Swing Shift Cinderella

Another Tex Avery howling wolf cartoon. It's clever and hyped to the hilt. In this one, the wolf is the object of affection and it is played well. There is the usual eye popping. Since it's wartime, Cinderella is worker for the effort. Well done bits, especially with the Fairy Godmother.

The second of Tex Avery's three Red Hot Cinderella cartoons keeps up the pace, as voice artist Sara Bermer seems to voice everyone but the Wolf. The story is that the audience stopped the show for the first one, insisting the theater show the cartoon again. This one certainly keeps up the pace!

There are a lot of contemporary gags that will not have aged well for a modern audience, but with Heck Allen doing the script, there are enough gags to keep you smiling.

This is a wonderful film and about the best cartoon ever directed by Tex Avery--or anyone else for that matter. That's actually saying a lot because his films for MGM are as good or better than the best at Warner Brothers/Loony Tunes or the Tom and Jerry films (these MGM shorts were not directed by Avery). It's only been in recent years that a real appreciation of his work has been growing--especially with the release of the movie THE MASK--which was strongly inspired by the way over-the-top zaniness of his very surreal cartoons.

This film starts with a wolf chasing Little Red Riding Hood. They actually run past the film's title at which point the wolf stops and tells the kid to scram--at which point he goes on the prowl for the incredibly sexy Swing Shift Cinderalla (a reference to the ladies who worked the "swing shifts" at wartime armament factories). In addition to the wolf's crazy escapades chasing the lady, the Fairy Godmother gets involved and chases the wolf! Throughout all this there are amazing and silly sight gags--coming so fast that there are enough for two or three cartoons. Among my favorites were the mallets crashing over the head, the wolf's reactions when he first meets Cinderella and when the Fairy Godmother accidentally transforms herself into "Miss Gruesome". A wonderful, high-energy and intensely entertaining film not to be missed.

By the way, if you liked this, try watching Avery's RED HOT RIDING HOOD--a very similar film from MGM that was made two years earlier and with very similar themes.

A lascivious wolf stops chasing Red Riding Hood long enough to take part in a Cinderella story--with the heroine a dead-ringer for Bette Davis! This Cinderella, with mascara-circled eyes and a voice dripping with disdain, wants to go to the ball all right, but only because she's the sultry stage chanteuse; her Fairy Godmother has eyes for the wolf herself--but even dolled up in Old Lady Chic, she can't get his attention. Using a particularly expressive style of animation here, Tex Avery gives us a grown-up Cinderella with more curves than the Hollywood Freeway! Jessica Rabbit would envy this bombshell, which makes the tag at the finish line even funnier as Cindy returns to her duty as an aircraft riveter on-board a bus full of wolves. She may have gone back to her working girl roots, but the guys love her anyway.

Let's face it. Tex Avery was a one of a kind director of animated shorts. The best thing that could happen to his career was being fired by Leon Schlesenger at Warner Brothers. This allowed Avery to migrate over to M-G-M to direct a series of frantic, fast paced animated shorts for Fred Quimby. Swing Shift Cinderella was probably the best of the batch (or at least among the best, at any rate). The plot has the wolf tiring of chasing Little Red Riding Hood,only to want to pursue Cinderella (a lounge singer/assembly line worker). As in any Avery short,there is no lack of visual gags (which can run from the truly silly to outright surreal). The short manages to get some good use of mish mashing the whole Cinderella/Little Red Riding Hood plot line (with Hood's grandmother tossed in for good measure). Thankfully, Avery's animated shorts exist on a series of DVD's, for future generations to enjoy (about the only thing will be the countless WWII references and in jokes that will go sailing right over their heads).