Countdown to Halloween: Seeing Ghosts (1948)

For the month of October, Cinema 4: Cel Bloc is taking part in an annual internet celebration known as the Countdown to Halloween. This is the fourth year that I have participated in this countdown, but the first with my Cel Bloc site. To find out more about the Countdown to Halloween, and to see a list of participating websites and blogs, go to http://countdowntohalloween.blogspot.com/.

Seeing Ghosts (1948)
Dir.: Mannie Davis
TC4P Rating: 5/9

It is very easy for me to want to rate a particular cartoon a little higher than I normally might simply because it has one or two factors that may register with me on a personal level. We all do this to in one way or the other. This person may like romances more than that person, who happens to prefer horror films, while their friend may like adventure films, and so each one is probably going to be a little more attuned to the nuances of the genre they prefer, and get wrapped up in little things that the rest of us probably wouldn't even notice or care about at all. Or not... sometimes blind faith to a particular type or genre means not really having a critical eye in the least, and just automatically loving every single bit of product released in that category. I have known people who have done it both ways.

This can extend to actors – such as thinking all of the films of Johnny Depp or Heath Ledger (merely examples) are just a little better across the board than those of other actors, and so you will probably rate them higher in your book. This can also extend to specific elements, like certain cars or animals or buildings.

We all make allowances in this manner in some way. For me, given that I have a blog devoted to the subject, sharks would be one of those elements that get me wound up even more when they show up somewhere, since I am constantly looking out for shark appearances in all manner of films. Monsters of all types, gorillas, elephants, dinosaurs, old Hollywood cameos, filmmaking, Christmas, baseball... these are trigger categories for me, and I probably have many more, because I am a bit obsessed when it comes to these things. And ranking very high on this list are the trappings of the Halloween holiday season: ghosts, haunted houses, black cats, autumnal weather, witches, jack-o'-lanterns, and of course, monsters, monsters, monsters.

This obsession is why I post throughout October for this Countdown to Halloween, why I collect so much crazy junk, and why I watch monster and horror films year 'round. I am one of those people who quite literally never really stop celebrating Halloween throughout the year, or if you want to look at it from another angle, never really start celebrating it because I act the same way every single day. But I am not someone who is comfortable walking around in Halloween drag constantly. That is too far out of my comfort zone, and there are other people for whom that is either a blessing or a necessity, but it's not me. I'm just a guy with a penchant for monster t-shirts, but no fangs or tattoos or even rudimentary costuming. I don't want to be perceived as creepy or scary, but just as a guy who really loves monster movies.

Truth be told, though, I am not as wrapped up in all elements of the holiday as I used to be. I don't dress up in costume anymore, not since I left Alaska, and it is chiefly because I don't have the annual Halloween party with friends to attend at hand. I have a smattering of friends down here, but nobody with whom I socialize on a regular basis, apart from the wife and her family. We will be attending a Disneyland Halloween Party tonight, but even though a great many people in attendance will be dressing up, I do not plan on doing so, nor have I thought out any form of costume. We discussed costumes briefly, Jen and I, but nothing really took, and then time just really got away from us. So, it will be a Universal Monsters glow-in-the-dark t-shirt and maybe my baby monster beanie (an option) but otherwise, just "Your Friendly Neighborhood Boogieman" as usual.

Now, I said that I watch monster and horror films year 'round, but that does not mean that when the Halloween season approaches, that I don't adjust the level of frequency of these films up slightly. Normally, I do at a very high volume, though due to time constraints with the increased amount of writing I have taken on in recent months, both online and off, it hasn't happened this year (but this is a very, very good thing for me, so don't fret). Naturally, when I get closer to Halloween, and especially on the day off, I am very fond of watching collections of Halloween-oriented cartoons that I have accumulated over the years, or have found online.

As I set up in my initial premise, certain elements can make you wish to rate a film higher than you might normally, and I am prone to doing this at times when it comes to films that feature the elements that I mentioned earlier that are mainstays of a "Halloween" cartoon: ghosts, haunted houses, black cats, autumnal weather, witches, jack-o'-lanterns, and monsters. (Technically, "monsters, monsters, and monsters" is what I said.) One can be easily led by the merest inclusion of any of these elements into thinking a cartoon is probably more worthy than it actually is, though not always. Many times, a good cartoon is simply a good cartoon, and you have to take it as such.

Would that I could say that, ultimately, about Seeing Ghosts. One of those shorts that almost seems better than it actually is, Seeing Ghosts initially fulfills, fairly well, everything that one might want from a Halloween cartoon, mostly in its opening couple of minutes. However, once the film's dull, personality-free main characters are introduced, Seeing Ghosts meanders into dull action and barely conceived "gags" (if such they actually are) that squanders the opportunity built up at the front of the cartoon.

Seeing Ghosts was released in 1949 and was directed by Terrytoons studio regular Mannie Davis. The film is only an example of average output from the company, which is to say, technically competent, but never really attempting to shock anyone by doing anything too original or by breaking new ground.

