You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘★★½’ category.
Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: June 15, 1942
Stars: Superman
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In the seventh Superman short New York is threatened by – whattaya know? – an evil scientist. But this evil scientist is more original than all the others before him: he is of Native American origin and he claims Manhattan for his own people.
Nonetheless, like all other evil scientists before him, he has a machine. His ridiculous machine causes earthquakes by using electricity. Oddly enough, the scientist first makes his threats at the Daily Planet. And when he returns to his secret hideout, Lois, of course, follows him. In his laboratory below sea level the scientist makes Lois watch the destruction of the city.
Luckily, Superman saves Manhattan by destroying the machine. However, he’s only able to rescue Lois because the scientist tells him that she’s still down in his laboratory, which is rapidly filling with water…
In any case the result is yet another routine entry.
Watch ‘Electric Earthquake’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Superman film No. 7
To the previous Superman film: The Magnetic Telescope
To the next Superman film: Volcano
Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: October 10, 1942
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘The Hare-Brained Hypnotist’ was only the sixth encounter between Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny, and only the second by Friz Freleng, but already the routine was ripe for experiment.
In ‘The Hare-Brained Hypnotist’, penned by Michael Maltese, Elmer consults a book on hypnosis to catch Bugs. His hypnosis skill work on a bear, which Elmer makes think it’s a canary. It fails on Bugs however, who in turn manages to hypnotize Elmer, making him think he’s a rabbit. Elmer immediately swaps into a Bugs Bunny routine, leaving Bugs to play the straight guy. But after another hypnosis battle down the rabbit hole, Elmer returns to his former self, fleeing into the distance, while Bugs tells us he’s the B19, referring to the Douglas XB19, a huge experimental bomber plane, which had had its first flight on 27 June 1941.
‘The Hare-Brained Hypnotist’ is not a very funny cartoon. The comedy suffers, because Bugs is forced into the role of the straight guy, a problem the cartoon shares with e.g. ‘Tortoise Beats Hare‘ from 1941. Nevertheless, Elmer’s Bugs Bunnyarisms are quite hilarious, especially in a scene where he makes Bugs eat several carrots at one time.
Watch an excerpt from ‘The Hare-Brained Hypnotist’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2zqdzr
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 13
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Fresh Hare
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Case of the Missing Hare
Director: Bill Justice & Bill Roberts
Release Date: January 4, 1943
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘The Grain that Built a Hemisphere’ is a war time educational short about corn in quite a propagandistic fashion.
The Disney studios made it “under the auspices of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs”, which means that it belongs to the ca. ten films Disney made in the context of America’s ‘good-neighbor policy’ .
‘The Grain that Built a Hemisphere’ is the most propagandistic of the lot. Its tone is set right away when the narrator pompously boosts that “corn is the symbol of a spirit that links the Americas in a common bond of union and solidarity”.
Luckily, the main part of the film is quite insightful, explaining about the origin of corn, and what products it can produce. We learn how inbreeding is used to produce bigger plants and how it can be used as food for livestock (this section reuses footage from ‘Farmyard Symphony‘ from 1938) and as a source for oils, starch, glucose and sugar. And maybe, in the near future, for plastics for all kinds of war machines? Thus ends this educational film as a typical war propaganda short, after all…
Watch ‘The Grain that Built a Hemisphere’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Jack King
Release Date: September 25, 1942
Stars: Donald Duck, Pete
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘The Vanishing Private’ is the second of the Donald in the army cartoons. Like the first, ‘Donald Gets Drafted‘ from four months earlier, it features Pete as Donald’s adversary.
In the opening shot we watch Donald singing the theme song from ‘Donald Gets Drafted’ and painting a huge canon in ridiculously bright colors. Sergeant Pete tells him to make the canon hard to see. Donald does so by using invisible paint from an experimental laboratory. He accidentally falls into the bucket of paint himself, making himself invisible and driving Sergeant Pete mad.
‘The Vanishing Private’ suffers because of two reasons:
1) the invisibility makes Donald all too powerful. It’s therefore hard to sympathize with him, and not with poor Pete. This is a problem shared by other invisibility cartoons, like the Tom & Jerry cartoon ‘The Invisible Mouse‘ (1947).
