ARLISS ARCHIVES

What will they think of next! (He said in jest). Those ingenious little movie flip books are fondly remembered for their low-tech way of providing a brief movie clip by printing the frames of motion picture film, one frame per page at a time, then “animated” by simply using your thumb to flip the little pages. And voila! – you’ve got yourself a movie. But until now there has never been a George Arliss Flip Book.

Since the 100th anniversary of Mr. A’s very first film, THE DEVIL, is coming this January 2021, I thought it was most appropriate to create an Arliss flip book. I decided on using the final moments of this film where Mr. A’s character is consumed by flames and sent back to the netherworld. I’ve never made a flip book in my life – next week I turn 70 – but there’s no time like the present to try. So I taxed my ingenuity to copy almost a hundred frame grabs from the video I have of the film. At 24 frames per second I had my choice of material so I decided to copy one frame per half second or so.

Next I had to size the frames to measure about 2.5 x 4.5 inches in order to fit on each page of the flip book. The most time consuming part of the project after printing out the frames was to cut out each frame and paste it on a page of the flip book – strictly in chronological order. This was tedious – but worth the effort.

Finally, the time came to flip the pages and it worked perfectly. Of course, I wanted to share this creation with all Arlissians. So I decided to make a video of the flip book in operation and let it loop so could all enjoy the show. A simple thing but one that has fascinated many generations. Without further ado, here is a unique addition (truly one of a kind) to film history lore: a George Arliss Moving Picture Flip Book. Enjoy!