Countdown to Halloween: Wot a Night (1931)

Wot a Night (1931, Van Beuren Studios)
Dir.: John Foster and Vernon Stallings
TC4P Rating: 5/9

When Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks made and released The Skeleton Dance in 1929, it had a huge influence on the cartoon industry at large. (And if you are wondering when I will get to The Skeleton Dance on this site, don't worry... it's coming up very soon.) It is hard to find an animation studio that didn't fill the frames of a short or seven with dancing, laughing skeletons in the early 1930s. Not that skeletons weren't used in animation before The Skeleton Dance, but the huge success of the Disney short made sure that skeletons would not go away as subject matter for many, many years.

Most films that use skeletons as the main characters are usually comprised of very simple, blackout gags and there is usually nothing that really connects any one scene to the next, except perhaps for the general air of spookiness. To connect things together, however loosely, what is needed are a protagonist or two. The human cartoon duo of Tom and Jerry, early stalwarts of the Van Beuren Studios, had an entire series built out of little more than unconnected blackout gags, with very little relatable plot at all, and so combining their tall guy-little guy antics with a pack of frightening skeletons and assorted ghosts was a natural fit.

In Wot a Night, the initial entry in the Tom and Jerry series, our first clue that the night will not be a normal, quiet one is the opening shot of a rain-drenched railroad depot. The wind whirls and whips at the depot so hard that its single building, every object on its platform, the nearby telephone poles, and even a taxi are nearly knocked over with each howling blast. Inside that taxi sit a napping Tom and Jerry – once again, the human non-MGM versions, mind you – and they seem almost oblivious to the weather as the rain and gale force winds smack them directly in the faces. In fact, the taxi itself is taking the storm far worse than they are, as its grill becomes a face that spits out water and shivers and shakes in the cold.

Tom and Jerry, at the provocation of an approaching railroad whistle, suddenly wake up and look with bleary eyes through the storm before them. They leap excitedly from the taxi while the train pulls into the station and peer into the distance, but a savage bolt of lightning hits them glancingly and then a blast of cold rain drenches them. They practically swim back through the air into the warmth and relative safety of the back of the taxi. The train is shown approaching the station on wide oval wheels (for some reason), and it clatters up and down with each rotation of the wheels. Without warning, the tracks are completely flooded by the rain, and several pairs of long oars pop out of the windows of the single passenger car and attempt to row the train towards the station. The train makes it out the flood area and reaches home, with the spent vehicle turning and arching its back to the tune of Shave and a Haircut, and at the "two bits" part, it rears up like a cat or dog and practically poops out its only two passengers onto the ground. (This really makes you wonder about who it was rowing all those pairs of oars.)

The two passengers are a couple of very tall, identical, bearded weirdos, wearing stovepipe hats atop their heads. They head towards the taxi where they are greeted happily by cab drivers Tom and Jerry. However, as our heroes attempt to exhort the pair of weirdos into their cab with cries of "Taxi!" and "Cab!," (practically the only dialogue in the film that isn't sung), the twin beardies turn away from the cab and walk away along the boardwalk. Tom runs ahead of them and herds them back, and it is noticeable that the pair walk oddly with their heads almost stabbing forward on long necks almost like ostriches, though the style of walk is more akin to that of chickens. Once in the cab, Tom peels out of the station, the car spitting mud behind them, but very quickly, the cab finds itself almost completely flooded by the storm.

With the cab having a hard time moving forward through the flood, we see the compartment in the back with the twin weirdos, who find themselves confronted with a very odd companion: a massive frog who swims into the cab through the window. The frog makes a couple of grunting noises and then performs a back flip through the water and swims away. Tom gradually guides the cab through the deep water, and as he does, a pair of rods pop up out of the back of the cab, drop down into the water, and winch the twin weirdos up above the water's surface inside what appears to be a small rowboat or scoop. The weirdos doff their caps in unison in salute to Tom's efforts to help them, a whistle sounding on the soundtrack as their sole mode of discourse. Soon, Tom drives the cab up out of the water and the weirdos now ride high up in the air above inside the rowboat through the rain.

