“BURY THE AXIS” 1943 LOU BUNIN STOP-MOTION ANIMATION WWII PROPAGANDA XD38894

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This 1943 stop-motion animated Cinecolor short directed by Lou Bunin, a former Hollywood puppeteer, was released by Paramount Pictures as part of a British propaganda effort to vilify the leaders of the Axis powers during World War II. Puppets of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito are given the business by unseen Allied Forces in an unusual piece of musical animation (TRT: 6:45).

Opening titles, “Bury the Axis” (0:10). A flying stork carries a baby wrapped in white cloth. Upon smelling the baby, the stork is repulsed (0:22). The stork lets go of the baby, and the child drops through the roof of a house, landing in the middle of the floor. The house bears the name, “Schicklgruber,” the surname of Hitler’s paternal grandmother (0:50). The baby bundle produces a pistol and shoots at the stork (1:00). Upon firing, he becomes an adult version of the German fascist Adolf Hitler in caricature. Hitler blows his nose into a handkerchief with a swastika on it (1:08). Hitler marches while goose-stepping, singing a song about his conquests in Europe. A flock of geese in military garb join his crusade across the Maginot Line and the Rhine river (1:23). A goose wearing a Philippe Petain general’s hat is kicked away during a line about hiring 5th Column Frenchmen (1:45). After entering Russia, Hitler quickly retreats, covered with bandages, sans goose. “I think maybe my goose was cooked in Moscow” (1:59). Hitler whistles and a caricature of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini makes an entrance from a doghouse with doric columns (2:22). Mussolini wears a swastika and sings a demeaning song about being secondary to Hitler. “I can bark louder than he.” Mussolini retreats into his kennel (2:36). Japanese Emperor Hirohito appears in the form of a slithering snake (3:10). An approximation of Japanese music accompanies a sequence in which a puppet of Hirohito fires a machine gun, then bows, revealing a sword hidden behind his back. Next, Hirohito does an acrobatic act with a bomb. “We only bomb people for fun” (3:13). The bomb explodes (4:10). The three Axis powers join forces in a tank with a swastika (4:18). Inside, Hitler peers through a periscope. A battlefront hillside represents the nations of China, Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union (5:14). A battle takes place between the warring factions. Hitler shouts orders at Hirohito and Mussolini, who load shells into a tank. A dud fails to launch (5:13). A personalized shell comes for Adolf. The Axis leaders play “hot potato” before an explosion destroys the tank, leaving the trio smoking, then humiliated, their heads stuck in the barrels of their own guns (5:58). Allied flags wave victoriously (6:35).

Animator Lou Bunin was also known as a mural artist, a producer of educational films, and an educator at the School of Visual Arts. In 1949, he produced a European feature-length live-action/animated hybrid adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” in a style similar to this film. Disney sued to prevent a U.S. release, annoyed that Bunin’s work was in potential competition with their own animated Alice adaptation. Lou Bunin is also remembered for the puppet animation used in 1950s TV commercials for the hair grooming product Brylcreem.

The stop-motion animated puppets in this film were constructed with heads sculpted in wax, then cast in a thin coating of latex rubber. Replacement heads with poseable wire lips were bolted onto woven wire armatures. In recent years, production stills from the making of this short revealed that it was shot on Kodachrome film, and that cut scenes involved Hitler killing a military guard and wilting flowers with his presence.
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