The Figurehead

A poem of unrequited love: the studio's first puppet production. Based on a poem by Cosbie Garstin, the film tells the story of a carved wooden saint who is painted to look like a soldier and used as a figurehead on a sailing ship. The ship sinks and the figurehead is saved by a beautiful mermaid who falls in love with him. Her love is not returned because despite his dashing looks he has the wooden heart of a saint.

A large tree stump is wheeled past the minister of a local church and laid upon the ground ready to be sculpted into a beautiful statue. Upon completion, though, the priest doesn't care for it so it's creator chucks a tin of paint over this angelic looking character and sells it to a ship for use as the harbinger of it's voyages the world over. One of these travels sees it strike a silver-voiced mermaid, who falls in love with the inanimate effigy and visits it every evening. Her affections are unrequited, though, and so she asks her father to conjure up a mighty storm to sink the ship. All that is left afloat is the sculpture which she takes to her green grotto down in the depths where now, trapped for eternity, he must listen to her songs of love and despair. The animation is super here: the stop motion elements and the visual effects that superimpose the characters (especially the fish) onto the imagery is quite stunning for the time. Robert Beatty's gravelly narration delivers the gist of the Crosbie Garstin poem succinctly and emotively and this really does merit seven minutes of your time.