Born February 1, 1908 in Cegléd, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary) the son of stage entertainers, George Marczincsak was educated at the Budapest Academy of Arts, graduating in 1928 with a degree in architecture. Highly skilled at drawing, with no prospects for a job as an architect, he went to work for Hunnia Films in Budapest. There he drew lobby posters and created embellished titles for silent films. He also learned the craft of motion picture cartooning.

In 1930, Marczincsak married Elizabeth Josepha (Zsoka) Grandjean with whom he would have two sons and remain married to until his death. In 1931, he went to work for UFA Studios in Berlin where he became head of the cartoon department. With the rise of the Nazis, he moved first to Prague, then Paris and then Eindhoven in the Netherlands. It was there that he met American filmmaker Dave Bader who came up with the name for his three-dimensional cartoons: “Puppetoons”. Changing his name to Pal, he and his wife repeatedly applied for American visas only to be turned down because the quotas for Hungarians was small and quickly filled. Finally, in 1939 the American consulate granted a visa for them and their first son (born in 1937) to leave for New York where he was offered a lectureship at Columbia University.

Offered a job by Paramount, Pal and his family moved to Beverly Hills in 1940. Their second son was born in 1941. From 1941 to 1947, Pal made more than forty Puppetoon films, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Short Subject, Cartoons in each of those years and an honorary Academy Award at the 1943 awards for his work. His cartoon staff included such future legends as Willis H. O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen. His friends included fellow animators Walter Lantz whose Woody Woodpecker appeared in cameos in Pal’s later feature films, and Walt Disney.

Pal began working as a producer of feature films in 1948. His first released film was 1950’s The Great Rupert, quickly followed by Destination Moon, When Worlds Collide, The War of the Worlds, Houdini, The Naked Jungle and Conquest of Space. He made his belated debut as a feature film director with 1958’s Tom Thumb which won an Oscar for its special effects.

H.G. Wells’ estate was so enamored of Pal’s 1953 version of The War of the Worlds that they offered Pal his pick of Wells’ properties to film. He chose The Time Machine (1960) as his second directorial feature. He would direct just three more, 1961’s Atlantis, the Lost Continent, 1962’s The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and 1964’s 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. He would produce just two more after that, 1968’s The Power and 1975’s Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze after that.

Eternally optimistic, Pal never dwelled on his past achievements. He always said his favorite film was his next one. Sadly, many of his proposed projects never saw the light of day. A sequel to When Worlds Collide was rejected due to the box office failure of Conquest of Space. His planned film version of Logan’s Run (later made in 1976) was rejected due to the poor returns of The Power. When the Sleeper Wakes was rejected as being too much like Woody Allen’s Sleeper in production at the same time. His sequel to The Time Machine was rejected as being in-conflict with Nichols Meyer’s Time After Time in production at the same time.

George Pal had two films in various stages of production that were not completed due to his untimely death of a heart attack on May 2, 1980. He was 72. His beloved wife Zsoka lived for another twenty years, dying on April 6, 2002. She was 92.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953), directed by Byron Haskin

Pal’s film of H.G. Wells’ 1897 novel changed its setting from Victorian England to contemporary California in-the-midst of the Cold War. It would the first production of Wells’ work since Orson Welles’ 1938 radio version scared the wits out of audiences who thought the depicted Mars invasion was really happening. It would be the first, and best, of five film versions to date. With a cast led by Gene Barry, Ann Robinson and Les Tremayne, it would go on to win an Oscar for its still impressive special visual effects. It was selected for entry in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2011.

TOM THUMB (1958), directed by George Pal

Pal’s directorial debut was based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Thumbing, not on the P.T. Barnum entertainer. It starred Russ Tamblyn as the boy the size of a thumb who is the adopted son of lumberjack Bernard Miles and his wife Jessie Matthews with Alan Young and June Thornton as the young lovers and Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers as the film’s villains as well as Pal’s Puppetoons. The songs are by Peggy Lee. Oddly, the singing voice of Matthews, who was a legendary song and dance star in British films of the 1930s, is dubbed by Norma Zimmer. The film won an Oscar for its special effects.

THE TIME MACHINE (1960), directed by George Pal

Pal’s film of H.G. Wells’ 1895 novella is more faithful to the original work than his film of Wells’ The War of the Worlds. Rod Taylor, Alan Young, Yvette Mimieux, Sebastian Cabot and White Bissell co-star. Once again, it became a Pal film that won an Oscar for its special effects. Wells later wrote a sequel, Time Machine: The Journey Back which was never filmed, in part because MGM rejected Wells’ first three scripts, and later when it might have been made, Nicholas Meyer’s Time After Time stole its thunder and a year less than a year later, Pal died.

7 FACES OF DR. LAO (1964), directed by George Pal

Tony Randall plays the mysterious wanderer who is 7,322 years old in this audience favorite about a traveling circus for which Frank Tuttle received an honorary Oscar for his makeup. Arthur O’Connell, John Ericson, Barbara Eden, Noah Beery, Jr., Royal Dano, John Doucette, Lee Patrick, Minerva Urecal and John Qualen co-star. Marjorie Main has a cameo. The seven faces of Dr. Lao, in addition to his own, include Merlin (the great magician), Pan (the God of love), the Serpent, Medusa (the fabled monster), Apollonius of Tyana (the blind fortune teller) and the Abominable Snowman.

THE POWER (1968), directed by Byron Haskin

Directed by special effects wizard Byron Haskin, who also directed Pal’s productions of The war of the Worlds and The Naked Jungle, it’s all in the mind in this one starring George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshette in a mystery built around the use of telekinesis in committing a series of murders. Its superb eclectic supporting cast includes Michael Rennie, Yvonne de Carlo, Aldo Ray, Gary Merrill, Arthur O’Connell, Vaughn Taylor, Nehemiah Persoff, Richard Carlson, Earl Holliman, Miiko Taka, Celia Lovsky, Ken Murray and Barbara Nichols.

GEORGE PAL AND OSCAR

• Rhythm in the Ranks (1941) – nominated – Best Short Subject – Cartoons
• Tulips Shall Grow (1942) – nominated – Best Short Subject – Cartoons
• The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943) – nominated – Best Short Subject – Cartoons
• Honorary Award (1943) – Oscar – For the development of novel methods and techniques in the production of short subjects known as Puppetoons
• And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1944) – nominated – Best Short Subject – Cartoons
• Jasper and the Beanstalk (1945) – nominated – Best Short Subject – Cartoons
• John Henry and the Inky-Poo (1946) – nominated – Best Short Subject – Cartoons
• Tubby the Tuba (1947) – nominated – Best Short Subject – Cartoons