Some Cartoons for Saturday Morning #290

 Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again, it is time for some classic cartoons. 

Today's cartoon selection begins with Donald Duck in Donald's Garden (1942). In this short film, Donald tries to plant a garden but unfortunately for him a pesky gopher arrives to eat all his produce. This is one of four Donald Duck cartoons spun off from an unfinished storyline called Donald's Roadside Market. In 1939, this cartoon's production was cancelled because Walt felt that the farmyard setting of that cartoon was not being utilized to its best. However, a farm setting was still a great idea for a Donald cartoon. Walt himself stated in a story meeting for Donald's Roadside Market that took place on August 8, 1939, "I think there are a hell of a lot of gags around a farm that could be very funny with the Duck." Other cartoons spun off from this proposed story were Golden Eggs (1941), Old MacDonald Duck (1941) and Honey Harvester (1949). 

Next is the Fleischer Screen Song cartoon, I Feel Like a Feather in the Breeze (1936). This cartoon stars the character of Wiffle Piffle, a character who would appear in both solo and Betty Boop cartoons. Though the animators here aren't as well known to animation buffs as the Disney and Warner Brothers animators, they do a great job and deserve to be given attention. Harold Walker animates the scene of the people walking into the restaurant including the revolving door gag. Tom Johnson animates Wiffle Piffle after he enters the restaurant to where he grabs a plate. Dave Hoffman animates the introduction of the opera singer and Wiffle Piffle getting beer for the customers. Tom Johnson animates Wiffle's little dance as he brings the beer out. Dave Hoffman animates Wiffle going through the door and coming out with sandwich. Harold Walker animates Wiffle giving the customer his sandwich as well as the chicken gag. Harold Walker animates Wiffle making the spaghetti. The title song was written by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel. Lyricist Mack Gordon also wrote lyrics for such songs as Chattanooga Choo-Choo, Did You Ever See a Dream Walking and You Make Me Feel So Young. Composer Harry Revel had worked as a composer for feature films for Paramount studio. 

Next comes another real classic, Falling Hare (1943). This cartoon features one of the few characters to get the upper hand of Bugs, the gremlin. Despite only appearing in this one short, the character has proven quite popular and has appeared in quite a few Looney Tunes spin offs. The original title for this movie was going to be Bugs Bunny and the Gremlin. However, since Disney was working on an animated feature film about Gremlins (a movie that would never be finished), the studio took the word Gremlin out of the title of this cartoon to appease the Disney studio. The following is a review from The Film Daily, "Literally and figuratively, Bugs Bunny, already a prime favorite among current cartoon characters, gets off to a flying start in the distribution season just started. The buck-toothed, long-eared clown meets up with a gremlin, and both find themselves aloft in an airplane, with Bugs or what's left of him being darn glad to get back to earth. There are plenty of laughs throughout. The tough Bunny, if this initial '43-'44 offering of his producer Leon Schlesinger, is any criterion, is in for a further rise in popularity among fans who like humor. Of course, the reel is in Technicolor. It was supervised by Robert Clampett and animated by Roderick Scribner. Warner Foster wrote the story and Carl W. Stalling handled the musical direction." This movie amounts to one of my favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons, and it is appropriately in Jerry Beck's book, The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes. 

Now for the Terry Toon short, Canadian Capers (1931). This cartoon features our good friend Farmer Al Falfa. Animators on this film include Frank Moser, Jerry Shields, Bill Tytla and Art Babbitt.  Unfortunately, this is an edited for TV version. 

Now for a commercial break.

Now for the Walter Lantz cartoon, Salt Water Daffy (1941). When this cartoon was released in 1941, the United States had not yet entered World War 2. However, most Americans could see that war was likely on their horizons. America's first peace time draft had recently been instated, making this cartoon especially timely. 

Next is first pairing of Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales, It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House (1965). The two would be paired together in 25 more cartoons.

Enjoy the Krazy Kat cartoon, Love Krazy (1932). This film is full of the type of early 1930's cartoon charm that so many of us love. 

Now to close with a song. 

Thanks for joining me. Come back next week for more animated treasures. Until then may all your tunes be looney and your melodies merry. 