Eventually, they reach a castle sitting atop a large plateau with an entrance through a cave far below the castle. The weirdos are winched back down to the ground, where they step backwards out of the boat, and then march oddly into the cave without paying for Tom and Jerry's services. The boys are not happy with this and chase after them through the door of the cave, but an iron portcullis drops down behind them, sporting a large lock on its gate, and Tom and Jerry find themselves trapped.

High atop the castle, things start to get real spooky. Storm clouds are seen rumbling above the castle, and then one cloud forms its own head and arms and looks down at the castle. The cloud reaches out and starts to play a boisterous tune on the battlements of the castle, pressing down on the merlons along the wall as if playing a pipe organ, with the resulting sounds emitting from the various turrets and other towers forming the top of the castle. In the fields nearby, a pair of trees start playing their branches like flutes to finish the tune

Inside, Jerry paces about with his hands in his pockets. He calls Tom into the room and shows him a set of blinds on a window. Tom begs him not to open it, but Jerry does, revealing nothing but darkness through the window. Behind them, however, a large bat-like creatures flies up out of a hole in the floor. It spreads its huge wings, easily dwarfing the pair in size, but it does nothing more than grimace wickedly as it flies away towards the camera. (As in most other Tom and Jerry shorts, the taller Tom is the bigger 'fraidy cat, and that holds here as well, with Jerry almost nonchalantly gliding through the scenario with little surprise on his face.)

Tom runs into another room and finds an open door where a sign reads "Private" alongside it. A skeleton walks right past them into the room, and then we see the pair as they look into the room, where the skeleton is shown toweling himself off while standing in a slowly draining bathtub. The skeleton whistles and seems not to give Tom and Jerry any notice, and not only rubs down his arms and legs with the towel, but also runs the length of cloth entirely through his empty ribcage. He turns and sees the boys standing there gawking and then panics, screaming and leaping into the air while holding its head in shock! Before they know it, the skeleton spins tightly into a whirl and is sucked down the drain of the tub along with the water!

Tom and Jerry slowly turn around in the hallway and find that there are dozens are ghosts standing directly behind them. Jerry shows no worry, but as Tom finishes yelling at the skeleton in the other room, he turns around, sees the ghosts and drops into a dead faint. His collapsing body causes part of the floor to break away and they fall into the level below, where another skeleton is painting piano keys onto a small ledge in the wall. After he sloshes more paint at the wall to create sheet music, he then pours the rest of the paint from his bucket onto the ground, where it forms into a small stool. He spins the stool seat to meet his rear end so he can begin to play, but the stool refuses to go any higher and forms a face that mocks the skeleton. So the creep spins his lower spine and pelvis instead so that it drops down towards the stool.

In the catacombs nearby, the piano music brings to life a couple dozen skeletons that had previously been shown to lie dashed and crumpled along the ground. They get up, find partners, and begin to dance elegantly to the music. Back at the piano, a female skeleton with hoop earrings and a skirt, plays a pair of castanets while the music takes on a more Spanish air. Tom and Jerry watch the dance from another room, but behind them (in a very odd throwaway gag) a large glove (with two small legs and feet sticking out of it) dances along a shelf next to them. At a break in the song, the glove stops dancing and spreads its fingers, forming an even larger (but not that large) shadow on the wall adjacent. The boys turn to look at the glove, and Tom panics yet again, racing from the room with Jerry tagging along quietly behind him.

In the next room, Jerry finds an umbrella lying on the floor, so he picks it up and starts to play it like an accordion (as you do). From the darkness appear the heads of four other skeletons, who seem to be done up for a minstrel show. [Here comes more of that casual 1930s racism...]

The lead skeleton sings:

"In the Good Book it says that Cain slew Abel..."