2) The other Donald army cartoons are all about the pains and annoyances of normal army life, which is absolutely part of their fun. But the subject of ‘The Vanishing Pirate’ is so unlikely, one can hardly relate to it.
The result is not a funny cartoon, making ‘The Vanishing Private’ arguably the weakest of Donald’s army cartoons.
Watch ‘The Vanishing Private’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Donald Duck cartoon No. 35
To the previous Donald Duck cartoon: Donald’s Goldmine
To the next Donald Duck cartoon: Sky Trooper
Director: Jack King
Release Date: May 1, 1942
Stars: Donald Duck, Pete
Rating: ★★½
Review:
The attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, suddenly smacked The United States into war. The war changed the life of many American citizens, including cartoon stars.
Donald Duck was the fourth of these to support the war effort on the big screen, following Porky Pig, Barney Bear and Popeye, who had joined the army and navy, respectively, in July (‘Meet John Doughboy‘) and November 1941 (‘The Rookie Bear, ‘The Mighty Navy‘). Moreover, Popeye had already engaged the enemy in February in ‘Blunder Below‘. Donald was soon followed by Pluto (May 22), and Woody Woodpecker (June).
In ‘Donald Gets Drafted’, Donald enthusiastically signs up for the army, because he wants to fly, especially after seeing posters of very attractive air hostesses in uniform. His rather naive enthusiasm soon is lowered, when he first has to go through a rather rude medical examination only to end up in the infantry, where he’s bullied by sergeant Pete. Donald doesn’t make a very good soldier, much to Pete’s frustration, and ends up peeling potatoes.
‘Donald Gets Drafted’ is the first of six Donald Duck cartoons devoted to Donald’s career in the army. It introduces Pete as Donald’s sergeant, a role he would fulfill in three other of these war cartoons. The Donald Duck army cartoons are noteworthy for their ambiguous propaganda. Donald is far from a model soldier, and the cartoons makes quite some fun of the army superiors, in the form of Pete. It’s difficult to see them as army advertisements. Moreover, five of the six cartoons are devoted to Donald’s timid life at the training camp. Only in his last war cartoon, ‘Commando Duck’ (1944) would Donald leave American soil to kill some enemies.
With its humor being still quite mild, ‘Donald Gets Drafted’ is not the funniest of Donald’s army cartoons. It is noteworthy, however, for revealing that Donald Duck’s second name is Fauntleroy.
Watch ‘Donald Gets Drafted’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Donald Duck cartoon No. 32
To the previous Donald Duck cartoon: Donald’s Snow Fight
To the next Donald Duck cartoon: Donald’s Garden
Director: Panteleimon Sasonov
Release Date: 1941
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘The Vultures’, like ‘4 newsreels‘ and ‘Fascist Boots on our Homeland‘ is a so-called political poster. Like the other two films from 1941 it is soviet propaganda at its most aggressive.
‘The Vultures’ is the least interesting of the set. Its opening shot is its best part: opening with two eyes in the dark, just like ‘The Skeleton Dance‘ (1929). These eyes appear to belong to a fascist vulture. he and the other fascist vultures (battle planes) are chased away and destroyed by the Soviet airfleet in a rather silly and playful-looking air battle, accompanied by heroic march music.
About the director of ‘The Vultures’, Panteleimon Sasonov (1895-1950), little can be found. Giannalberto Bendazzi tells us in his excellent book ‘Cartoons – one hundred years of cinema animation’ that he made an animation film called ‘The Tale of the Pope and Baldo his Servant’ in 1939.
Watch ‘The Vultures’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Vultures’ is available on the DVD box set ‘Animated Soviet Propaganda’
Director: Abe Levitow
Release Date: May 5, 1966
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Puss ‘n’ Boats’ Tom is a coastal guard trying to stop Jerry from entering a ship full of cheese. Surprisingly, this is a continuing story containing no black-out gags.
Unfortunately, the designs and animation are both weak, as is the music by first-timer Carl Brandt. The cartoon does contain some clever ideas, but they never get funny.
Watch ‘Puss ‘n’ Boats’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://tune.pk/video/23936/Tom-And-Jerry-Puss-N-Boats-Episode-147
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 148
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Love, Love My Mouse
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Fillet Meow
Director: Hawley Pratt
Release Date: March 16, 1966
Stars: The Pink Panther
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Pink Pistons’ the Pink Panther buys a new car with anthropomorphic features, but after a race against an old lady he turns it back in again.
