Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: January 5, 1934
Stars: Betty Boop, Fearless Freddie
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
Betty is the star in a melodrama with an evil landlord and a classic hero.
Arguably the first Betty Boop cartoon with a clear plot, ‘She Wronged Him Right’ marks the debut of Fearless Freddie, who seems to be designed as Betty’s new suitor (Bimbo, being an animal, was no longer accepted in a Hollywood dominated by the puritan Hays Code). His stay would be short, however, because very soon Betty would lose interest in men altogether, taking the Code even further.
Only nine months later the formula of this cartoon was repeated with less successful results in ‘Betty Boop’s Prize Show’. ‘She Wronged Him Right’ still contains some wonderful metamorphosis gags and some inanimate objects speaking or suddenly growing hands, preserving some of Fleischer’s famous surrealism.
The very idea of Betty performing in a melodrama may have been borrowed from Disney, who had released the comparable ‘Mickey’s Mellerdrammer‘ in 1933.
Watch ‘She Wronged Him Right’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Betty Boop cartoon No. 24
To the previous Betty Boop cartoon: Parade of the Wooden Soldiers
To the next Betty Boop cartoon: Red Hot Mamma
‘She Wronged Him Right’ is available on the French DVD Box Set ‘Betty Boop Coffret Collector’
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February 6, 2024 at 03:37
Babar Lafon
This cartoon is actually based on the Fanny Zilch cartoons produced by Paul Terry in 1933. The character of Fanny Zilch first appeared as a secondary character in the cartoon “King Zilch” (1933), centered on a character of the same name who is himself an absurdist and delirious parody of Otto Soglow’s Little King (the cartoon is also notable for anticipating by a few months the character’s film adaptation produced by Van Beuren Studios), Fanny became the star of a regular series of cartoons from The Banker’s Daughter through to Fanny’s Wedding Day, all from 1933, before finally making much sparser appearances in the years that followed.
February 6, 2024 at 07:20
Gijs Grob
Thank you very much for commenting! I didn’t know this.