Resources Used

The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes edited by Jerry Beck

Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin.

Donald Duck: The Ultimate History by J.B. Kaufman and David Gerstein

https://mediahistoryproject.org/

 

Movie Review: Her Private Hell

 

Michael's Movie Grae: D-

An incoherent mess of an art film. 

There is no use in me giving any sort of a story summary here because the story is too big of a mess to effectively describe here. The story somehow manages to be too simplistic and incoherently complex at the same time. The result is a movie that constantly tries to prove itself as something artistic yet has nothing to actually say. So do not go into this film trying to find the deeper meaning underneath all incoherent weirdness. There simply isn't any. I love art house cinema and that is why I hate movies like this. They give artsy a bad name and make many movie goers believe art films are a bunch of pretentious slop like this. This may be Her Private Hell but that doesn't mean it has to feel like Hell for the viewers as well. There is only so much visual randomness, poorly defined characters, painfully pretentious dialogue and incoherent storytelling that one can take. This movie may be under two hours, but it felt longer than some four-hour movies I have seen. I kept waiting for it to end but kept being disappointed whenever the story continued. Even the visuals, which even some of the film's harshest critics like, are simply too much. There is too much going on visually that after a while it simply gets tiring to look at. 

A great cast (lead by the always wonderful Sophie Thatcher) and a truly wonderful musical score (by Pino Donaggio) can't even come close to saving this mess of a movie. 

MGM Short Subjects 1930-1931

 A 1930 issue of Exhibitors Hearld dedicated a large section to promotion for upcoming films for MGM. Here is part of that section, which is dedicated to the short subjects that MGM would be making a distributing (including the films from Hal Roach Studios) in 1930 and 1931. It states, "The Greatest Short Product Line Up MGM Has Ever Offered." While this is obviously just publicity, it is hard to argue with a lineup that includes Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang (AKA The Little Rascals), The Boy Friends, Charley Chase and Ub Iwerks' bizarre Flip the Frog cartoons. 

Now enjoy some shorts from 1930 and 1931.

You have seen Burton Holmes in the article. This is a name that you may not be familiar with. So here is a short video about him and his films. 

Movie Review: The Odyssey

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

An excellent big screen epic. 

Christopher Nolan has always been a filmmaker who has not been afraid to take chances. However, adapting The Odyssey may be one of his riskiest ventures yet. Still the result paid off with flying colors. While this may not be a fully faithful adaptation, it manages to capture the story's epic scale. This movie feels larger than life. It looks like an old school Hollywood epic in all the best ways possible. It is rare to find a modern movie that truly has this larger than life feel and that is exactly what this film does. That Nolan relies heavily on practical effects of course plays no small role in this. This alone would be reason enough to recommend it. Yet there is still much more to recommend here. The action scenes are excellent, and the best Nolan has done since Dunkirk. There is a strong emotion center here. The scene in Hades as a scene towards the end of the picture hit all the right emotional marks. What surprised me though is how well the horror scenes worked. I did not expect this movie to dip as far into the horror genre as it did and here Nolan proves himself to be an excellent horror filmmaker. The Cerci scene made me feel incredibly uncomfortable in a way that even some real horror films never have.

The casting is often excellent but sometimes misses the mark. Matt Damon is perfect as the lead, making this character feel larger than life and yet still human at the same time. Elliott Paige is fantastic in a smaller but important role. He is very much responsible for the film's most emotionally impactful moments. Anne Hathaway is great as the queen, and you forget you are watching a well-known actress. Samantha Norton is terrifying as Cerci. However, Tom Holland and Robert Patterson seem out of place here, like their characters don't belong in a period epic but instead in a modern-day story. There is nothing wrong Zendaya's performance. However, she is too recognizable as Zendaya, and the script gives her too little to actually do. Since most of the time when she is on screen, there is no opportunity for her to stretch her acting muscles, we are always aware we are looking at Zendaya instead of seeing the character. 

With so many characters, there is little time to flesh many of them out. This can make some characters feel more like plot devices than actually people (especially Robert Patterson's bully). The movie can also feature bits of clumsy dialogue that are disappointing in an adaption of a classic work of literature.  

