Fleischer, Max
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Film.
(1883-1972) Polish-born animator, inventor, film producer and author, in US from 1887. His invention of the Rotoscope (patented 1915), allowing animated figures to be traced from live action images, was significant in the early history of cartoon Cinema. With his brothers Dave Fleischer (1894-1979) and Lou Fleischer (1889-1976), he founded Fleischer Studios in 1921, where he made a short documentary, The Einstein Theory of Relativity (1923), which was put into book form by Garrett P Serviss, and was responsible for the introduction of several famous cartoon characters, including Betty Boop; Fleischer Studios also produced cartoon series featuring such figures as Popeye the Sailor and Superman, and the feature-length Gulliver's Travels (1939) directed with Dave Fleischer (see Gulliver). From about 1943, he was inactive in cinema.
Fleischer is also of moderate sf interest for his only novel, Noah's Shoes (1944), in which Prehistoric SF elements and a fantasy narrative cohabit uneasily, though with some speculations in evolutionary Biology neatly fitted into the mix. [JC]
Max Fleischer
born Kraków, Poland: 19 July 1883
died Los Angeles, California: 11 September 1972
works
- Noah's Shoes (Detroit, Michigan: S J Bloch Publishing Company, 1944) [hb/uncredited]
links
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