Jack and the Beanstalk

'Jack and the Beanstalk' is the Betty Boop version of the famous story. Bimbo uses his magic beans to climb the beanstalk and learn the giant a lesson after a big cigar has crashed Bimbo's home. Arriving in the clouds Bimbo does not only find the giant but the enslaved Betty Boop as well. A mouse as big as Betty and Bimbo is also causing some problems.

This cartoon is a nice Betty Boop, but not much more. It has the usual images of shape shifting things. Some of them are inventive as always, but both the Disney version 'Mickey and the Beanstalk' and the Looney Tunes version 'Beanstalk Bunny' did a better job creating comedy out of the given elements of the story. Still, worth a watch if you normally like Betty Boop cartoons.

Fleischer were responsible for some brilliant cartoons, some of them still among my favourites. Their visual style was often stunning and some of the most imaginative and ahead of its time in animation.

The character of Betty Boop, one of their most famous and prolific characters, may not be for all tastes and sadly not as popular now, but her sex appeal was quite daring for the time and to me there is an adorable sensual charm about her. That charm, sensuality and adorable factor is not lost anywhere here, nor her comic timing. Bimbo and the giant are great fun.

'Jack and the Beanstalk' doesn't see either character at their best and Fleischer have also done better. This said, it has all the elements that make her pre-Code cartoons so worthwhile and does do so much, almost everything, right and little wrong. The story is too over-familiar and brings very little fresh to such an oft-done story in animation. Competent, but a bit safe.

The material is entertaining enough and is never dull, it's also not particularly imaginative or creative. Nothing wrong here with 'Jack and the Beanstalk' as such, it just feels like something is missing.

However, the animation is outstanding, everything is beautifully and meticulously drawn and the whole cartoon is rich in visual detail and imagination. Every bit as good is the music score, which delivers on the energy, lusciousness and infectiousness, great for putting anybody in a good mood.

As hoped, the fun is ceaseless and while it is not exactly creative everything is very well timed and never dull. The voices are well done.

Altogether, pretty good. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Bimbo's house is destroyed when a cloud giant throws his enormous cigar into the village. Bimbo swears revenge. What he doesn't realize is that the giant is holding Betty Boop prisoner and making her work for him. In this episode, her dog persona has been accented. Bimbo must fight the giant to save her. This is again a bit ordinary.

The introduction to this cartoon says that it stars Betty Boop and Bimbo, but you sure wouldn't think this if you saw it. First, the character of Bimbo looks absolutely nothing like Bimbo—other than the fact that both are dogs. Second, this is an early incarnation of Betty and in the earliest films, she was part dog and part woman. Here, she sports VERY long dog-like ears. These ears would shorten more and more throughout 1931 and would eventually evolve into earrings. And, by then, Betty was ALL woman! However, even here, Betty sports cleavage that would have to be covered up severely once the toughened Production Code was enacted three years later.

"Jack in the Beanstalk" begins with a thoughtless giant showing cigar butts on the folks way down below. So Bimbo uses his magic beans to go up to the clouds to teach the guy a lesson. There he meets Betty and rescues her as well as fights it out with the mean old giant. Overall, I wasn't that impressed by this one. It really wasn't because of the way the characters looked but because the film stayed too close to the original story and lacked the wackiness you'd find in other Boop films like "Dizzy Red Riding-Hood".

Jack and the Beanstalk (1931)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent version of the classic tale from Max Fleischer has Bimbo climbing up the beanstalk where he sees Betty Boop being held hostage by the giant. Betty and Bimbo must team up to destroy the giant as well as get back on the ground. At just six-minutes this thing never gets boring but at the same time you can't help but wish something more had been done with it. The execution is pretty familiar story wise, although in this version Bimbo goes up the beanstalk to fight the giant because he dropped his cigar, which ended up falling into Bimbo's house and making his cow sick. The visuals are nice and the Betty Boop character is always fun to watch. This film was at one time banned due to some of its content but it's all tame by today's standards. Of note there is a mouse that shows up and it certainly looks a lot like Mickey.