The Gorilla Mystery

When an enormous gorilla escapes, Mickey calls the love of his life. Full of too much confidence, she blows him off. Of course, the big guy mouse-naps her and takes her to the attic. Mickey comes to the rescue. He, of course, has few resources to do anything, but he does have his irrational, frantic nature at his beck and call. It's a fun romp with Mickey running into one obstacle after another.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

It's Mickey to the rescue when an escaped ape causes mayhem in poor Minnie's house.

THE GORILLA MYSTERY is a very fine little black & white film, with plenty of chills and suspense. The frightful simian gives new emphasis to the intransitive verb 'slavering.' Notice the particular care the animators took with Minnie's piano playing - every finger in exactly the right spot on the keyboard to produce the notes heard on the soundtrack; it was tiny (but perfect) details like this which put the folks at Disney at the top of their professional tree. Walt Disney supplies Mickey with his trademark squeaky voice.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

This is a fun little Mickey mystery, where a menacing gorilla is on the loose and kidnaps Minnie. Mickey tries to rescues her and, at the same time, attempting to avoid being captured by the gorilla.

There's quite a bit of slapstick humor in this one, along with a catchy song and dance and an intriguing mystery feel to the story - particularly the setting in Minnie's unusually large house, which gives a perfect setting of a mystery movie.

Grade A

The atmosphere of this cartoon is so eerie and desolate, with a few tweaks it might pass as a David Lynch short.

That aside, this is a memorable early effort in the Mickey Mouse series. A man-eating gorilla is on the loose at night and manages to break into Minnie's house while she's crooning an Irving Berlin song to Mickey over the phone. Hearing her cries, Mickey sets out to save her.

The interiors and spooky atmosphere remind me of an even earlier Mickey cartoon, THE HAUNTED HOUSE. It seems the Disney artists were quite inspired by the old dark house thrillers popular in the 1920s and 1930s. This film manages that same balancing act of gothic suspense and goofy comedy.