The Discontented Canary

Decent cartoon indicative of its era, and included as a bonus on my 'Evelyn Prentice' DVD from my 5-film 'TCM Spotlight: Myrna Loy and William Powell Collection'. In it, the aforementioned bird longs to escape from its boring, caged, well-cared-for existence, so when his owner is distracted away and forgets to close the cage, the canary makes the most of this suddenly-presented opportunity and flies out of both the cage and an open window of the house itself. It then discovers 'the grass isn't always greener', as a dangerous black cat and stormy weather make only far too clear...I definitely hope to be a completist of these early animated works from the studio.

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes, Hanna Barbera, Studio Ghibli and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons. With significantly broader knowledge of different directors, animation styles and studios, actually appreciate and love it even more now.

As has been said a few times already, 'The Discontented Canary' is fairly typical of Harmon-Ising (not enormous favourites of mine but understand their importance in animation history), leaning towards the cute kind of cartoon with a lot of sentiment in alternative to the laugh a minute and hilarious kind, the latter being the one that a lot seem to prefer (understandably, though am hardly biased against the former). This approach has varied with Ising. In some instances it has been very sweet and charming, in others it can be cloying and too cutesy. Generally 'The Discontented Canary' belongs in the former category, despite the danger of falling into the latter with the premise.

'The Discontented Canary' has a lot to like although not a great cartoon, not one to completely overlook if not a cartoon to watch repeatedly.

Yes it gets a bit too saccharine in places and it is best perhaps to not talk about the story because there really isn't much of one. There could have been more energy too, it's not a dull cartoon but considering the basic idea it could have done with more liveliness.

What 'The Discontented Canary' does so well however eclipses these problems. The animation is rich in detail for design and backgrounds, vibrant and crisp. The composer for the prime-era 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons and regular Tex Avery composer Scott Bradley provides a lush and atmospheric music score. The voice acting is also on point.

It is hard not to fall in love with the fun characters, the cat being the most interesting, even if they are not especially distinctive, and it has enough likeability and personality to not be dull. 'The Discontented Canary' is rich in natural sweet charm and some very imaginative ideas and visuals in the flying moments. There is not much hilarious and the cartoon's hardly laugh a minute, but a good deal of it does raise a smile. The pace avoids being too draggy, although more energy wouldn't have gone amiss.

Summarising, nice and pleasant to watch if not a must watch. 7/10 Bethany Cox

It's an MGM Harman-Ising production directed by Rudolf Ising. A canary is tired of being caged and escapes the old lady. Only the outside world is not what it cracks up to be. The animation is still a bit primitive from an earlier time. It has a sheen of ugliness. Harman and Ising are new to MGM after leaving WB. It's notable for being the first entry in the new Happy Harmonies cartoons.

The MGM cartoons seemed to show more man hours but Isling did better than this Kiddy-pic about a canary who tries life in the wild, to the strains of "Man on the Flying Trapeze." Some of the flying material and the menacing black cat are good but this one hasn't got the energy of the early cartoons or the polish of the later ones. Most copies have lost the original color.

In this early two-strip Technicolor cartoon for MGM, director Rudy Ising tells the fable of a little bird who yearned to fly free of his cage, into the big, exciting world, and what happened to him when he did. It's a typical fable from them, with the moral of "don't wish for anything better."

Ising and his partner Hugh Harman had worked for Walt Disney back in Kansas City, and followed him to Hollywood. Then, when Charles Mintz asserted he owned Disney's character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, they jumped ship to work for him. Within the year, the Laemmles at Universal took Oswald away from him and installed Walter Lantz as the producer, leaving Harman & Ising out in the cold. They knocked around town, until they used a connection, Leon Schlesinger, to get a contract with Warner Brothers.... until Schlesinger decided he needn't take a middleman's fee when he could take a producer's fee.

Out went Harman & Ising. They landed with a nice contract at MGM, and this is an early cartoon under that contract.