The Herring Murder Case

Back in the early days of talking cartoons, often the films consisted of lots of singing and cute animals. These were very saccharine indeed. Fortunately, "The Herring Murder" has no singing and it's not so cute that it might make you puke. Not exactly a glowing endorsement, I know!

The film begins with some gorilla shooting a small fish. Normally, no one would care or they'd perhaps marvel at a gorilla with a gun, but here in the cartoon world, it's MURDER and detective Bimbo (he's a DOG….get your mind out of the gutter) is going to investigate. During the course of this, you have a brief appearance by Ko Ko the Clown, see some amazingly cool anthropomorphic houses and have a lot of cartoon silliness. Unfortunately, none of this is really that funny though the animation is quite nice—which you'd expect from a Fleischer Brothers production. Watchable and it holds up reasonably well today but it is certainly not a film I'd rush to see.

Bimbo has a new job. He is a detective. He is called to action when a herring is murdered in cold blood (I guess he's a fish, isn't he?). He interrogates another fish, a goldfish in a bowl. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Footprints seem to be the only way of capturing the criminal, but, as you shall see, it's not the best route. Anyway, he finally reaches a conclusion and acts on it. The last scene is really quite funny.

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.

The character of Betty Boop, one of their most famous and prolific characters, may not be for all tastes and sadly not as popular now, but 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. This is more Bimbo's cartoon, and he is great fun.

'The Herring Murder Case' is not one of the best Betty Boop cartoons by all means, but certainly not among the worst, her lesser efforts all being when the Production Code was enforced, things became tame and what made the early pre-Code cartoons so good was somewhat lost. This said, it has all the elements that make her pre-Code cartoons so worthwhile and does do so much, almost everything, right and little wrong. The weak link is the story, which is very flimsy.

Creativity and imagination have also been more frequent and stronger in other Fleischer/Betty Boop/Bimbo cartoons, 'Any Rags' is certainly not devoid of either but it's not rich in either too.

However, the 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.

As hoped, the fun is ceaseless and the creativity and imagination are present, just that it has been stronger elsewhere. The voice acting is fine. Didn't think that the cartoon is that creepy and like Betty and Bimbo's chemistry together.

Overall, nice cartoon if not a great or outstanding one. 7/10 Bethany Cox