Felix in Hollywood

Felix in Hollywood is a great film. The version I viewed was very well restored, which is sometimes a problem with these silent era animated films. It has some of Hollywood's most famous stars making cameo animated appearances. A must for any silent film or animation enthusiast.

Celebrity cameo formats were becoming so popular in 1923 that Felix The Cat couldn't help going to Hollywood and meeting the stars. Producer Pat Sullivan, with the help of Otto Messmer, created the first animated cartoon featuring famous drawn filmmakers, in their July 1923's "Felix In Hollywood." The ten-minute film began a long list of animated shorts where caricatures of big screen performers popped in to interact with featured cartoon personalities.

"Felix in Hollywood" has Felix as the pet cat of a jobless actor who thinks a trip to the California film capital could change his luck. A lack of funds for the trip gets Felix on a scheme to sell shoes by a local store owner who's offering him gobs of cash if he can get customers lined up outside his door. Scattering fresh gum all over the city streets, Felix accomplishes his goal before he heads out to Hollywood. There he encounters the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Ben Turpin and Douglas Fairbanks, while Cecil B. DeMille and even chief movie censor Will Hays encounters the mischievous feline.

Much acclaimed by animated critics, "Felix In Hollywood" was named #50 in Jerry Beck's Fifty of The Greatest Cartoons of all time, Felix's only appearance on the list.

Felix is watching an actor rehearse his lines: "A ham, A ham! My kingdom for a ham sandwich!!!" The dramatic guy that tells Felix he'll "have to sacrifice my art and go into the movies." He's in tears. Felix just looks at him like he's nuts, and shrugs his shoulders. The old guy tells Felix to "go ye forth" and find money to finance a trip to Hollywood. Felix thinks, "How does he expect me to get the money?"

In minutes, of course (this is a cartoon), he spots a shoe business owner putting up a "bankrupt" sale on his store. Felix comes up with a plan to bail him out and the man promises the cat $500 if it works.

Well, it does but the man wants to go alone and leave Felix at home. In an outrageous scene, Felix transforms himself into a briefcase and that's how he gets to Hollywood, transforming himself back to cat when they get there.

We then witness Felix's attempts at getting into show business. His audition scenes are very funny, especially with his imitation of Charlie Chaplin. In addition there are caricatures of some famous silent film stars and executives. In all, quite a bit of material is in this 9.5- minute cartoon. It's amazing how much more you can get in an extra 2.5 minutes, assuming most animated shorts are seven minutes in length.

At any rate, there were a number of laughs in here and more zany things you could only see in a cartoon, like Felix have a sword duel with giant mosquitoes! Crazy stuff.

Felix in Hollywood (1923)

** (out of 4)

Felix and his owner need to get to Hollywood but without any money the cat must get a job first. He starts working at a shoe store where he plans on bringing people in by making them step in bubble gum. This here is certainly a step up from some of the shorts I've seen in the series but I still wouldn't go all the way and call it a good movie. The best gag comes when Felix must disguise himself in order to travel with his owner. The rest of the film doesn't contain too many laughs but Felix's personality at least shines through some rather poor writing.

Otto Messmer and Pat Sullivan's Felix the Cat was the first widely popular cartoon character in film history. In this one, there's a gag involving gum and shoes at the beginning, and Felix transforms himself into the likeness of a handbag to travel to Hollywood, which is rather representative of the fantastic nature of the Felix cartoons. In Hollywood, Felix meets his peers, including Charlie Chaplin, who some say is the basis for much of Felix, and whom Messmer caricatured in another animation series. Felix also meets caricatures of Ben Turpin, William S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks, Cecil B. DeMille and President of the Motion Picture Association of America, Will Hays, who others say was the basis for the next big cartoon star, Mickey Mouse. "Felix in Hollywood" is one of the earliest screen efforts at caricaturing live-action movie stars, something Looney Tunes later became famous for. Additionally, as Disney would similarly capitalize on later creations, the image of Felix was marketed extensively, appearing on merchandise and in newspaper comic strips.