This cartoon has a great opening scene of the Pink Panther trying some new models. Unfortunately, the rest of the cartoon does not maintain that level.
Watch ‘Pink Pistons’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Gene Deitch
Release Date: September, 1962
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Tall in the Trap’ is a typical Tom and Jerry chase, brought as a classic western.
The talkative sheriff and cheese shop owner could be missed, but luckily most of the cartoon is devoted to the silent comedy of Tom and Jerry themselves. Co-written by Tedd Pierce at least the gags are good, even if their execution is not. The best gag undoubtedly is the light switch and stairs gag, but this one is ‘borrowed’ straight from the Bugs Bunny cartoon ‘Windblown Hare’ (1949). In fact, the most enjoyable aspects of this cartoon are its opening credits and Steven Konichek’s soundtrack, which for once is scored for solo guitar only (played by George Jirmal). Unfortunately, the Czech composer’s melodies sound more Viennese than American, and add little to the Western atmosphere.
Watch and excerpt from ‘Tall in the Trap’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 124
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Sorry Safari
‘Tall in the Trap’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Tom and Jerry – The Gene Deitch Collection’ and the European DVD-Box ‘Tom and Jerry Collection’
Director: Gene Deitch
Release Date: June, 1962
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Tom chases Jerry at the harbor. There he falls in love with a kitten and he follows her on a cruise ship to the Caribbean. All the time Jerry tries to break their love. He succeeds in the end, and Tom chases Jerry back into the harbor.
Although Jerry is quite unsympathetic in all Gene Deitch’s Tom & Jerry films, his character is particularly nasty in this one. Unlike a Hanna-Barbera Tom & Jerry like ‘Springtime for Thomas’ (1946), one cannot sympathize with Jerry’s actions, as his motive remains unclear.
The calypso cat from the title only plays a small role as Tom’s rival on a Caribbean island, to witch the cat loses his love interest. Nevertheless, the animation of the calypso cat dancing to his own steeldrumming forms the highlight of the cartoon.
Watch ‘Calypso Cat’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 121
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Landing Stripling
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Dicky Moe
‘Calypso Cat’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Tom and Jerry – The Gene Deitch Collection’
Director: Gene Deitch
Release Date: April, 1962
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Landing Stripling’ Jerry helps a small helmeted bird against Tom.
‘Landing Stripling’ is a classic chase cartoon, reminiscent of some Hanna-Barbera Tom & Jerry cartoons, like ‘Little Quacker’ (1950) or ‘The Flying Cat‘ (1952). Unfortunately, the short is too unappealing to stand the comparison. The gags are not that bad, but the silent comedy is ruined by bad timing. Moreover, the sound effect and vocalizations are particularly annoying in this short.
Watch ‘Landing Stripling’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 120
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Mouse into Space
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Calypso Cat
‘Landing Stripling’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Tom and Jerry – The Gene Deitch Collection’
Director: Gene Deitch
Release Date: September 1, 1961
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Switchin’ Kitten’ Tom visits an eerie castle, where Jerry helps a mad scientist with an experiment changing cats into dogs and vice versa. An anonymous cat, thinking he’s a dog, protects Jerry against an incomprehensible Tom.
‘Switchin’ Kitten’ is the first of a series of thirteen Tom & Jerry shorts directed by Gene Deitch, three years after the MGM animation studio had shut down and Hanna & Barbera had left for television. Gene Deitch’s animation team was based in Czechoslovakia, and it had only seen a handful of the classic Hanna & Barbera films.
‘Switchin’ Kitten’ immediately shows their problems: there’s a fairly good story with some great gags, but these are smothered in ugly designs (especially that of Jerry), bad timing, unappealing animation, terrible sound effects and unimaginative music, resulting in a surprisingly unfunny film. One cannot help but thinking that this short was made only to cash in on Tom & Jerry’s popularity. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t get better…
Watch an excerpt from ‘Switchin’ Kitten’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2oflaq
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 115
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Tot Watchers
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Down and Outing
‘Switchin’ Kitten’ is available on the European DVD Box set ‘Tom and Jerry Collection’ and on the DVD-set ‘Tom and Jerry: The Gene Deitch Collection’
Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: April 12, 1965
Stars: The Pink Panther
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Sink Pink’ a Texan hunter builds an ark to lure the animals of the savannah into it.
