Marching Along

Director: James Tyer
Release Date: October 27, 1933
Stars: The Little King
Rating: ★★
Review:

Of all animation films dealing with the Great Depression, the Oswald cartoon ‘Confidence‘ and the Little King short ‘Marching Along’ are the most obvious ones.

‘Marching Along’ opens with the kingdom of the Little King in dire straits. The song describes its miserable state, which we can watch with our own eyes: everybody’s broke, roads and buildings are broken and even the Little King himself is robbed of his furniture and clothes, because he can’t pay his debts.

Then the queen announces the N.R.A., lifting everybody’s spirit. Soon everything works again (composer Gene Rodemich quotes Jack Hylton’s optimistic 1930 hit song ‘Happy Days are here Again’ during this section), and the cartoon closes with the Little King bombarding an angry mob with food.

The N.R.A. stands for National Recovery Act, an important part of fresh president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. It was raised to stop a competitive race to the bottom, and negotiated with the industry to have minimum prizes, minimum wages and maximum weekly working hours. Unfortunately it also endorsed monopolies and cartels, and it was poorly administrated.

The National Recovery Act lasted until 1935, when it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. By 1935 it had achieved little of its promises, and it’s generally viewed as a failure, making its high praise in ‘Marching Along’ extra sour in hindsight.

‘Marching Along’ is even more removed from Otto Soglow’s source material than its predecessor ‘The Fatal Note‘ was. The designs are a mixed bag, sometimes copying Soglow’s style, at other times being genuinely Van Beuren. The Little King himself has only a small part in the story, which is slow and tiring, and in fact only interesting because of its historical value.

Watch ‘Marching Along’ yourself and tell me what you think: