She Reminds Me of You

This typically excellent Fleischer Screen Song features the Eton Boys singing the title song. They are a close harmony group who sing the ballad in an upbeat style with some scat grace notes.

It's not a great song, but the pleasure in this screen song, like so many, is the series of gags that take up the first half of the cartoon and offer a capper at the end. It's set at the Boxy Theater, a take-off on the Roxy Music Hall, one of New York City's great movie palaces, the original home of the Rockettes. It's portrayed as an over-the-top place, with lots of extras, from seats that automatically offer patrons a shave to ushers who summon moving seats with a push of a button.

Animator Willard Bowsky, who handled many of these Screen Songs under the nominal supervision of Dave Fleischer, offers a lot of extreme point-of-view and moving shots to engagingly present the immense scale of the venue. Although it may seem simply bizarre to the modern film goer, to some one like me, who remembers the Roxy from its last days, it seems more a loving homage to an era of luxury for the masses.

She Reminds Me Of You (1934)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The Fleischer Studio produced a number of these animated short films where the "bouncing ball" would have audience members singing together. This short takes place at a new futuristic theater where people come to see what they can expect in the future. Once everyone is seating The Eton Boys take the stage to sing the title song while the bouncing ball helps those in the crowd sing. SHE REMINDS ME OF YOU is another decent short for the series where once again the highlight is at the start of the picture with the wonderful animation and some of the creative gags. The group singing are pretty good as well and the song itself is quite catchy.