This may not be perfect. However, it is a great movie going experience, especially if seen on a big IMAX screen. 

Aladdin: The Return of Jafar (1994)

 

Aladdin: The Return of Jafar marked the first of many direct to video movies for the Disney studio. 

In this movie, the villainous Jafar, now a genie, concocts a plan to get revenge on Aladdin and his friends.  

As well as being a sequel to Aladdin (1992), this is also essentially a feature length pilot for the Aladdin TV series, which premiered the same year. The directors (Toby Shelton, Tad Stones, Alan Zaslove) and writers even worked on that TV series. With its lower budget animation and villain of the week story, the movie itself feels more like an extended episode of a TV series than a proper sequel to a Disney classic. However, it feels like a pretty good extended TV episode. The best part of this movie is Iago's character arc. This movie takes a comedic sidekick and makes him into a much more interesting character. He at first attaches himself to Aladdin for selfish reasons but ends up actually caring for them. This is done completely convincingly, and you actually end up caring for him in an unexpected way. Also, even if the storyline is very villain of the week, Jafar as a genie is an incredibly big threat to our heroes. There are even some good suspense scenes here as we wonder just how our heroes are going to make it out alive. While obviously on a smaller budget and scale the final action scene is quite exciting.

 This movie does have its flaws though. Unlike the great and memorable Alan Menkin songs from the first film, the songs here are completely forgettable and bland. If you try to remember any of these songs a couple days after watching the film, you will forget them. On the other hand, you can go years without watching the original Aladdin and still find the songs randomly getting stuck in your head. The humor here is also significantly weaker than that of the first movie. Part of this is naturally not having Robin Willaims as the genie. Dan Castellenta (best known as the voice of Homer Simpson) does a fine job providing the voice but without the improvisation of Willaims, the character simply isn't as funny. The basic slapstick gags involving the other characters also fail to get the laughs they should. Part of Jafar's evil plan is to use an incompetent thief, who gets a hold of his lamp, to help him get revenge on Aladdin (who they both hate). Unfortunately, this character can get rather annoying at times, and his incompetence is never as funny as the writers seem to think. 

This is not a great movie by any stretch, but it is an enjoyable enough watch for Disney fans. 

Video Link: The Animator & The Dancer Who Gave Tinker Bell Her Soul - West of Neverland

 

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

 

Upon its release this book was hailed as the greatest novel ever written about war. All these decades later, this book may still hold that honor. 

The central figure of this novel is Paul Bäumer. This young man, who along with many of his classmates joins the Imperial German Army at the start of WW1. He learns how dehumanizing war actually is and becomes disillusioned with all he was brought up to believe. 

There are plenty of great anti-war stories written but few hit as hard as this book does. This is a book that will move you greatly and stay with you long after you finish reading. 

Much of the reason for this is the first-person narration of the story. Rather than simply telling the horrors of war, this is a deeply personal story of the effect it had on one individual. This makes the story feel all the more urgent and personal. By reading this from a first-person point of view, you see the dehumanizing effect of war firsthand. Our main character is instantly relatable being a person who is not that different from us. His normalness is at the heart of the story because at one time he is a simple relatable protagonist, while also being a stand in for all the young men who have been sent out to war and forever changed by it. This is especially shown during the scenes with Paul on leave. He returns to a world in which he once belonged and fit in. Only now, he finds himself no longer belonging or fitting into this world. By making him a bit of an everyman, you see how war changes even a normal person. 

Erich Maria Remarque had fought in WW1, and he brings much of his own experiences to the main character's narration. Many have even referred to this book as semi-autobiographical. This makes all the difference. Even to those of us who have never fought in a war, this can easily be felt. It is obvious that there is a real feeling of authenticity and raw, honest emotion throughout the whole book. Though this is technically a fiction book, it is easy to forget that fact as you read. Because of this, the book here feels startlingly and terrifyingly real in a way that most anti-war stories don't. Remarque does not tone down or hide any of the horrors of war. They are all on full display here in a way that will make this story a haunting and emotionally exhausting way. 

This is one of the all-time great literary masterpieces.