High on a hill during a windstorm sits a lonely looking house. There is a path that winds up the hill, and at the bottom of the path we see a For Sale sign encircled by leaves tossed up by the winds. A closeup on the sign reveals a black cat cautiously sniffing about on the ground, and it seems he blocking part of the sign. As he passes, his tail moves to reveal two more words underneath For Sale that tell the deeper story of why the house has not sold as of yet: Slightly Haunted. There is a cut to a closer exterior of the house, and we see numerous ghosts flying in and out of the windows underneath the moonlight. The scene cuts again to a view from the rooftops of the moon itself and a bat flies in front of it. He seems to be backlit by the orb, and we can see the skeletal frame of his body as he cheerfully glides in midair briefly.

Inside the house, spooks continue to flit about, sometimes in tandem with the lilting but haunting music. A bunch of ghosts are then seen sliding happily down the bannisters of a long staircase, and then several disembodied pairs of gloves pick up a bunch of instruments and start bashing out a swinging musical number. At a busted up piano in the corner, we see not only gloves, but an entire suit and happy, but no body within it, as it plinks along barrelhouse-style on the keys and then reaches for a draft of beer sitting on top of the piano. Lifting the giant mug, it pours the beer straight into the collar of its shirt. The invisible bass player (also with a floating derby) plunks along, and then numerous pairs of quite visible ghosts are seen dancing together. Other ghosts stand in a line and clap their hands in time with the music as a pair of skeletons dance a shuffle across the floor of the room. A lone ghost motions in pantomime to ask a dressing dummy for a dance, and then picks it up and whirls it into action, spinning it wildly at one point.

Enter our protagonists, a house decorator who at first is reminiscent of Practical Pig from The Three Little Pigs at the rival Disney studio, and his canine pal, a small brown pup who rides shotgun in the pig's red, equipment-laden jalopy. The ghosts all peer out the window as the car makes it way up the driveway, and while they seem shocked at first, their faces turn angry on a second glance, once they realize what is being done. The pig steps out of the vehicle with the dog behind him, and nails a sign reading Sold to the column by the front door. "Sold!" say the ghosts in unison, and then louder and louder, "Sold! Sold! Sold!" They skedaddle as the pig opens a very squeaky door to make his initial entrance into the house.

The pig cups a hand to his mouth and says meekly, "Hello!" and a light echo returns to him. He looks at his dog, and then says louder, "Is anybody there?" and the immediate response from every single unseen ghost in the house is a resoundingly booming, "NOOOO!" The pig jumps in shock, but is not half as shocked as his pooch, who turns into a whirlwind and throws his entire body around his master. They both run out of the house, and the dog loses the pig, who has hidden behind a gravestone in the cemetery adjacent. He peers around the stone and sees his one shadow looming on the wall behind him, and jumps in fear. He crouches down the second time and looks again, and once more jumps when he sees his own shadow. The third time he picks up a rock and turns to face whatever it is, but is scared again when the shadow is also holding up something.

Just as he is about to look a fourth time, his dog walks up, and he realizes that the shadows were just him all along. Together, they start to stride out of the cemetery, but the dog's tail wags and tickles the pig's rear end, causing the swine to jump in fear yet again. He takes a full-armed swipe at his pet to warn him against doing such things. Re-entering the house, the door slams shut hard behind the house decorator, but even though he is scared at first, the ghostly figure of a beautiful blonde woman appears before him and walks across the room. He starts to follow her, holding his arms in front of himself in the manner that she is, but she turns around suddenly, causing him to turn too. Now following the pig, she turns yet again and walks straight through a nearby door. The pig looks through the keyhole, but a ghost pops up behind him and kicks him in the butt, sending the pig crashing through the wood of the door.

Picking himself up slowly from the floor, the pig notices a ghost in an old-timey swimsuit swimming through the air above him. The ghost turns and says, "The water's fine, isn't it?" and then swims away. Behind him, another invisible figure pops up wearing a smoking jacket, gloves, top hat, and slippers. He holds a cigarette holder in his teeth, which you can also see fully as he speaks. "Are you the house decorator?" the figure asks of the pig, who nods in the affirmative. The ghost tells him to shake, offering its hand out to the pig, who can only reply, because it is so very, very true, "I-I-I am sh-shaking, m-mister!" As they shake hands, the ghost disappears, and the pig is left holding an empty glove in his hand. He throws it to the ground, but then the glove stands up on the tips of its fingers and walks away.