Sink Pink is the Pink Panther’s fifth film and the first to use dialogue. Unfortunately it’s a bad addition. The Texan hunter’s constant jabbering distracts from the pantomime humor. In the end even the Pink Panther himself speaks, which is even a worse idea. Nevertheless, ‘Sink Pink’ is noteworthy because it’s also the first film in which the Pink Panther shows his unique walk.
Watch ‘Sink Pink’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: David Hand
Release Date: April 13, 1935
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Pluto
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Mickey’s Kangaroo’ Mickey receives a kangaroo for a present.
Pluto grows jealous of the intruder and its little kid, which is expressed with side glances at the audience in extreme close ups, and through a tough and sneaky voice over by Don Brodie. This is a rather weak device to overcome Pluto’s silent character. While Pluto tries to get rid of the little kangaroo, Mickey gets beaten up by mama kangaroo, but he keeps laughing.
As Jim Korkis reveals in ‘The Book of Mouse‘, ‘Mickey’s Kangaroo’ surprisingly is a film based on a true story. In 1934 Walt Disney got two wallabies as a present from Australian wine maker Leo Buring. By the time they arrived at the studio, the two marsupials had given birth to a child. The three wallabies were kept in a pen outside the studio department.
‘Mickey’s Kangaroo’ became Mickey’s last cartoon in black and white, being released even after ‘The Band Concert‘, Mickey’s first one in color. Unfortunately, it’s not a very funny goodbye to the black and white era. Nevertheless, its story line would be reused in ‘Mickey’s Elephant‘ (1936).
Watch ‘Mickey’s Kangaroo’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 75
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey’s Service Station
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey’s Garden
Director: Burt Gillett
Release Date: November 12, 1932
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto
Rating: ★★½
Review:
The Wayward Canary’ follows the same story line as ‘The Barnyard Broadcast‘ (1931) and ‘Mickey’s Revue‘ (1932). Like in these films, a song-and-dance routine is interrupted by numerous animals causing havoc.
This time, Mickey gives Minnie a canary for a present. It appears to have numerous offspring. These little birds escape and fly all over the house. Before they’re all caught, the complete house is wrecked.
Among the numerous gags there’s a surreal one when Pluto and a cat run through a wringer, which renders them flat. By 1932 such extreme body deformities had become extremely rare in Disney cartoons, and soon they would vanish altogether, as they were not in tune with Disney’s search for the ‘plausible impossible’. It was up to Tex Avery at Warner Brothers to revive gags like these in the late 1930s.
Among Minnie’s household there is a lighter with a swastika on it [update: see animation historian David Gerstein’s comment below for an explanation]. She also has signed portraits of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Together with Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, these two actors were the co-founders of United Artists, the company Disney had joined in 1932.
These portraits are the first caricatures of real people in a Mickey Mouse film. Although Mickey and Minnie were only slowly shedding their barnyard background, these signed portraits are not too surprising accessories, considering Mickey’s enormous popularity in the early 1930s. Moreover, they suggest that Mickey and Minnie, although being cartoon characters, live in the real world, among other Hollywood stars. This concept would be developed further in the next year, in the superb ‘Mickey’s Gala Premier‘.
Watch ‘The Wayward Canary’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 48
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Touchdown Mickey
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Klondike Kid
Director: Ub Iwerks
Release Date: January 4, 1930
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Summer’ is the second Silly Symphony in the season mini-series. ‘The merry bugs’ would have been a better title, because the short only focuses on insects (and one spider).
Like the other early Silly Symphonies, there’s only one long sequence of unrelated dance scenes, there’s no story whatsoever, and a lot of the animation is repetitive. This makes ‘Summer’ rather tiresome to watch. It’s undoubtedly the weakest entry of the four seasons, and one of the weakest of all Silly Symphonies. Like ‘Springtime‘ and ‘Autumn‘ it was directed by Ub Iwerks, and somehow, it shows the animator’s lesser ambitions.
Watch ‘Summer’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Silly Symphony No. 6
To the previous Silly Symphony: The Merry Dwarfs
To the next Silly Symphony: Autumn
Director: Walt Disney
Release Date: December 2, 1929
Stars: Mickey Mouse
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘The Haunted House’ is Mickey’s first horror cartoon.
