Christmas Night

Christmas Night (1933)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The Little King was a very popular comic strip in The New Yorker Magazine and it eventually found its way to the big screen. This short from the Van Beuren Studios starts off with Santa getting people to write down what they want on a piece of paper. Later that night several of the characters are playing around with their toys when chaos follows.

This certainly isn't a great short by any stretch of the imagination but it's a pleasant and charming film that I'm sure kids would enjoy watching on Christmas. As other reviewers have pointed out, there's one stereotype scene that many will object to today but it can also be seen as a learning tool to teach how things once were. I found the animation to be quite good throughout and the B&W images really jump off the screen with their detail at times. There aren't any major laughs but the film will at least keep a smile on your face.

As a history teacher and lover of films, I occasionally like watching cartoons that have been banned, as they tell us a lot about our society and how far we have come over the years. What was perfectly acceptable decades ago is now, in some cases, seen as gross and inappropriate. Occasionally, these cartoons which have been removed from screening aren't particularly offensive but often, as in the case of this cartoon, they are so god-awful it's hard to imagine that people would have laughed at and enjoyed these films! Thirteen of these cartoons have been packaged together on a DVD entitled "Cartoon Crazys: Banned and Censored" and while the print quality of many of the cartoons is less than stellar, it's a great chance to see how sensibilities have changed.

This cute little cartoon stars the comic strip character "Little King" and on Christmas Eve he picks up a couple hobos and treats them like friends in his home. The action is pretty cute and for a 1930s cartoon, it's pretty good.

Now as to why it was pulled, the main reasons are silly. In one scene, the three men are bathing together and some people at the Hays Office apparently were worried about perceived homosexuality!!! Come off it, folks--this is ridiculous. Other than that, there was a 3 or 4 second scene where the three are looking in a shop window and there is a "Sambo doll" in the window that would surely offend some viewers, though it also could easily be removed and the film still shown to modern audiences. I sure wish this did happen, as it is a cute little film.

In general, I find the cartoons from Van Beuren Studio to be awfully saccharine--and a far cry from the quality of rival studios Disney and Fleischer Brothers. However, I was pleasantly surprised with "The Little King"--a sweet little cartoon if I've ever seen one.

The character 'Little King' was a creation of Oscar Soglow and it was so popular in "The New Yorker" that William Randolph Hearst paid handsomely to bring Soglow to his paper and make the strip a daily. And, from the 1930s until his death in the late 1970s, Soglow made a ton of these cute cartoons. And, like "Henry", the Little King didn't speak.

Van Beuren made several Little King cartoons but I only see a couple listed on IMDb. I assume that this is the correct place to review "The Little King: Merry Christmas". It begins with the King going about town just before Christmas. He meets two nice hobos and they become friends. So, in the spirit of Christmas, he invites them home for the holidays and they have a lovely time.

As I said above, this film is awfully sweet--but not to the point of being saccharine. It's more just a very nice little film that made me smile. Not brilliant, but it was worth seeing.

Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.

'Christmas Night', aka 'Pals', may not be a great cartoon and there are better ones based on the Christmas theme. Having said that, 'Christmas Night' is a pleasant enough watch and there's a reason why it's one of the better known The Little King cartoons. It's the fourth The Little King cartoon and the sixth of eleven Van Beuren cartoons (Fleischer did the twelfth as part of the Betty Boop series) adapted from the work of Otto Soglow, generally it is among the better efforts of the series and demonstrates why Van Beuren's cartoons adapted from Soglow's work are among the studio's better, more ambitious and more entertaining efforts.

The cartoon is not one to be seen if one is expecting a laugh a minute hilarious cartoon, there are not many laughs here but 'Christmas Night' does amuse at least when there is anything humorous if never more than that.

A scene with a black doll has been referred to negatively. Understandably, although not there for long and not as offensive as other racially stereotypical characters in cartoon history it felt rather misplaced here and jars.

However, one expects Van Beuren cartoons to generally not be well animated which tends to be the case. That's not the case with 'Christmas Night', the studio's Soglow adaptations come to think of it were all among their better-looking cartoons and showed more detail and crispness. It may not quite be as visually ambitious as 'The Fatal Note' but the improvement in quality is huge.

Music as always with Van Beuren, very nearly always the best thing about their cartoons and sometimes the only good thing, is lively and beautifully and cleverly orchestrated. Story-wise, while slight it is sweet and charming and in terms of content it is more reliant on cuteness than humour but it just avoids the saccharine sugar trap. The Little King is an appealing lead.

In summary, pleasant Christmas-themed cartoon. 7/10 Bethany Cox

. . . "Rub-a-dub-dub" was a wholesome recounting of a young lad's education regarding the niceties of his future responsibility to select an appropriate spouse to insure that the family farm could be passed down for a few more centuries. This instructive verse tradition did NOT make any references to MEN in a tub! Back in these simpler times, men could not monopolize the process of propagating Humanity. Females were required to take part, so every country fair featured the three basic types of ladies usually around a small town. These subjects were displayed in a natural state of undress, often in an otherwise empty trough or tub, so proper distinctions could be made between those too scrawny, those too padded and those "just right" for the performance of necessary vital farm chores. CHRISTMAS NIGHT plunges viewers into the darker waters of three MEN in a tub, totally destroying the rub-a-dub-dub ritual.