The glove walks up the pig's paint bucket and dives into it. The pig runs up and grabs the paintbrush. He swishes it about trying to find the glove, but all that happens is that two big green ghosts fly out of the bucket laughing wildly at him. He picks up the bucket and walks to his ladder, and then goes up the first few rungs. Strangely, the bottom part of the ladder seems to close up behind him as he climbs. The ladder shoots up and he ends very high in the room. He starts to paint the dirty green walls a golden color, but as the paint washes down, a window – or at least a certain portion of a window – appears magically before his eyes. He is shocked, but even more shocked when he paints more with the gold color and the rest of the window appears. While looking through the window makes it look like it is a blue sky day (even while it is nighttime), a ghost opens the window and it looks as if he is peering through a golden window (its an odd effect). The ghost says, "Hello!" and then slams the window shut. The window totally disappears leaving only the gold-painted wall, and the pig leaps into the air and falls all the way the floor, smashing hard into it.

Another ghost strides into the room and right past the pig, almost in a mocking and daring fashion. The decorator picks up a board and goes to strike the ghost with it, but naturally, his swing goes right through the apparition. He is about to try again, but the spook turns and grabs the board and snaps it into two over its knee. The dog walks up behind the pig again and once more scares him. The pig tells the canine to go away, and then peers into the next room. But the dog sees something coming and runs away, leaving the pig's back turned as a skeleton walks up and pokes him on the shoulder. "Go away," says the pig, but the skeleton pokes again. The pig reaches back and feels something strange, and pulls his hand forward to reveal that he is hold a shinbone with a foot attached to it.

He turns around, sees the skeleton, and wastes no time in speeding away! He runs so fast that as he passes the dog, his pet is pulled in his wake and they head all the way up the stairs. The pig locks himself in a trunk in the attic and the dog sits on top of it, but a ghost appears over the trunk and the poor pooch finds that he is trapped inside the somewhat elastic spook as if he were in a plastic bag. With a mighty leap, he frees himself of the trap, and it is just enough to force the ghost into the trunk. There is a rumble inside it, and the pig finds he must make his escape as well. Speeding back down the stairs, the pair crash from step to step, making enough noise to make a group of skeletons sleeping underneath each one to pop and say sharply in unison, "QUIET!"

The pig and dog hid their heads under a couch in the living room, but another ghost lights the fuse on a large stick of dynamite and places it behind them. The decorator turns to see the dynamite and runs, but the dog thinks it is a game and grabs the TNT and chases after the pig. The dog tries to give the pig the stick of dynamite, and the pig panics and throws it away, not thinking that, of course, the dog will think they are playing fetch and will bring it back again. Once he throws it, the pig whips through the door and holds the door shut, but the dog leaps out a window and presents him with the TNT. This time, he opens the door to the house, throws the stick inside, and then slams the door shut. The dog actually follows him down the hill, where they both hide to await the explosion. The house goes up in a huge blast and is blown to splinters. Then the pig sees what is coming out of the blast: all of the ghosts come floating down from the sky, suspended by spectral parachutes. Their chutes disappearing as they alight on the ground, the spooks start giving chase once more to the pig and the dog, and the film comes to a close.

Not a very satisfying resolution to a not altogether enjoyable cartoon, but I don't think the pig and dog team ever really fit in very well to the scenario anyway. For a house decorator, except for the painting sequence, he doesn't really try to do all that much in the way of his job. The dog's inclusion in the antics almost seems like an afterthought. The pup never really gets a solo moment with the ghosts apart from the "plastic bag" moment, and it almost feels like he was added just so they had a reason to do the fetch gag with the dynamite.

But Seeing Ghosts does have that marvelous beginning. The first couple of minutes have ample Halloween atmosphere, and the bit with the For Sale sign and the black cat is a nice intro leading to the ghosts. You could argue that the ghost and skeleton gags during the dance sequence themselves have been done equally well and even far better in many cartoons, but since when was watching ghosts enjoy themselves at a swingin' party a crime?

That is exactly the hitch with a film like Seeing Ghosts. I find it extremely disappointing by the end of the cartoon, especially since two-thirds of the running time is spent with a couple of quite forgettable characters. And yet, I cannot dismiss it outright, because the ghost sequences and especially that opening are rendered well enough with spooky flair and fun that the film must be included in any annual Halloween collection just so one can take in the atmosphere.

As I said, we all make allowances in some way. It all depends on what you like...

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it:

It's A Very Special Cel Bloc Xmas: Hector's Hectic Life (1949)

Hector's Hectic Life (A Paramount/Famous Noveltoon, 1948)
Dir.: Bill Tytla
Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9

Poor Hector the Dog. He gets his name in the title of Hector's Hectic Life, a 1948 short from Paramount's Famous Studios, but is it his real name? The only human being in existence in the cartoon -- either a wife/mother or a domestic servant of indeterminate Scandinavian accent -- insists on calling him "Princie" throughout it.

So, is this dog really named Hector or is he named Princie? Was he really meant to be Princie all along, but the Famous Studios producers were having a hard time coming up with a title for the cartoon? I can imagine they reached zero hour, and at the very last minute, one writer said, "Boy, that dog is sure having a hectic life in it, that's for sure!" And then a another writer kicked in with, "Hectic life... hec-tic... Hec--tor! Hector!" And then the producer yells, "HECTOR! That's it! Well, call it 'Hector's Hectic Life!'" "But, sir! The dog's name is Princie!" "Doesn't matter... the title stays!" "But he's called Princie all the way through the cartoon!" "Well, it's too late to redo the audio. Let's run with it!"

