Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Expected more

A different way of telling a story

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

It is a cliché of his earlier work following the same premise as "Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics" from 1911 where he made a bet with some colleagues that he can make a moving picture from his drawings. It also includes the same gag of someone dropping/knocking over stacks of thousands of papers. Gertie the Dinosaur's movements are quite repetitive and not nearly as incredible as some of McCay's earlier work. It doesn't have 12 minutes worth of material, and would have been better if its running time was cut in half. It is still very impressive for its time but not nearly McCay's best work.

Credited with featuring the first-ever instance of animation on celluloid, this one's place in movie history is thus forever assured; yet, that alone hardly makes it eligible for a place on polls compiling the all-time best films (which is the main reason I got round to watching it)! Incidentally, the on-screen title here is actually "Winsor McCay: America's Greatest Cartoonist and Gertie" – with editions of it available online running anywhere between 6 (cutting to the chase, as it were, by eliminating the live-action bookends and showing only the prehistoric action involving the "dinosuarus") and 14 minutes (including expository footage of N.Y.C.'s Museum of Natural History)!The 'plot' revolves around a bet made by McCay to his once equally illustrious friends that he can 'breathe life' anew into a gigantic ancient fossil; the group is completely won over (and, needless to say, so was the general public of the time) by his achievement – which was considerable, given that he states it took some 10,000 sketches to fully execute! The primitive drawings – understandable for a century-old pioneering effort, yet perfectly fitting in view of the subject matter – still have a certain charm to them, particularly in conveying Gertie's unruly behaviour; special effects are then incorporated into the finale, where McCay is seen 'riding' his own creation!

This is an odd little film featuring Winsor McCay--the creator of Gertie the Dinosaur and Little Nemo. And, just as in his first Little Nemo film, much of this film features Winsor McCay with his friends (all animators and lovers of animation) and only in the second half do you get to see Gertie. Ostensively, the film is about a bet Winsor made with his friends that he can make a dinosaur come to life--and he does in the form of a short cartoon featuring the lovable character "Gertie". While Gertie is very crude and simple compared to later color cartoons, there is still a lot of charm in the character and the film is a wonderful time capsule. Of great importance to Cinephiles and lovers of early animation.

Winsor McCay did a great many things of which he could be justifiably proud, but I think Gertie the Dinosaur ranks at the top of that lengthy list of accomplishments and I suspect McCay may have felt the same way, for it is still remarkable all these years later. Gertie is more life-like than some people I know! Funny, believable, touching and fascinating, sometimes all at once. This is one of the cornerstones of modern animation and also succeeds on its own terms and merits as both art and entertainment. Winsor McCay grew unhappy and somewhat disgruntled and disillusioned as animation became, in his eyes, more commercial and less artistically inclined. I've often wondered what McCay would have made of the independents, such as Will Vinton and Bill Plympton, among others, and the different forms, like Claymation and the stop-motion work of George Pal and others. I hope he would be pleased with at least some of the work done in the last 90 or so years. An absolute gem. If you haven't seen Gertie, I envy you for the treat you have in store. She's a delight. Well worth getting. Most highly recommended.