And then the other three skeletons provide the choir...

"Yes, good Lawd!"

The first one sings the next line of his tale, with the call and response style continuing for a while...

"He hit him on the head with the leg of a table..."
(Choir) "Yes, good Lawd!"
"Didn't Daniel in the lion's den..."
"What he do?"
"He said unto those colored men..."
"What he say?"
"Ya'll wanna get to hebbin?"
"Sho'! Sho'!"

The lead skeleton then takes the next verse himself...

"Den cut out all yo' crapshootin'
an' git on your long white robe
an' your starry crown!
Be ready when de great day comes!"

All four skeletons join voices for the chorus of the song...

"Good lord, I'm ready

Indeed, I'm ready

Oh, good lord, I'll be ready when the great day comes!"

Sitting all the way to left, the fourth skeleton takes a brief, bass solo...

"Good glory hallelujah!"

After the next refrain, the bass skeleton finishes the song portion of our program with a deepening run down the words, "...the... great... day... comes".

At the conclusion of the gospel song, Jerry pulls out a pair of dice and rolls a seven. The four black skeletons can't keep themselves from leaping onto the dice, but it spells their doom and they end up shattering in dozens of pieces instead. Running outside, Tom trips over a rock and smashes his face into the ground. As he lies there prone, we see large black footsteps tracking up towards Tom, and when they reach his head, the footsteps roll up into a ball and then burst into the shapes of the two tall weirdos who took the cab to the castle in the beginning. Tom panics and his underwear-clad body jolts from out of his clothes, slithers around to the back of his suit, and then climbs back inside again.

Jerry finally catches up and both pairs – Tom and Jerry and the bearded weirdos – take turns eyeing each other quizzically. One weirdo turns to the other one and nods his head, making a "mmm-hmmm" noise of approval. The other weirdo makes the same noise and nods back to the first. They both point their index fingers in the direction of Tom and Jerry and then walk away. Tom turns and points his finger at his smaller partner, and Jerry lifts his shirt to discover that there is nothing but a skeleton underneath. Tom is shocked, but all he does is turn away from Jerry, buried his face in his hand and snicker at what has happened to his buddy.

But Jerry moves over to Tom and lifts the back of his shirt to also reveal naught but a skeleton's bones. Panicking yet again, Tom turns and looks down at his chest. His shirt pops open and he sees nothing but ribs. He screams and runs offscreen. Jerry runs after him, and then the pair are shown running away with their hands waving above their heads. Their pants are starting to fall off and revealing even more bones. Tom briefly stops and cries in vain at Jerry, and then both continue running and waving as the film irises to a close.

The film is no great shakes as an adventure or as animation, but it does have moments that transcend the general blandness. The opening set-up of the drenched rail station and the tale leading up to the arrival at the castle is an appropriately eerie and imaginative beginning. It actually makes you think that something greater is going to occur once the castle is reached, but the bat/vampire sequence doesn't pay off (I will grant them that it is quite weird), much in the same way that the giant frog in the cab is an interesting touch but does nothing for the film in the end except give it a fleeting sense of true surrealism. The skeleton sequences are fun in bits, but to be seen as anything but a play off of what The Skeleton Dance did so simply and brilliantly, you've got to bring a little bit more.

The dynamic between Tom and Jerry is always what brings the most enjoyment to me out of their films. Tom is a big, tall basket case in any situation and useless in a fight for their lives, but Jerry – the more diminutive one who is roughly the shape and size of a cannonball with limbs – is always utterly calm in any situation. He usually stands with his hands in his pockets, taking in whatever is happening before them, and then either acting or exiting depending on the severity of their danger. In this film, it takes his ultimate magical turn into a skeleton to finally lose his composure, but before that, he could almost be sleepwalking through most scenes. In contrast against the more manic Tom (who has a couple of good moments, especially when he crawls out of his clothes in his long johns), Jerry is quite enjoyable to watch here.