My silly conjecture aside, Hector or Princie the Pup is having a hectic life indeed in this cartoon. Everything starts up because, for a dog, Hector/Princie (we will call him the latter moving forward) is an utter pig, and leaves mess after mess in the house. This being a 1940s cartoon, excrement and urine are not to be accepted as the canine messes of preference, and thus, Hector is seen lounging about on a bed -- not a dog bed mind you -- with a more family-friendly mess -- chew bones, a random piece of bread, a candy wrapper -- strewn all about him. And then there are paw prints and dirt all over the comforter on the bed and on the white pillows. Princie is not a clean boy, and he is content to just snore and snore (sounding much like Bird Bird's famous one) the day away.

Until he is smacked hard with a broom, that is! He is awoken with the maid (I am thinking she is a servant rather than the distaff head of the household) screaming at him, "You lounging mutt, you! Always messing up this house!" Princie bolts instantly from the room and slides speedily down the bannister of the stairway. Unfortunately for him, he crashes right into the family Christmas tree, and he is left hanging from the thin trunk at the top of the tree when it fell over sideways. The angel mounted on the tree lands on his head, and Princie is swept up the scruff of his neck by the maid.

"If this wasn't Christmas, I'd t'row you out! For now, for der last time I'm warning you. Yust one more mess, and outside in the cold you vill be! Vith-out a home!" She holds Princie up to the glass of the window and he sees the lawn and trees covered in snow. Princie imagines himself with a ragged blanket pulled about his shoulders as he shivers and begs for alms next to a snow-covered fire hydrant. "So!" she continues, "You yust remember dis! But if you are a good dog, Santa might leave you a nice present!" The sulking pup suddenly perks up with excitement. He nods his agreement, and tucks his front legs under his head as he lies down for a nap on the rug.

Suddenly there is a rapping at the front door, and Princie wonders if perhaps Santa Claus has already arrived to give him a basket full of goodies. Pushing open the dog door and going out into the snowy weather, there is indeed a basket sitting on the front steps. He grabs the basket by the handle with his teeth and drags it inside. Licking his chops in anticipation, Princie quickly ties a napkin about his neck, and prepares to dig into the feast for which he is hoping. Instead, as he goes to open the lid, a quick yelp makes him pull his hand back.

Quickly reaching into the basket, he is surprised to see 1, 2, 3 puppies pop their heads up out of the basket! He looks at the pups, and slowly realizes that with each tan puppy having a right eye with a black circle around it and a tan right ear, that they look exactly like him. Could it be? Princie turns to look at himself in the mirror on the door, and after examining himself fully, he lifts his left ear into the air and remembers that it is black. Hah! He's got 'em! He turns with a wicked smile and wiggles his black left ear at them, but then the pups surprise him again by all three lifting their left ears and wiggling them. They are all black in color too!

Angrily, Princie slams the lid on the basket shut and sits down it to trap them inside. But the pups crawls out of the lid on the other side of the basket. Within seconds, they have already upended a goldfish bowl from off of a pedestal in the corner, and are rolling the bowl about in the water all over the floor. The goldfish himself, freed from his prison, leaps about happily in the newly created lake of water, playing with the puppies. The maid hears the commotion and asks Princie what is going on, but the dog leaps in to action, mopping up the water with a towel in a frantic display of energy. He wrings the water out of the towel back into the bowl, but then realizes the goldfish is still missing. One of the puppies is sitting in front of the older dog, but as he wags his tail, Princie realizes that the puppy is sitting on the fish instead and that the fish's flopping body only looks like the puppy's tail. He grabs the fish and throws it back in the bowl. 

Princie whisks the puppies away to a nearby closet, traps them inside, and then holds the door shut with his foot while he pretends to be asleep on the mat in front of the closet. The maid, telling Princie what a good dog he is being, departs when she sees he is sleeping peacefully. Princie turns towards the closet when the puppies start to yip and yelp, but when he opens the door to shush them, the puppies make a break for it. Princie is first hit hard in the head by an ironing board and then even harder by the actual iron, as the puppies scurry away to wreak more havoc in the house.

The puppies start to attack a large stack of presents by the Christmas tree, and then the whole stack is thrown about the room by a jack-in-the-box that has just popped out from the bottom of the stack. As the boxes fly into the air, Princie makes a concentrated effort to catch each one of them, piling them up in his arms and then placing them on top of the jack-in-the-box as before. One final box falls and opens when it hits Princie, and he comes out wearing a pair of blue bloomers, and gets all red in the face with shy embarrassment. 

