Director: Joop Geesink
Production Date: September 1942
Rating: ★★★★
Review:

Serenata nocturna © Toonder studio's‘Serenata nocturna’ is the first collaboration between two Dutch animation film pioneers, Marten Toonder and Joop Geesink.

The collaboration results in a charming little advertising film about a Mexican who tries to serenade his love, to no avail. He tries several instruments, without success. But then he magically produces a Philips Radio, and finally his love is impressed.

The puppet animation in this short is very reminiscent of that of George Pal, the Hungarian animator, who had an important puppet film studio in Eindhoven in the late 1930s, and who had made several films for Dutch electronics company Philips himself. Pal, however, had exchanged The Netherlands for the United Kingdom, and finally emigrated to the United States in December 1939, leaving The Netherlands without any animation studio of importance. Now, Toonder and Geesink tried to fill this gap. Perhaps, Philips would be interested to commission films from them.

However, the inexperience of both animators shows: the animation still looks primitive, with a lot of excessive movement. The short’s story, however, is funny and still entertaining today. Indeed, Philips saw potential, and would become an important commissioner to both film makers.

Toonder would soon abandon stop motion, but Geesink would continue in the field, creating one of the most successful stop motion animation studios of the post-war era.

Watch ‘Serenata nocturna’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘Serenata nocturna’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’