The more racist themes that pop up often in the series are here in its very beginning as well. In late September, I posted a piece on another Tom and Jerry short from a year later than this one called Plane Dumb. [You can read that article here.] That adventure, in which the pair travel to Africa, is a full-on blackface-makeup adventure, so at least this film doesn't go quite as far in offense. But this one does contain the first version of a sequence that is replicated in Plane Dumb: the animation and music (though a longer take) of the four black skeleton minstrels that Tom and Jerry encounter. It is unfortunate that otherwise light, silly cartoons are tainted by such sequences, but that's history, folks. You gotta take the lumps with the smooth.

As a Halloween cartoon, though, this one has the goods, in quantity if not quality. Perhaps parents looking for a safe cartoon for the kiddies might want to steer clear for those particular scenes, but experienced adults can make up their own minds for their party atmosphere.

Until the next haunting time,

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it...

My Pal Paul (1930)

My Pal Paul (1930, Universal)
Dir.: Walter Lantz
Cel Bloc Rating: 6

The King of Jazz? Paul Whiteman? Surely not, though the big band leader from the early part of the 20th century certainly called himself that. And he was a big, big deal back in the 1920s and 1930s, recording scores of huge, popular hit songs, and featuring many of the top musicians of the day in his orchestras (some of whom went on to become stars on their own). Perhaps his biggest contribution to the world was that he commissioned George Gershwin to create Rhapsody in Blue in 1924. If anything remains today of his legacy, it is surely that.

Oh, but there is something else, though few outside of animation buffs would consider it to be of note: Whiteman appears in an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon. And, to make things even, Oswald makes a cameo in a feature film that was produced about Whiteman. See how these things work out?

In 1930, Universal Pictures produced a huge spectacle of a film called King of Jazz. It was produced in early two-strip Technicolor and was pretty much wall to wall with lavishly produced sets, costumes, stilted comedy bits, and boisterous musical production numbers. It was also a notorious flop for the day. But there was much of note about the film. Apart from not only surviving the decades in fairly decent condition, the film features a rather young (only 26) Bing Crosby taking vocals on several songs as a member of his vocal group from that time, the Rhythm Boys. The music bounces along merrily throughout King of Jazz, and displays a good cross-section of popular music in 1930, though hardly any of it could be considered jazz as it is understood today. The film won an Oscar for Art Direction, and watching the film now certainly shows the award was well deserved (or at least a nomination would have been).

And best of all, not far from the beginning of the picture is the very first Technicolor sound cartoon in history. Directed by animation studio head Walter Lantz, the cartoon is introduced by Walter Brennan, who tells us of Whiteman's travels to darkest Africa. Dressed appropriately in his safari garb, Whiteman is set upon by a lion, and after battling him with a rifle (in which the lion drops his skin and reveals his skeleton before the bullet even hits him), Whiteman seeks to soothe the savage beast through jazz-inspired dance music. The lion dances, the flowers dance, the trees dance, the natives dance, and for a few brief seconds, Universal's big (and stolen) cartoon star, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, dances alongside a snake (who is wearing a derby) while a snippet from Streets of Cairo (you know, the song you sang as a kid that you thought went "There's a place in France where the naked ladies dance") plays on the soundtrack. After an elephant sucks up and then releases the water of a pond rhythmically, a monkey wings a coconut at Whiteman's noggin while he conducts, which makes him see stars.

The segment is brief (only around two minutes), but it is goofy and entertaining and gets the moviegoers tapping their feet and prepared for the music to come. The highlight of the piece, of course, is the chance to see Oswald in color (though the only part of him that really changes are his blue pants and red tongue), and long before other cartoon characters received the chance to do so.