He comes out of this quiet moment when the puppies attack and shred the cushion of a nearby chair, sending feathers flying everywhere! Rushing back into action, Princie attacks exactly like a vacuum and sucks up all the feathers with his mouth, running himself across the room and up and down over the chair. With his mouth full of feathers, he sees the puppies hiding around the corner of the chair, so he swoops them up, stuffs them back in the basket, runs to the front door, spits the feathers out so they can mix with the snow on the ground, and throws the basket as far as he can.

Slamming the door, Princie slaps his hands together in victory, but it is short-lived. As Princie strides off proudly, the puppies (his puppies?) match his every step in line behind him. He turns and growls at them, and then grabs them up with his teeth by their tails. He runs to the front door and throws them out again, and then grabs a hammer and nails and boards up the dog door. He marches over to the fire and lays down to warm himself with a nap. But sleep will not be so restful for Princie. 

Using the time honored angel/devil scenario, a tiny version of Princie wearing wings and a halo pops out of his head and says in dramatic fashion, "For shame! Your soul to the devil you have sold, for throwing those puppies out into the cold!" From the fireplace springs a devilish version of Princie who says, "Doggone it! If that ain't chintzy!" The devil grabs the angel's halo and twirls it on his finger. "Ah, don't be a schnook, Angel Puss! Come off of the clouds! Why should he lose his happy home for them dopes, see?" The angel has had enough, puffs up his chest, and socks the devil square in the chops, sending him flying! "No!" the angel says, "Those innocent babes into the cold you've driven! Go, bring them back, and all with be forgiven!"

The angel disappears and Princie wakes up. With a smile on his face knowing he will do good (and get his present from Santa), Princie reaches for the doorknob, but then he hears a crash behind him! The puppies have somehow gotten back inside and have attacked the Christmas tree, causing most of the needles and ornamentation to come crashing to the floor. The puppies themselves sit in the branches of the trees with smirks on their faces. Princie rushes forward and admonishes them for their behavior, but when he hears the footsteps of the maid coming down the stairs, he starts using the standard canine digging motion to kick all of the needles and ornaments back at the tree. Miraculously, it all seems to hang together and look as it did before, and Princie quickly lies down and pretends he is sleeping again.

"My goodness," says the maid. "Wherever you look, he were sleeping! A sleeping beauty!" She walks away, but then the puppies, still sitting inside the branches of the tree all sneeze simultaneously. Everything that Princie just kicked back onto the tree crashing down on top of his head. The maid runs back in, and screams, "By Yiminy!" Grabbing him by the scruff again, she makes ready to kick him outside for good, but the puppies come to his rescue. They pop up out of the pine needles and block her from taking Princie, barking at the maid as ferociously as they can. 

The maid instantly falls in love with the puppies. "Ah, Princie! Why didn't you tell me?" She picks the puppies up and we hear her kissing them. (We only ever see her feet, legs, and portions of her body, but never her face.) "And they're all so beautiful! They look yust like you, Princie!" This makes the dog puff his chest out and stand at attention proudly. Saying that this will be a wonderful Christmas for the children, she places each puppy in a different stocking on the mantle. Princie looks at his pups and smiles at them, and they all paw and kiss his head joyfully as Jingle Bells plays on the soundtrack. Iris out.

Hector's Hectic Life is pretty standard Famous Studios fare, but its cuteness is not too nauseating, and the Christmas theme is rather played in the background mostly until the finale. It's a decent enough cartoon, and is perfect for the holidays, especially for the younger set. So, I can't get too down on it, because I kind of enjoy it too.

But I do have a problem with Hector/Princie. Why the title isn't more holiday oriented I don't know. I really do think they were having a problem coming up with a title, and maybe the writer's room fantasia I created at the beginning of this piece is closer to the truth than not. But in going through the film, it makes me question Princie's gender. Is Princie actually short for Princess? Were the puppies left on the front doorstep by the stork, the baby delivery shorthand convention of the time? And if the puppies are being left with their father instead, what happened to the mother? Did she drop them off? What happened between her and Princie?

Or... wait a minute! Maybe Princie is their father after all, but he has to dress up as their mother so they don't feel like they have been abandoned. They could have called the film... Hector/Hectoria! Now that's a title!

RTJ

*****

And in case you hadn't seen it:

L'il Ainjil (1936)

L'il Ainjil (Columbia/Screen Gems, 1936)
Dir.: Manny Gould and Ben Harrison
Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9

It is my guess that for many of you, L'il Ainjil is not a film you have ever run across before. Hell, I didn't see it until a couple of years ago, and I went into seeing it with great, built-in misgivings thanks to Leonard Maltin. 

L'il Ainjil was released in 1936 as part of Columbia's long-running Krazy Kat series, in which the Kat looked and acted nothing like the original version that George Herriman created and made famous in the comic strip of the same name starting in 1913. (It ran in Hearst newspapers until Herriman's death in 1944.) The silent films originally created in tandem with Hearst did have a Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse (two of the strip's three main characters, the third of whom is Offissa Bull Pupp) that looked pretty much as put down on paper. They did little that pertained to how they acted in the comics, but they at least looked pretty close. But none of the Southwestern flavor of the settings and backgrounds of the strip made it onto the big screen, and because they were silent films, none of the rich, poetic verbosity and little of the mangled language (they did use word balloons in the cartoons early on) made it either.

