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Director: Otto Messmer
Release date: October, 1919
Stars: Charlie Chaplin
Rating: ★
Review:
Pat Sullivan’s Charlie Chaplin animated shorts were a short lived series, spanning only two years (1918-1919) and about 16 films. ‘Charley at the Beach’ is one of the last and shows that some Charlie Chaplin’s mannerisms were transferred surprisingly well to the animated screen.
Indeed, Pat Sullivan’s Charlie Chaplin shorts were supported by the great comedian himself. Chaplin gave the animators thirty or forty photographs of himself in different poses and with these the animators could copy several of his movements. Sullivan’s prime animator was of course Otto Messmer, who a month later would create Felix the Cat.
According to Messmer his work on the Chaplin cartoons greatly influenced his work on Felix (Felix – The Twisted Tale of the World’s Most Famous Cat, p. 38), but to be honest, compared to the later Felix the cat cartoons, the animation on Charlie Chaplin is remarkably stiff and primitive. Moreover, in these Messmer makes a lot of use of text balloons, even when the images could speak for themselves, like in the hot dog scene.
‘Charley at the Beach’ is little more than a string of unrelated gags at the beach. Messmer even goes for some throwaway gags on fish. Unfortunately, several of the gags are misogynistic (Charlie Chaplin is a peeping Tom, and there’s some fat shaming) and one is even racist: when Charlie discovers a girl he fancies is black, he quickly swims away. The result is a pretty tiresome and boring film, and nowhere we can detect Messmer’s great talent, yet.
‘Charley at the Beach’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘Cartoon Roots: Otto Messmer’s Feline Follies’
Director: Marlies van der Wel
Release Date: September 26, 2015
Rating: ★★★★ ½
Review:
‘Zeezucht’ (which can be translated as ‘a longing for the sea’) tells about a man desiring to be able to dive into the sea from a young age on.
Van der Wel tells her tale by alternating images of the present with those of the past. In the scenes set in the present we watch the old man, complete with Jacques Cousteau-style red bonnet, doing some impressive beach combing during a stormy night. In the scenes from the past we learn how he came to love the sea, and how he made several attempts to dive into the deep with various contraptions, all to no avail.
Meanwhile his home on the dunes expands and expands by the use of flotsam and jetsam washed up by the sea. Then, when a giant fish factory ship sinks, the old man finally sees his chance…
‘Zeezucht’ is made in a very charming cut-out animation style, combining painted material with cut-out photographic material. There’s no dialogue, but the experiences and emotions of the sea-lover are greatly enhanced by the romantic music by Dutch band Benny Sings, and by the excellent sound design by Shark @ Haaifaaideluxe.
Watch ‘Zeezucht’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Zeezucht’ has been issued on DVD by the director herself in a limited number
Director: unknown
Release Date: August 22, 1932
Stars: Flip the Frog
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
In ‘Stormy Seas’ Flip the Frog is a sailor, playing and dancing merrily with his fellow sailors, until their ship is caught in a thunderstorm. Soon Flip receives the S.O.S. of another boat in need, and he runs off to rescue a Honey-like female kitten in a long rescue scene.
There’s practically no dull moment in ‘Stormy Seas’, but the cartoon also demonstrates that Iwerks was looking back for inspiration, instead of forward. The scene in which Flip swims right through the waves is borrowed straight from the Mickey Mouse cartoon ‘Wild Waves‘ (1929), and the rescue scene borrows the lifeline gag from the Mickey short ‘The Fire Fighters‘ (1930). This type of gag borrowing would become worse in Flip’s next cartoon, ‘Circus’. Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that it had also occurred occasionally in the early Mickeys themselves, as they reused several gags from Mickey’s predecessor Oswald.
There’s a great deal of anthropomorphism of lifeless objects in this cartoon: the cloud, the radio and even Flip’s chewing tobacco become humanized. However, the cartoon is most noteworthy for its very inspired music. It’s undoubtedly by MGM composer Scott Bradley, for it displays his unique style of intertwining several melodies in a classical way, mixing the hornpipe and ‘My Bonnie’ with Richard Wagner’s ‘The Flying Dutchman’ to great effect during the storm scene. This is the first testimony of Bradley’s mature style known to me, and it anticipates his celebrated work of the 1940s.
Watch ‘Stormy Seas’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hld3en9N6eM
This is Flip the Frog cartoon No. 25
To the previous Flip the Frog cartoon: Room Runners
To the next Flip the Frog cartoon: Circus
‘The Office Boy’ is available on the DVD Cartoons that Time Forgot – The Ub Iwerks
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 