But Oswald and Lantz weren't done with Whiteman, and vice versa. Universal had Lantz create a short called My Pal Paul, which not only would feature Whiteman and his music in it, but would also serve as direct promotion for the King of Jazz film. When My Pal Paul opens -- with a jazzy melody playing over the credits -- we actually see a billboard promoting the film, that reads "Paul Whiteman in King of Jazz A Universal Release". Between our view and the billboard is a silhouette that we assume is meant to be the rather portly Whiteman, waving his arms as he is supposedly conducting his famous orchestra.

Then the silhouette turns around, and it is revealed that it was only Oswald the entire time. From a medium shot, we see that Oswald is performing in front of a group of other cartoon animals, who are watching the Lucky Rabbit torment a cat by playing his tail with a violin bow. And then, because the tails of cats are hollow, as you should well know by now, Oswald turns the cat into a saxophone and blows through the tail for a brief solo. A small baby bear (but don't quote me on that; the ears on some of these critters in early cartoons could represent many things) finds out that behind one of the boxes Oswald is using in his show, the rabbit has hidden a record player, and he is only faking the performance. The baby holds the phonograph over his head and yells, "Looky! Ha ha!" The crowd goes crazy. They start yelling, "Throw him out" at Oswald, and the rabbit leaves dejected.

It is always important to remember the year in which something was created when watching older films. A few years later, and the following scenario would never have happened. Oswald, spurned by his barnyard friends, runs behind a tree, crying madly and utterly despondent. From off of the single branch jutting out from the massive tree hangs a noose. Oswald spies the noose and without hesitating, he leaps up to grab the branch and pulls himself up to stand upon it. He pulls off his head, places the loop of the noose onto his neck, and reattaches his head. Holding his nose as he is about to jump into a body of water, he jumps off the branch to kill himself.

That's right. We are barely a minute into a cartoon, and the star wants to commit suicide. However, his attempt is unsuccessful, because as he hits the end of the noose's length, he uproots the entire tree (terrible root system, this thing), which falls straight over on top of Oswald. He holds the tree at bay with his skinny cartoon rabbit arms, and yells "Help!" several times at the top of his lungs, straining with the effort of keeping the tree from crushing him.

Enter Paul Whiteman. He zooms into view with his Oliver Hardy-like face and his body crammed into a speedy little sports car, honking his horn and making the car leap along with the music. Engaged in his drive, he pulls the steering wheel off and plays it like a flute for a brief moment, before replacing it and continuing on his merry way. That way becomes blocked by a very long dachshund, who stretches across the roadway. This upsets Paul, but the dog is helpful and swings its long midsection up into an arch tall enough to let the car pass.

He speeds off but suddenly hears Oswald's cries of "Help! Help! Help!" He runs to the tree where he sees the rabbit struggling mightily with the enormous trunk of the tree. Paul, about four times the size of the rabbit, easily pushes the tree back to standing but just stretching his arms out to place it without moving his feet at all. However, this causes Oswald to go back to being hung by the noose. Paul casually pops the rabbit's head off again, removes the noose, and puts Oswald's head back. All appears well for our hero and his new pal.

Or maybe not. Oswald is still sad from the rejection of his friends, and Paul can see it in his body language. He asks, "What's wrong, sonny?" and Oswald answers, "Who wants to know?" Paul stands up proudly, tugs each whisker of his mustache on each side of his face straight out, and says, "Paul Whiteman!" Oswald is astonished. "P-P-P-Paul Whiteman?" This causes Whiteman to puff up his chest to outlandish proportions, and with a tone for each button corresponding on the soundtrack, pops out all three buttons on his shirt and all four buttons on his pants. The pants fall down, and he is revealed to be wearing polka-dotted underwear. He pulls his pants back up sheepishly and quick.

"Ha!" says the rabbit. "Get a load of this, Paul!" Oswald runs to the bandleader's car and pulls out the muffler. He starts a jaunty tune by playing the muffler like a trumpet, blowing into the end while magically transforming a section of it into what looks like a derby that he uses as a mute. Partway through the solo, he points at the hood ornament, which reaches down to the grill on the front of the car and plays it like a harp. Paul Whiteman has a very strange moment where he is shown in closeup as he pulls his whiskers away from his face in time with the music. Oswald cranks the engine and causes the hood to roll up so we can see the pistons pump along in rhythm.

