Hansel and Gretel is a 1954 stop-motion animated theatrical feature film released by RKO Radio Pictures. Production The film is based on Engelbert Humperdinck's opera Hänsel und Gretel, from which its music derives. It was the first American feature-length animated film not made by Disney since 1941's Mr. Bug Goes to Town and the first American feature-length animated film not made with traditional animation. In 1952, Evalds Dajevskis began working for Myerberg Productions to conceptualize the look of the film and design the miniature sets. Dajevskis built the sets out of thick papier-mâché, appliqued paper cutouts and painted backings. The witch's gingerbread house, the Hall of the Angels, and Hansel and Gretel's home were all constructed with trap doors underneath. Because the sets were so large, there was no way to reach and animate the figures except from below. The film was shot in Myerberg's studio in New York. The puppets used in the film were called "kinemins." The bodies of the kinemins were sculpted in clay by James Summers and cast in foam latex by George Butler. Summers also painted the figures. The puppets were built to one-third scale and cost $2,500 each to build. The witch character was renamed Rosina Rubylips. This differs from the original opera in which the witch tells Hansel that her name is Rosine Leckermaul (translated as Rosina Tastymuzzle). The mother and father figures were sculpted to resemble Mildred Dunnock (Death of a Salesman) and Frank Rogier, who supplied their voices. After production, the Hansel and Gretel sets were disassembled, carted away and eventually sold to an amusement park where they were poorly reconstructed in a tent for display. In 1955, vandals looted Myerberg's studio and destroyed the remaining kinemins. In 1965, screenwriter Padraic Colum sold his copy of the screenplay (along with his notebooks, manuscripts, galley proofs and letters) to the Binghamton University Libraries, where it is available for research viewing. In 1971, producer Myerberg donated his personal papers to the library of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Hansel and Gretel is among the productions documented through correspondence, contracts, financial records, promotional materials, reviews and scripts. Cast Anna Russell as Rosina Rubylips, the Witch Mildred Dunnock as Mother Frank Rogier as Father Constance Brigham as Hansel and Gretel Helen Boatwright as Dew Fairy Delbert Anderson as Sandman Apollo Boys’ Choir as Angels and Children Release The film was released on October 10, 1954 in