Director: George Pal
Release Date: December 26, 1941
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
In ‘Rhythm in the Ranks’ the action already starts during the opening titles, when we watch a package unwrap itself. The package reveals to contain a battalion of toy soldiers, who quickly come to life.
Our hero is ‘Little Jim’, a toy soldier who has to carry a large cannon. When he meets a skating girl in Dutch costume, he forgets the cannon. He gets punished, having to paint the barracks, which he does with invisibility paint, anticipating the Donald Duck short ‘The Vanishing Private‘ (1942), which uses the same story idea.
Both the vanishing paint and the cannon come in handy, when an evil army invades the countryside, although it remains pretty unclear how our hero conquers the foreign troops. Nevertheless, in the end he’s decorated and earns a kiss from the Dutch girl.
‘Rhythm in the Ranks’ is a charming, but uneven cartoon that suffers from an erratic story. The models, colors and staging, on the other hand, are top notch, as always in Pal’s works. The trickery used to make things becoming invisible is very well done.
The evil army of mindless robots, which invade the toy countryside reflect the war era. Yet, Pal’s film never becomes really topical, sticking to the fairy tale world of wonder. ‘Rhythm in the Ranks’ makes great use of two Raymond Scott compositions: ‘Toy Trumpet’ for the marching soldiers, and ‘Powerhouse’ to accompany the evil army.
‘Rhythm in the Ranks’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Puppetoon Movie’
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 16, 2019 at 08:44
Alice Grob
Geen filmpjes meer erbij? En wel reclame? Is er iets gewijzigd in beleid? Wat ook handig zou zijn: aangeven hoe lang filmpjes zijn. Je moedertje
February 16, 2019 at 11:18
Gijs Grob
Niet alles is op internet te vinden. De films van George Pal zijn helaas niet te vinden.