Oswald has since pulled the crank from the car and starts playing it like a flute. The hood ornament dances on top of the radiator cap to a tribal drum beat, looking for all the world like he is wearing a warbonnet. Oswald moves over to the front tire, where he pulls the valve off and starts and stops the whistle of the air escaping along with the tune. On the last note, the tire pops loudly, sending the rabbit rolling off, and causing the car to collapse.

Not to be outdone, Whiteman tries to get in on the fun. Standing next to a sawed off tree trunk, just like Oswald, he can't wait to blow into something else that people don't normally put their lips around. He grabs the tree branch and fingers the holes on the side of the trunk so that it makes horn sounds. Meanwhile, Oswald has picked up another tire and somehow turned it into a stringed instrument. On a helpful cue from a woodpecker within the tree trunk, the pair team up on a short version of the old standard, It Happened in Monterrey. When Whiteman sings, "Broke somebody's heart..." and pulls a large heart from his pocket, Oswald grabs it and sings back in a falsetto, "...And I'm afraid that it is mine!"

The following solo by Whiteman raises Oswald's ire and the pair spar back and forth, trading licks until Oswald decides he will determine the winner by laughing, "Ha ha ha ha ha! Nyah!" and sticks his tongue out at Whiteman. Back to the radiator cap, the hood ornament does some nice toe dancing, before the tune changes again. This time, a pair of pliers and a hammer jump out of the toolbox on the back of the car, and take to dancing. They are a nicely matched pair, with their limbs stretching out as it suits their moves, but when the hammer tries to kick the pliers in the rear, it misses and the hammer gets flipped. The pliers jump onto the back of the hammer and rides it like a pony for a measure before the pair return to their gentle stepping from the start of the song.

After the hood ornament once again dances to the beat of the tom-tom, we are ready for the finale. Oswald sticks a horn into the tailpipe and four figures much like the hood ornament (they could be musical notes) pop out of the holes on the horn. The quartet link their skinny little arms and start dancing to the popular tune, Happy Feet, marching back and forth and causing music to play as they step across the holes. Whiteman, the tree trunk, Oswald, and the car are then seen dancing together in a line, stomping their feet and jumping up and down to the crazy rhythm. 

The song switches to Song of the Dawn, with Paul singing "Dawn is breaking and a new day is born!" (It's not really his voice.) For an unknown reason (maybe the rabbit doesn't like Paul's singing), Oswald picks up Paul's car over his own head and then smashes to the ground in a jumble of pieces. Paul immediately looks overhead to see the noose still hanging from the tree and grabs Oswald. He puts the noose back over the rabbit's head and pulls down the rope. Instead of hanging Oswald (it only stretches him upward), the rope pulls the tree further and further down into the ground until both Paul and Oswald have been pinned to the ground by the tree branch holding the noose. Crawling out from under the branch, the two sport huge bumps on top of their heads while each see stars swirling. They look at each, say "My pal!" in tandem, go to shake each other's hands and then purposefully miss, sticking out their tongues instead.

"Boop-boop-a-doop
Boop-boop-a-doop
Boop-boop-a-doop
That's Oswald!"

Sure, it's cartoon insanity, but for a tie-in that is meant to promote a major motion picture release, they sure weren't worried about showing its main cartoon star as being manic depressive suicidal. It does point to how these films, at the time, were considered for all audiences and not just children. Such details in cartoons would largely go away, as they did in all mainstream fare, once the production code kicked in a few years later. While I like finding odd events like Oswald's suicide scene in these early films, I must admit that the scene bothered me slightly if only because of my own recent problems with depression (part of why I stopped writing on this blog for a few years, all of which is documented on my other blog if you are interested in such things).

