old lady’s garbage scene took 8 hours to film in 90+ degree weather, heavy face puddy, foam rubber hump, and heavy winter clothes. She was inspired by a typical neighborhood elderly person. Red, as a candybar muncher, was inspired by his gallery dealer at the time. The street sweeper scene was inspired by “the Invisible Moving Co.” The burning building scene took 14 hours to film, using heavy cut out flames of different “life size” scales (little, medium, large, and then variations). We were given a local fire station to film the cardboard hook n ladder and firetruck, very early in the morning. The street scene with the different firemen and trucks was filmed in 2 frame stop action animation near the Boston Fine Arts Museum.

A storefront was rented for one month, in Arlington, Mass (about 75’ long and 25’wide, 8’ceiling).

“Homasote“ (cheapest non warping when new thick cardboard)

Cut with jigsaw, painted on both sides, with removable wood frames.

Lumber and hardware: 1 x 2’s, quick metal connectors, screws, glue (pre hot-glue) staples, hammer

“Savage” seamless paper

Gothic Concentrated Theatrical Paint (black, white, some red and yellow)

Theatrical make-up

Costumes from local thrift shops

16 mm film, Bolex camera (now dvd, and on-line)

Lots of volunteer help!

George Kuchar visited, and helped paint some of the set, but he got out alive before the filming took place! Rudy Burckhardt , Yvonne Jacquette, Tom and Jacob Burckhardt visited while we were filming, and Rudy recommended our calling his old friend James Ackerman whose kids came and helped. My old friend from high school days, Edmund Leites invited his friends at Harvard, and we had students from Yvonne’s workshop helping almost everyday. The title had a specific reference to “being earthbound”.

Andersen has her own perspective:

Red was the writer, director, and acted as a fat man munching a candy bar, a fur coated lady walking her cardboard dog, a fire captain and other characters. I was the cinematographer, editor, and acted in one scene in the movie as a” lady of the evening.” Dominic played the pivotal part of the policeman. Mimi helped with the writing, and played two of the main characters, a witch, and a street bum.

Each morning the four of us along with Dominic and our two children Paul, 7 and Jean, 5 went to the studio to build the sets and props. We painted cartoonish black and white buildings on the paper walls of the set, painted and and constructed ¾ size flat automobiles with movable wheels from heavy building cardboard. Red built a dog which could be animated to walk in front of a live person.

Red was creating a cartoonish atmosphere depicting the types of city people who might be seen walking the street of a big city. For this reason the people wore giant shoes to connect them to the sidewalks. Those shoes were heavy! A normal shoe was screwed into a giant shoe manufactured by Red.

In the beginning this was supposed to be a four person project, but people heard about it. Each night people came to be in the winter crowd scenes. Some were friends of Red and Mimi, some were my animation students and neighbors. We got old coats from Morgan Memorial and there was a large make up table. People could come in, put on a coat, do their own make up, and become who they wanted to be for the evening.

It was summertime and unfortunately our studio had no air conditioning, so we worked on the sets in the day and filmed at night when we could open the doors to disperse the heat of our lights. One night a real policeman walked in, glanced at Dominic in the policeman’s uniform and mumbled in a dissatisfied tone that he heard the name of the film was to be “FLAT FOOT.” We asured him it was “FAT FEET, and he left without further comment.

Got 20 minutes on this lazy Tuesday? Watch it here. Oh, and the adorable, enchanting image above is Mimi and Red with their puppet wagon, 1961. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.