And the driving force of the Krazy Kat strip, the strange love triangle dynamic between Ignatz (who loved to throw bricks at Krazy's head but didn't like the Kat), Krazy (unidentifiable as either male or female, and who took Ignatz's missiles to be messages of pure love), and Offissa Pupp (who was in love with Krazy but hated Ignatz and went to extreme measures to stop the mouse from throwing bricks, even though Krazy had little but disdain for Pupp) never made it to the movie screen at that time at all.

Krazy kept making films, and the world hit the sound era, and things just... evolved. Over the years, Ignatz disappeared from the movies. The series was taken over by Columbia at some point, and soon enough, Krazy was just another adventure-seeking Mickey clone -- he got cuter and round, and even obtained a girlfriend -- and became engaged in rubbery antics with all manner of barnyard animals and anthropomorphic musical instruments and furniture. Though there are moments that still play well in the earlier shorts, as the series continued at Columbia through the early 1930s, they became increasingly rote (and sometimes well below that near the end). And, of course, nowhere near what Krazy Kat was in the comics, which in my opinion -- based on a combination of Herriman's dual talents at superior draftsmanship and fantastically written, original satire -- continues to serve as one of the finest pure examples of individual art ever created.

L'il Ainjil is almost, kind of... should'a-would'a-could'a... sort of almost the way it ought to have been done for years and years. The character we see in L'il Ainjil is almost -- and I only say "almost" with reservations, because L'il Ainjil is still fairly wide of the mark -- the real Krazy Kat.

Not that the people who made it think that way, and this where the misgivings I mentioned at the start of this article were built initially. Directed by Columbia veterans Manny Gould and Ben Harrison, who were hugely responsible for the steady descent of the series, L'il Ainjil was conceived as a desperate change of pace from what they had been doing in the series to that point. According to Leonard Maltin's usually indispensable tome on the art, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons (McGraw-Hill, 1980), animator I. (Isadore) Klein convinced producer Charles Mintz to let them try to make a Krazy Kat film using the actual characters and love triangle plot from Herriman's strip. This meant bringing back Ignatz Mouse (though I prefer when he is called Mice) and, for the first time on camera, Offissa Pupp. But Klein had to deal with the increasingly pedestrian style of his directors, and even though he loved the backgrounds that were created for the film, he ended up deeply disappointed in the final result. Klein's partial quote from Maltin's book was, "...but it was a senseless story, throwing bricks, and that was the end of it."

And here is where Maltin screwed me. He closes the subject on L'il Ainjil by saying bluntly, "The cartoon... is just as bad as Klein remembers it being." That's it. Of course, when I am told something is remarkably bad, I want to see it almost as much, and sometimes even more, than I would a greatly revered classic.  But, it would over thirty years after first buying Of Mice and Magic (I have first editions in both hardcover and paperback) before I would have a chance to see L'il Ainjil, though I would read through Maltin's overall, still quite excellent and informative book several times over those decades. And because I prefer to base my cinematic knowledge first in that which I have seen for myself, then supplementing it with secondary information gained from published sources, and finally coloring in what I have seen and learned with the ofttimes educated (but sometimes not) opinions of others about the subject, I had no other recourse but to watch L'il Ainjil with my own eyes to find out just what was so "bad" about it.

Nothing. There is nothing that is outright bad about L'il Ainjil. That there was a sense of disappointment regarding the film by the animator who led the charge in getting it made is understandable because L'il Ainjil is not a success by most means of measuring a film's quality. But in comparing it to the most immediate predecessor in the Krazy Kat series (that is available to see, that is) -- 1935's heavily racially stereotyped and dull Kannibal Kapers -- the intent behind making L'il Ainjil for the true Krazy Kat fan of that era not only comes off as bold but also somewhat noble.

At the outset of L'il Ainjil, following the title card, we meet Offissa Bull Pupp and Mrs. Kwakk Wakk as they walk towards the camera in a forced perspective as the road rolls away underneath their feet. They are rushing hurriedly forward, with Offissa Pupp swinging his truncheon wildly above his head. 

Offissa Pupp (in Billy Costello's instantly recognizable voice) sings along in an operetta style:**

"I am all the law and order,
___ ___ ___, ___ ___ ___
of the county known as Coconino!"

And then Mrs. Kwakk Wakk adds in:

"Nino!"

Pupp continues:

"There's one rascal ___ ___ ___ me,
Ignatz Mouse, and  ___ ___ me!"

And then Mrs. Kwakk Wakk reveals the purpose behind their purposeful march:

"Don't hit Krazy Kat upon the bean-o!"

And Pupp adds:

"Bean-o!"

[**I have listened closely to what Pupp is singing dozens of times now, and still cannot make out clearly what is being said. I have left blanks in the spots where the lyrics are still to be determined. If you have better ears than I, and the answers seem reasonable, I will update this in the near future. Feel free to leave comments below.]