In the end, the cross-promotion between cartoon and film probably didn't help all that much, given that the film failed at the box office. Still, the music in My Pal Paul (all of which is featured in King of Jazz) should appeal to fans of period music, even if this cartoon is nowhere near as interesting as the previous Oswald release, Hells Heels (written about on this site last week). There is a decided downturn in quality from that film to this one. It does show how even with the same staff working on the same films, inspiration is truly of the moment. And if you had to draw the rather dull Paul Whiteman over and over and over again, you might not feel all that inspired either.

Poor Cinderella (1934)

Poor Cinderella (A Max Fleischer Color Classic, 1934) 

Dir.: Dave Fleischer

Animators: Seymour Kneitel; Roland Crandall; William Henning

Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9

"I'm just a poor Cinderella

Nobody loves me it seems

And like a poor Cinderella

I find my romance in dreams.

For that's where I meet my Prince Charming

When I'm with him, cares stay away

I'm just a poor Cinderella

But I'll be a princess someday!"

I've said it before about animated films: it's not always about the funny. Some people would have you believe that all "cartoons" have to be comedies, or have to be populated only by wacky talking animals, or, hell, that all animated films are supposed to be known only as "cartoons". Before I introduced those inane people to Stan Brakhage and the Hubleys, amongst others, I would tell them, "No!", "No!", and triple "No!" Animated films, by virtue of their having only the limits of the imagination of the animator holding them back, can portray anything, can be about anything, and can show anything. They can, given the right budget and/or talent, show anything that a traditional film can portray, and then some. They can show every emotion imaginable. They can show things that can't be shown, or are amazingly hard to show, via normal film. However, more often than not due to the major studios insistence on such things, they are or are meant to be funny.

Max Fleischer made animated films, and far more often than not, they are considered cartoons, and also far more often than not, they are considered funny. But, if funny business is what makes an animated film a "cartoon", just what exactly is Poor Cinderella? The first color animated film by the Fleischer Studios, Poor Cinderella also has the distinction of being the only Betty Boop cartoon in color, and also is the first film in Max's attempt to duplicate Disney's popular Silly Symphonies, in a series Fleischer named Color Classics. 

Poor Cinderella is also, despite the rich heritage and reputation of the wonderful Ms. Boop, not all that funny. I've heard the film described as a fairy-tale spoof and/or parody, but this film is really almost a straightforward retelling of the classic poor girl/Prince Charming romance, and there is hardly a real laugh in the picture. I, myself, am a fan of early Boop (though not so much the later “clean-and-sober” Pudgy and Grampy films. I like my Boops to be manic and crazy, and filled with the likes of Bimbo and Koko the Clown, bouncily scored to wild jazz, and everything ruled by the antics of rubbery, stretchy cretins. And I don't like the words "spoof" or "parody" being tossed around all willy-nilly, when the picture is so mild in outcome.

But, to reject Poor Cinderella on its diminished merits as a funny picture is to do the film an injustice. For funny was not the real point of the Max Fleischer Color Classics. Matching, or at least momentarily keeping up with Disney in their race to syrupy sweetness (and maximum butts in seats) was the point. And to do this, Max Fleischer went BIG! ORNATE! COLORFUL! Well, as colorful as he was allowed to be, given that the first few films in the series were stuck with the 2-strip Cinecolor, severely limiting the palette of colors that could be used onscreen. Big, ornate, and colorful: Poor Cinderella is all that and more, with incredibly sharp detail in nearly every scene, from buildings, to street shots, to the cobblestone lining the streets, to the props in every room in Cinderella's home, to the chandeliers and staircases that fill the grand ballroom of Prince Charming's palace. Everything is huge, and each scene is almost embarrassingly plump with eye-gouging richness.

