A cause for animation: Harry Reade and the Cuban Revolution Max Bannah This thesis is submitted in the Visual Arts Department, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts (Research), February 2007. Abstract This monographic study examines the life of the Australian artist Harry Reade (1927­1998), and his largely overlooked contribution to animation within historical, social, political and cultural contexts of his time. The project constitutes a biography of Reade, tracing his life from his birth in 1927 through to his period of involvement with animation between 1956 and 1969. The biography examines the forces that shaped Reade and the ways in which he tried to shape his world through the medium of animation. It chronicles his experiences as a child living in impoverished conditions during the Great Depression, his early working life, the influence of left wing ideology on his creative development, and his contribution to animation with the Waterside Workers’ Federation Film Unit, in Sydney. The study especially focuses on the period between 1961 and 1969 during which Reade supported the Cuban Revolution’s social and cultural reform process by writing and directing animated films at the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (Cuban Institute of the Art and Industry of Cinema – ICAIC), in Havana. The thesis argues that Reade played a significant role in the development of Cuban animation during the early years of the Cuban Revolution. Further, his animated work in this cultural sphere was informed by a network of political alliances and social philosophies that were directly linked to his experiences and creative development in Australia. Theoretical approaches to biographical method and animation studies have been used to provide a cohesive framework for an investigation of Reade’s life and animation work. The thesis also draws on Reade’s autobiography and his animated works, oral histories, newspaper articles, press cartoons, illustrations, photographs, and official government archival documents. This project also has an archival purpose in collecting and compiling Reade’s animation work onto CD. Keywords Harry Reade; Australian animation; Cuban animation; Waterside Workers’ Federation Film Unit; social realism; Australian social history 1930s – 1950s. Declaration The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made. Signature: ………………………………………………………………………........ Date: ………………………………………………………………………………….. Contents Acknowledgements Introduction .................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 – A Wobbly Road: political and social influences on Reade’s early life (1927­1954)............................................................................................ 19 Chapter 2 – On the Waterfront: creative influences and development (1954­ 1956)............................................................................................................ 38 Chapter 3 – Wharfie Animation.................................................................... 62 Chapter 4 – Our Man in Havana .................................................................. 88 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 130 Appendix I.................................................................................................. 140 Bibliography ............................................................................................... 150 Appendix II…….. DVD compilation of animation by Harry Reade (1956­1969) Acknowledgements I owe thanks to Assoc. Professor Dr David Hawke, then of the Queensland University of Technology’s Visual Arts Department, for supporting my interest in animation studies and encouraging me to undertake this project. I am grateful to my supervisor, Dr Mark Pennings, for his direction and guidance throughout the course. My gratitude also goes to my associate supervisor, Dr Andrew McNamara, who offered constructive comments as the chapters were drafted. Much of the information presented in this study has been made possible by people who were kind enough to share their memories of Harry Reade with me. I wish to thank Norma Disher, Jock Levy, Clem Millward, David and Pat Evans, Paddy McGuinness, Juan Padrón, Hernán Henriquez, Juan Lopez Fernández and Harry Tanner for their generous contributions and support. Special thanks go to the caretaker of Harry Reade’s estate, Pat Evans, for granting me access to Reade’s unpublished autobiographical manuscript. I am also grateful to veteran animators, Alex Stitt, Bruce Petty and Anne Joliffe who offered their recollections of Australian animation during the 1950s. I should also like to thank the institutions that have helped me by providing documents. This includes the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Maritime Union of Australia, the National Film and Sound Archive, the Cuban Institute of the Art and Industry of Cinema (Instituto Cubano de Arte y Industria Cinematográficos – ICAIC) and the Fryer Library. My sincere thanks go to friends and colleagues who made my task a little easier; to QUT Creative Industries academic and library staff, particularly liaison librarian Ellen Thompson, for unveiling the secrets of internet information retrieval; to William Berry who translated important email texts from Spanish to English, and to Ian Hutson who transferred film files onto the accompanying CD. Introduction 1 Introduction The idea for this study grew out of a bar conversation I had in 1982 with Juan Padrón – one of Cuba’s most prolific animation artists (Bendazzi, G., 1994, p.387). We were in Zagreb attending the Fifth World Festival of Animated Films and met at the festival’s guest hotel. We shared a common interest in the animated films being screened and managed to communicate with each other through a mangled hybrid of ‘Spanglish’ and drawings on bar napkins. Padrón asked me if I knew of an Australian, Harry Reade, who had taught him animation skills in Cuba during the 1960s. I had not heard of Reade, nor was his name familiar to me through my knowledge of Australian animation history. Who was Harry Reade and what was his involvement with animation? This was the question that sparked my initial interest in how and why a little known Australian animator had moved between two worlds that were so different. During the early 1960s, Cold War tensions were heightened by Fidel Castro’s 1959 social revolution, the notorious CIA­backed Bay of Pigs invasion (1961), and the stand off between the Soviet Union and the USA over missile bases in Cuba (1962). These events polarised world opinion in the ideological and economic struggles between proletarian revolution and democratic capitalist states that dominated the geo­political situation at the time. In Australia, under the conservative rule of Robert Menzies and the Liberal Party­Country Party coalition, the 1950s and 60s were considered to be an era of political stability and prosperity. The forces in support of consumer capitalism zealously denounced the communist ‘menace’. During this period, two significant events defined the Australian government’s attitude towards communism. In 1951, the Menzies’ led government attempted to ban the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) via the Communist Party dissolution bill, which was narrowly defeated in both the High Court and a Federal referendum. The bill also played an active role in what became known as the Petrov affair. In 1954, with alleged evidence of Russian spying activities in Introduction 2 Australia, Soviet embassy diplomats Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov were encouraged by Menzies to defect from the Soviet Union. The emotions stirred by the affair caused a split in Labor Party ranks and led to the emergence of the staunchly anti­communist Democratic Labor Party. For many years to follow, this rift within the Labor Party was an important factor in Menzies’ subsequent election successes. In light of this political climate, the possibility of a relaxed cultural exchange between Australian and Cuban animators was remote. The polarisation of world politics was reflected in cultural forms produced by either side. In animation, the established commercial orientation of mainstream Australian practice was diametrically opposed to productions supporting the ideological imperatives of Cuba’s socialist revolution. Reade, therefore, seemed to be an anomaly as it was difficult to comprehend that he had emerged from Menzies’ Australia to make a cultural impact on Cuban society. At some stage in our conversation, Padrón depicted a vampire character from his animated short­film, Filminuto No.1(1982), which had screened at the Festival. In the drawing the character asks a second vampire, “What sort of bloody vampire are you?” Wearing a broad­brimmed hat with dangling corks – the iconic device associated with chasing flies off the face of an Australian swagman – the second figure replies, “Bloody Australia, mate.” The image is a whimsical statement about the way in which similarities outweigh the differences between two strangers. However, I was struck by the pun on the word ‘bloody’ in the voice bubbles