John Hubley was an innovator and quite daring when it came to mixing and experimenting with forms and styles of animation. He worked for UPA for a long time, and here in this short film that is equal parts (Jazz) musical, raw film noir and courtroom saga, he manages to fit in with his team and whole mess of incredible background art; some of it very decidedly meant to be harsh in contrasts to the figures we are seeing, the world becoming distorted as it were as we are seeing varying perspectives on what happened to his man shot in his own home.
It's also kind of funny how a few of the characters look like templates for Mr Magoo, who would come out of UPA and that world of animators. But it doesn't detract from the staggering sense of playfulness and ambition here; like when you see something by the Brother's Quay, you know there are things that are so densely packed that you'll need another viewing or two to understand what everything means, or if not even that just how certain shapes and moments blend together.
This is sophisticated in hoe Hubley and his animators understand color and timing and how to have music drive the narrative without it overpowering what's on screen (a perfect marriage, which shouldn't be a thing but it is here), but it doesn't ever feel like it's above its audience like it should be in a museum. Rather this is precisely the kind of short that would get me in the mood to watch, oh I don't know, Sam Fuller's hardboiled pot-boilers, or the Asphalt Jungle.
A little masterpiece.