The pair then join hands and begin to dance while pale examples of Herriman's Arizona-inspired rocks and mountain scroll along past them in the distance. Suddenly, Krazy Kat dances into view. Offissa Pupp and Mrs. Kwakk Wakk stop their merriment to stare at the lovelorn cat, who spins about with a tremendous smile on her face. (For purposes of clarity, I haven chosen to establish Krazy's gender as female in this article, though her gender is generally considered fluid.) Krazy departs and continues to dance along, as houses and trees pass behind the cat. After leaping into the air, Krazy ducks her head into a flap in a booth ahead of her.

It sounds like something hits Krazy in the head, and the angle switches to the other side of the booth. We see a scowling Ignatz Mouse standing next to a pile of bricks. One after one, Ignatz picks up a brick and hurls it at Krazy's head, not even waiting it see it bounce off the cat's noggin before picking up the next one. But this is not enough for the mouse. Krazy has been smiling like an idiot thus far throughout the mouse's cruel but wrongly interpreted onslaught, but then Krazy shows surprise when she sees what is coming. Ignatz mounts a modified machine gun onto the counter of the booth and starts shooting bricks even faster at Krazy's head. The cat is knocked back through the flap at the back of the booth.

When she rises from the ground, Krazy flies up into the air with a happy smile still on her face, and then rushes to duck her head back into the flap to catch more bricks. Offissa Pupp only sees Krazy from the rear of the booth and scratches his head in confusion. He chuckles due to his adoration of Krazy and her strange behavior, but then realizes something must be amiss. He and the nosy duck march to the booth earnestly and see Krazy's body with her head still through the flap. She swings back and forth, clicking her heels with each hit of a brick (still completely unseen by Pupp and Kwakk Wakk).

Pupp picks up Krazy's tail and pushes the end of it like a doorbell or buzzer. Krazy's head pops out of the flap as she backs up, and we see that her ears have turned into the bells that used to adorn the tops of older telephones. They ring fast and loud, and Krazy pulls out a telephone receiver (with a cord) from out of nowhere. In the only word she will say throughout the cartoon, Krazy asks, "Hello?" Pupp is overjoyed to hear Krazy's voice, and responds, "Hello!" but then realizes this silliness is blocking him from his job in finding out what is happening on the other side of the booth. He swings Krazy away by her tail and out of the frame with a crash. Pupp puffs up his chest and adjusts his pants and ducks his head into the flap to see for himself. We hear a brick hit him square on the noggin, and he falls out backwards from the flap onto the ground.

On the other side of the booth, Ignatz realizes what has just happened. Hurriedly, he pitches the machine gun under the pile of bricks and forms them into a small chimney. He reaches over the counter and pulls out a long white beard, and then also pulls out a bell and a large sign that reads "Xmas Fund" on it. He starts to wave the bell in the air. Pupp gets up and comes around the side of the booth and sees the beard-wearing Ignatz forlornly ringing the bell as if to ask for donations for the needy. Pupp is ever the softie at heart, and readily flips a coin into the chimney.

Enter Krazy Kat from the side of the booth. She sees the sign and the chimney, but then sneezes, blowing the bricks from the false chimney up into the air, and causing them to rain down onto the head of Offissa Pupp! The brick-throwing machine gun too is revealed, and Pupp looks ready to clobber Ignatz. The mouse looks him in the face and laughs musically at the police dog. "Ha-ha, ha-ha, ha-ha-ha!" and then waggles the bell under Pupp's chin ticklishly. Pupp smacks Ignatz on the head with his truncheon and then drags the mouse away. Mrs. Kwakk too is riled up and overly excited by the capture of Ignatz, and she quacks wildly before conking Krazy on the head herself. (It must be pointed out that the duck is doing exactly what she was trying to stop in the first place: the further abuse of Krazy Kat.)

Pupp marches to a small jail that looks fairly like the one that Herriman himself would have drawn, and throws Ignatz into it with his truncheon, crashing the mouse through the front door. Pupp pulls out a large key, locks the door, and then swallows the key in one gulp, with his neck taking on the shape of the key briefly. Offissa Pupp then reverts back to the operetta style from earlier and sings:

"Ignatz Mouse, it's safe to say,
you will not toss a brick today!"

And Mrs. Kwakk Wakk finishes:

"Or any other day in Coconino!"

Pupp adds:

"Nino!" 

The pair dance away as before, and we next see Krazy Kat sneaking from tree to tree, with one rubbery leg stretching far out from behind one tree and then over to the next, pulling her body behind it. She gets to the jail where Ignatz sits in a second-story cell window with bars across it. She whistles to get the mouse's attention and shows him a large gift basket. He can't reach it with his tiny mouse arms, so Krazy lights a cigar sitting in the basket to rocket it upward. The basket lands in his arms, and he takes it inside. He first puts the cigar in his mouth happily, and then dumps all of the fruit out of the basket. The last item to pop out is a pie with a zipper running around its circumference. He unzips it and reveals all manner of tools with which he can perform an escape, including a saw, a drill, an axe, and even a good-sized, classically cartoonish bomb. He grabs the saw and drill and gets to work.