Much of this is due to Max Fleischer's secret weapon (and invention), the turntable camera. Personally, you can keep that much more touted multi-plane camera of Disney's (actually, I like it equally, but I'm on Max's team today). For pure animated gimmickry, the thing for me is the turntable camera system, which is basically where the cels are films horizontally in front of a turntable on which three-dimensional sets are built, and then the table is turned a smidgen in conjunction with the animation with every click of the camera. Not normal backgrounds, mind you, but actual miniature sets: buildings, trees, mountains, machines, props; all built to scale, and all used in the background, and eventually, the foreground to give the Color Classics, and the other Fleischer series, a feel and visual depth uniquely their own. The films are actually a mix of live-action and animation when you really think about it, and this includes the Popeye films and the Betty Boops. This also includes Poor Cinderella, and as merely something upon which to marvel on a visual level, without even taking into consideration story or humor, the film is worthwhile.

But, this is where the hitch lies. The film is also, outside of the extravagant visuals, somewhat staid and boring. Though there are many different versions of Cinderella around, this one sticks to the basic facts: girl enslaved nearly to death; evil, ugly stepsisters; royal ball; fairy godmother; back by midnight; dancing with Prince Charming; time flies; midnight; change back, leave glass slipper; search for girl; and marriage to the Prince. There is nothing out of the ordinary except for the expected magical elements. Though mice, lizards, horses, and a pumpkin do sing just before and, in the horses' case, during their metamorphoses (their song-and-dance segment is my favorite act in the film), these are expected since the film is a musical. And, sadly, there is no "Fractured Fairy Tale" attempt to jimmy up the works (except for a weird but fine cameo by a Rudy Vallee-style crooner at the ball), which even a mild swing at would have livened the film up to more than bearable standards.

While I think Betty, even with her hair dyed red for the step into Cinecolor, is always a peach-and-a-half, I have problems with the other human characters in the film. Prince Charming is a weak-chinned disaster as a character, and I never believe that he and Betty are members of the same species, let alone are being filmed on the same turntable sets. They look exceedingly mismatched as a couple, and I wish that he and the other humans in the film would have been designed as if they bore some resemblance to Betty's body type (not her shape, I mean her basic physical construction). 

The only characters that work even halfway for me are the Olive Oyl-bodied stepsisters, but they should look physically weird and/or repulsive, so this is a sort of "gimme”. Not even the Fairy Godmother, who should be the most memorable character in the film outside of Boop, is drawn with any real presence, and she is forgotten the instant that the coach drives off to the ball. The main problem here is that they go to such great lengths to breathe incredible life in Betty Boop, that any other humans come off as lesser and inferior beings, even a magical Fairy Godmother.

What does work is the music, a film-long connection song that Boop and the animals break into every minute or so, moving the plot of the movie along. Likewise, a beautifully realized clock sequence showing Betty hard at work fulfilling her stepsisters' every pre-ball whim, and linked to the music intricately. And, if there were one shot in the film that I had to select as a sterling example of animation, it is a shot of Betty looking into her mirror as she sings her Poor Cinderella theme (lyrics at the top of this article) sweetly and longingly, and as she sings, she wraps a tattered shawl about her shoulders and body like a cloak. The cloth is so detailed in line and wrinkle, and so tightly draped around Betty, that it adds immense vitality to the scene; it not only sells just how rich and deep Betty is as a character, it also sells how poor and sad the character is that Betty is playing. A remarkable scene. And, oh! Those tracking shots with the sets and 3D feel! It is this very touch that makes every Fleischer film, no matter the story quality, an interesting view.

Now, if only Koko and Bimbo were in the mix to really liven the film up. If only the orchestra at the Royal Ball were conducted by Cab Calloway. If only the singing pumpkin had a bigger part. If only the film were at least about 30% funny.

It's not all about the funny. But it could have helped turn a visually great but ho-hum film into a real winner. Poor Poor Cinderella...

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven’t seen it:

[This article was updated with new photos on 12/26/15.]