In this short he hides from a rain storm in a house, which appears to be haunted by skeletons. A cloaked skeleton orders Mickey to play on a harmonium, while all the skeletons dance.
This sequence reuses some footage of four skeletons dancing from ‘The Skeleton Dance‘. Unfortunately, the new animation on dancing and playing skeletons is hardly as good, and the dancing sequence feels more primitive than ‘The Skeleton Dance’. However, the opening shot is beautiful, with the house flexing in the wind. There’s also some good animation on the cloaked skeleton, and a beautifully lit scene when Mickey strikes a match.
Mickey’s role in this short is very limited, and his only function seems to be being the carrier of the audience’s fear. Indeed, he looks repeatedly into the camera for sympathy, dragging us into the haunted house with him.
The early scenes of this cartoon manage to evoke a genuine feel of horror, but in the end this short resembles the boring song-and-dance-routines of both the early Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony series too much to be a stand out.
Mickey would return to the horror genre in ‘The Gorilla Mystery‘ (1930) and ‘The Mad Doctor‘ (1933), with much better results.
Watch ‘The Haunted House’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 14
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Jungle Rhythm
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Wild Waves
Director: unknown
Release Date: December 15, 1925
Stars: Virginia Davis (Alice), Julius
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Alice (Virginia Davis) and her friend Julius the cat are on a safari in the jungle.
The cartoon consists of several unrelated gags: Julius encounters some crocodiles, two elephants go bathing, Julius makes a barber sign post out of a tiger’s tail, and both Alice and Julius are chased by lions (a scene similar to the finale of Alice’s pilot cartoon).
The cartoon contains many surreal gags, a lot of them unashamedly Felix the Cat-like, especially when Julius uses his comic expressions and balloons as tools. Alice’s role, however, is extremely limited here. This is no surprise, for ‘Alice in the Jungle’ is made around leftover footage of Virginia Davis, who, after some salary problems, had been replaced by Margie Gay in early 1925.
Watch ‘Alice in the Jungle’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Alice in the Jungle’ is available on the DVD ‘Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities’
Director: Winsor McCay
Production Date: ca. 1918-1921
Stars: Gertie the Dinosaur
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Gertie on Tour’ is but a short fragment from an unfinished and unreleased film featuring the prehistoric star from ‘Gertie the Dinosaur‘ (1914).
In this excerpt Gertie lives in the modern world: she plays with a frog and with a streetcar, then she dreams she’s back in the Mesozoic, dancing for her dinosaur friends.
‘Gertie On Tour’, like almost all sequels, cannot compare to the first film. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see slightly more footage of this sympathetic brontosaur. The dancing scene in particular catches her playful spirit. Like ‘The Centaurs‘, this short contains very beautiful and elaborate backgrounds, which, undoubtedly thanks to the invention of the cell, are a great improvement over the backgrounds in ‘Gertie The Dinosaur’, which had to be retraced over and over again for each single frame.
Watch ‘Gertie on Tour’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Winsor McCay’s sixth film
To Winsor McCay’s fifth, unfinished film: The Centaurs
To Winsor McCay’s seventh, unfinished film: Flip’s Circus
Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: April 24, 1936
Stars: Betty Boop, Pudgy
Rating: ★★½
Review:
When Betty is gone three kittens cause havoc in Betty’s house. Pudgy gets the blame until the kittens plead guilty.
The three kittens are doubtless inspired by the Walt Disney’s Academy Award-winning cartoon ‘Three Orphan Kittens‘ from 1935, from which it borrows a milk bottle gag. ‘We Did It’ is not half as elaborate as the Disney cartoon. Nevertheless, it shows the Fleischer’s growth in character animation through pantomime. Pudgy, like Pluto, is by design fit for character animation.
Unfortunately, the Fleischer Studio was very inconsistent and this cartoon was followed by many in which character animation is practically absent. And even in ‘We Did It’ the result of this technique is only mildly amusing and hardly impressing.
Watch ‘We Did It’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Betty Boop cartoon No. 50
To the previous Betty Boop cartoon: Betty Boop and Little Jimmy
To the next Betty Boop cartoon: A Song a Day
‘We Did It’ is available on the French DVD Box Set ‘Betty Boop Coffret Collector’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 