Krazy stands outside, with large hearts flying around and dissolving over her head. The jail starts to shake and bulge out in various places as Ignatz uses the escape tools. There is more stretching and shaking as bricks start to pop out of the building, and then entire holes are smashed out here and there. Another criminal is seen in another cell window on the second floor, hanging on while the building rocks back and forth. Finally, the building gives way, and the criminal's entire cell is sent flying, smashing the bricks off of it when he lands, upon which his cell door swings open. The criminal runs away.

Meanwhile, Krazy has bricks raining down on her, and she runs to avoid them. But then one of them hits her directly on the forehead, and she falls instantly into a love swoon, with more hearts popping in the air above her. She goes back into her leaping, spinning dance from the beginning of the picture, eventually running into Mrs. Kwakk Wakk. Krazy grabs the duck's wings and starts to dance with her, leaving Pupp to scratch his head. Mrs. Kwakk Wakk desperately tries to break Krazy's grip, and quacks wildly. By the time that they dance back to the police dog and Krazy switches partners, the duck is thoroughly exhausted. The cat and dog dance a quick round and come back to the duck, and then Krazy dances on her tiptoes around both of them.

Krazy dances back to the jail, where we see that the only thing that remains is a long pipe extending up from the foundation, on top of which rests Ignatz's jail cell, with the mouse still behind bars. The cell swings back and forth through the air, with bricks being shot out cannon-style through the chimney on top of the jail cell. Pupp rushes forward to check out the situation, but hears Mrs. Kwakk Wakk being attacked by the other criminal who was set free by the explosion of the jailhouse. The crook gets pretty "handsy" with the duck, and she wallops him a couple of times with her umbrella, but it doesn't stop him. Pupp jumps on the crook and they start to fight and roll about. In the melee, Mrs. Kwakk Wakk takes a couple more swings at the criminal, but hits Offissa Pupp soundly each time.

Ignatz sees what is happening and reaches down to the ground to pick up his machine gun. With a pile of bricks laying about, he has unlimited ammo and starts firing down in the direction of the criminal. He brains the criminal several times over, and then the gun allows Ignatz to shoot the bricks in such a way that it builds a brand new jail around the criminal, locking him inside. (I am not sure where the bars in the window come from, but oh well...) 

Ignatz leaps down from his cell window with a brick already hidden behind his back. Pupp and the duck are overjoyed at the capture, and the police dog rushes forward to shake the mouse's hand. Pupp departs, and Krazy walks up to Ignatz. The mouse looks only briefly at the brick before he wings it and hits Krazy once again. Pupp runs back into frame and chases Ignatz into the distance, with the mountains of Coconino County behind them. Iris out. 

As I mentioned, compared to some of the relative crimes of the later Krazy Kat cartoons against the art of animation, L'il Ainjil is the preferred choice. Yes, even when it goes against the true nature of the strip and mistakes what was cleverly satirical for slapstick violence, it is still a far cry better than what came before. This may be damning with faint praise, but so be it. I get a small rush just from knowing there is an older cartoon that actually use more than just the two most famous cast members of the strip and that they made a fairly decent show of replicating the look as well, including the backgrounds. And frankly, it is a lot of unthinking brick-throwing (and shooting), but I would rather see Ignatz -- and an Ignatz that actually looks like Ignatz -- throw a thousands bricks in one cartoon than not throw a brick at all. Especially when one realizes there are nearly 200 Krazy Kat cartoons, and this is the only one with Offissa Pupp and Mrs. Kwakk Wakk.

I am a bit astounded that Maltin passed this one off so quickly. It also makes me wonder if he actually watched it when he wrote his book. He gives no real detail about it and lets the quotes from Klein explain anything that was in the cartoon (which is little). All he is says is that the film was as bad as Klein remembered, and if he didn't actually watch it and just paid lip service to having done so, I am deeply surprised he wouldn't take a sharper look at the film to determine its true level of "badness". Naturally, he implies that he did just by his statement, but even a quick look at L'il Ainjil reveals it is not merely another product of the same line from whence it was built. It is an aberration from that line, and deserves to be studied a little closer than it has. It showed the wild potential that could have been had by this series if they had simply followed the original creation a little closer. We could have been talking about one of the classic cartoon series if they had developed these themes further (and would have hopefully brought more of the wordplay of the comic strip to the movie screen).

Just by its intent, L'il Ainjil proves, even at this belated date, that it has its heart in the right place and certainly beats out the Krazy films that preceded and followed it, even if the short disappointed its creators. It may have missed wildly, and it may have everyone in the balcony inexplicably booing it, but L'il Ainjil still throws a pretty mean brick.

RTJ

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