Just a Gigolo

Betty appears minimally in this short. The Fleischer business with the bouncing ball sing along is OK. Apparently, "Just a Gigolo" was a popular tune back in the day. There are scenes here where Betty is accosted by the skeletons of animals in a kind of haunted house as jazz music permeates the air. To be quite honest, this is a hodgepodge of stuff that really has no direction. Betty gets to show off her perkiness but is just kind of eye candy.

This short, Just a Gigolo, is one of Max Fleischer's Screen Songs series which usually had a live action film of a popular singer warbling a song whose title becomes the short's as well with a bouncing ball jumping over the printed words and some animation that may or not be related to the song. French chanteuse Irene Bordoni does the honors here and Betty Boop makes a brief appearance as a cigar/cigarette girl with her in her usual situation of keeping a man from getting "fresh" with her. It's amusing seeing her calling this particular person what he really is, which is "pig"! There's also a sequence near the end as the song nears the climax of a male cat kissing all the female felines before forcing himself on one that plays hard to get but manages to make swoon before...well, watch this short. This was fascinating when I first watched this on AMC and it remains so having just rediscovered this on YouTube.

Just a Gigolo (1932)

*** (out of 4)

The Fleischer Studio produced a number of these animated short films where the "bouncing ball" would have audience members singing together. The animated portion of the short takes place in a jazz club where various animals are trying to have some fun. Then Betty Boop comes on stage and introduces Irene Bordoni who sings the title track with the bouncing ball. This here was a rather interesting short as it's quite funny during the animated parts. As you'd expect, the animation was extremely good and there's a nice cut between the animation and the live action. As far as the song goes, it was a rather interesting version. I wouldn't say it was the best I've heard but Bordoni brought her own style and form to it.

This short is on a Betty Boop compilation tape, but it's really part of a series Fleischer did that were called Screen Songs. Singalongs were a very popular feature at the movies in the 1930s and somewhat into the 1940s. The words to a song would come up on the screen and a bouncing ball would move in time with the music and cue the audience. The animation is secondary here to the music, which is too bad, because what animation there is present here is quite good. Betty Boop barely registers here and the short could easily be made without her. If the singer were more memorable, the short would be better, but as it is, it's so-so at best. For Betty Boop completists.

Fleischer were responsible for some brilliant cartoons, some of them still among my favourites. Their visual style was often stunning and some of the most imaginative and ahead of its time in animation.

'Just a Gigolo' doesn't really strike me as a Betty Boop cartoon and isn't really. Betty features in it but is used minimally, definitely think she should have been in it more. When she does appear, she steals the show and really spices things up in a way that much of everything else in 'Just a Gigolo' doesn't. Her sex appeal was quite daring for the time and to me there is an adorable sensual charm about her. That charm, sensuality and adorable factor is not lost anywhere here, nor her comic timing.

Animation is outstanding, everything is beautifully and meticulously drawn and the whole cartoon is rich in visual detail and imagination. Every bit as good is the music score, which delivers on the energy, lusciousness and infectiousness, great for putting anybody in a good mood.

The cartoon fares far better in the animated segments, which are not only beautifully animated but also very amusing and well-timed, with a real liveliness. Just wish there was much more of it.

Especially considering that the live action, outside of the pretty charming title number and Irene Bordini, is not near as memorable or interesting. Don't remember much about the live action parts and found that there was very little to them, non-descriptly plotted and thin and bland in content.

Considering that there is more live action than animation in 'Just a Gigolo' this is quite a big problem, even more so that the quality divide between them is so vast. Only Betty makes much impression of the characters.

Overall, moderately interesting but very uneven. 6/10 Bethany Cox