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Director: unknown
Production date: ca. 1962
Stars: The Marx Brothers
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘The Marx Brothers’ is an odd curiosity unearthed by the ever amazing Steve Stanchfield, who specializes in discovering animated oddities. Apparently this is a pilot from the early sixties by Screen Gems for a Marx Brothers cartoon series, curiously done in stop-motion (more cartoon plans were made at the time, see Jim Korkis’s excellent article on this).
The short involves the three Marx Brothers, and a stout woman called Hortense. The puppets are immediately recognizable as the Marx Brothers, but also crude and on the ugly side. The least well-done is Chico, whose puppet falls short both in looks and voice, and he hardly has any gags. Harpo should translate easier to the cartoon medium, but due to the poor timing he more comes over as an obligatory additional clown than the great comedian he could be in the live action films.
The fun comes mostly from Groucho and his side-cracks, but there’s hardly anything done with the powers of animation, the pacing is slow, and the animation not beyond fair. Moreover, the ‘story’ amounts to nothing. Most striking is a close-up of the magazine called ‘Babes’ Groucho is reading in the opening scene, which shows real nudity.
Watch ‘The Marx Brothers’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Steve Stanchfield put this short on his private DVD release ‘Top Shelf Scans (Goosed)’
Director: Émile Cohl
Release Date: 1910
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
‘Le peintre néo-impressioniste’ is a pure comedy film by cinema pioneer Émile Cohl.
This short is about a painter who cannot even draw a live model (his painting is that of a stick man). When a client arrives the talentless painter tries to sell his monochrome paintings to a client, exclaiming that they are all figurative. For example, the red painting involves a cardinal eating lobster at the red sea, and the green one shows a green devil playing billiards in the grass, while drinking absint.
The imaginary pictures are all shown in cut-out animation, and the colors are beautifully rendered by hand coloring. In the end the client buys them all, leaving the painter and his model laughing.
Watch ‘Le peintre néo-impressioniste’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Le peintre néo-impressioniste’ is available on the DVDs ‘Émile Cohl – L’agitateur aux mille images’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 