Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #192

 Note: Due to technical difficulties, this post is up a little late. 

Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning (?), it is once again time for some classic cartoons. 

Today's cartoon selection begins with a wonderful Chuck Jones directed cartoon, The Ducksters (1950). This short film features Daffy Duck in quite a villainous role, of the kind that would be more common for him in the 1960's then in the 1950's.   

The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) not only brought director Blake Edwards and actor Peter Sellers back to the Pink Panther franchise but also brought the Pink Panther cartoon character back to the feature film series as he would star in the opening credits sequence for the first time since the first movie. He would appear in the opening credits for every Pink Panther feature film after this as well. This opening credits sequence features an animated version of Inspector Clouseau chasing The Pink Panther for the first time. This would become a reoccurring theme for the opening credits of these movies. This marks the first of two times the opening credits would be done by Richard Williams (many of you may know him for being the animation director for Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)) instead of DePatie-Freleng. Also working on this sequence is Ken Harris (who worked on many of Chuck Jones’ Looney Tunes cartoons). 

While many cartoon fans praise the Donald Duck cartoons directed by Jack Hannah, I feel the Donald shorts directed by Jack King do not get enough praise. They are often really funny. An especially good example is Chef Donald (1941). I love the use of I Got No Strings from Pinocchio (1940) in a particularly funny spot. 

Up next comes Flip the Frog in The Soup Song (1931). This movie has everything I love about Flip the Frog cartoons in it, especially the incredibly odd sense of humor and logic that could only come from an early 1930's cartoon.

Now it is time for a commercial break.

Ever wonder how cartoons are mde well wonder no more. Van Bueren Studio explains the whole process to us in the short In a Cartoon Studio (1931). 

Now we join our favorite rodent superhero in Super Mouse Rides Again (1943). You will quickly notice the cartoon you watch below has been retitled Mighty Mouse Rides Again. This was done because the character's name in his earliest films was Super Mouse. However to avoid confusion with a comic book character named Super Mouse, the character's name was changed to Mighty Mouse, which is a better name anyway. Naturally for this movie's TV airings the title was changed to have the current name of the character. I love how this version still keeps in our hero autographing his name as "Super Mouse." 

Today's cartoon selection ends with Woody Woodpecker in Fair Weather Fiends (1946). This movie was directed by Shamus Culhane. Culhane had worked at Disney, Warner Brothers and many other classic cartoon studios, however in my opinion his best work is seen in the films he directed for Walter Lantz studio. These may not only be some of his best work but they are arguably some of the finest films to come out of the Walter Lantz studio. Fair Weathered Fiends may not be my favorite of the bunch but it is still a throughly delightful cartoon, that I could watch many times and not get tired of. 

 Thanks for joining me. Come back next week for more animated treasures. Until then may all your tunes be looney and your melodies merry.

 

Overlooked Classics: Platinum Blonde (1931)

 I have said a few times that one of my favorite things about watching old movies is finding these great gems that are heavily overlooked today but happen to be just as great as any of those that have gone down in history as classics. Frank Capra's Platinum Blonde very easily fits in this category. This film is just as funny, smart and simply fun to watch as many of the later Capra classics.

One should remember at this time; Frank Capra wasn't the household name he would become. Capra's big breakthrough film would be released three years later with the surprise smash hit, It Happened One Night (1934). Frank Capra had made his feature length directorial debut directing Harry Langdon in the great silent comedy The Strong Man (1926) and continued to direct many features before It Happened One Night. 

This film however was not originally intended for Capra though. It was originally intended for Edward Buzzell, who is probably best remembered for directing the Marx Brothers in At the Circus (1939) and Go West (1940), as well as The Song of the Thin Man (1947). By the time Frank Capra joined the production Dorothy Howell, Jo Swerling and Robert Riskin's script was nearly finished. Capra would later write off this film, but it has also been speculated that this was because he had so little to do with it. This was however still the first time Robert Rimskin and Frank Capra would work on the same film. This turned into a good relationship as he also was a writer for It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Meet John Doe (1941).  

Despite such well-known names as Jean Harlow and Loretta Young appearing in this film's cast the real star of the movie is Robert Williams. Despite much talent his career would never take off because of his sudden death shortly after this film's release (he had appendicitis). He only appeared in 6 other known films in his career, The Vengeance of Winoma (1914), Thoughtless Women (1920), Two Masters (1928), The Common Law (1931), Rebound (1931), and Devotion (1931). As you can tell from these years even with a appearances in silent films, his film career was really just beginning to become a regular job in 1931. This will seem unfortunate to many movie fans as he does a great performance here. Jean Harlow was not that big of star as she would later become. She did have some great performances in big name films such as Hell's Angels (1930) and The Public Enemy (1931), but she was mostly cast due to her looks and had a while to go before becoming a big star. However, she certainty was on her way. This film contains an amazingly good performance from her. Despite how good she was in this film though Frank Capra did have problems with her. The main one being she couldn't pronounce "library" right, and she was playing a high society woman. It took fifteen takes for her to say this word right. This film is also rounded out with many other great actors of the time. One who does an especially good job is Walter Catlett (my fellow Disney lovers may know him as the voice of Honest John in Pinocchio (1940)). Also, great here is Halliwell Hobbes as the butler, and Lousie Closser Hale as the snobbish mother. In fact, the whole cast is just great.

The story centers around a young reporter, with a quick wit and just as quick of a mouth, named Stew (played by Robert Williams). This young reporter works with a young woman named Gallagher (played by Loretta Young), who has more than a bit of a crush on Stew. However, during a story, he falls for a rich young socialite named Ann (played by Jean Harlow). He marries Ann. However, this marriage isn't quite happy for him. Ann tries to make Stew fit into high society and a reporter for a rival newspaper (played by Walter Catlett) makes fun of him for not wearing the pants and for being a bird in a gilded cage. A bird in a gilded cage is exactly what Stew feels like, and he needs to find some way out.

This movie is extremely funny, as well as having a delightful story. Much of the humor comes from the clever dialogue that populated many Hollywood comedies of the early 1930's ("Anne Schuyler's in the blue book; you're not even in the phone book. Think that one over... sucker!", "Yeah, I know those bluenoses. Their ancestors refused to come over on the Mayflower because they didn't want to rub elbows with the tourists... so they swam over!"), and is just as funny, smart and unlike anything you hear in today's movies as you could ever want it to be. As stated, before all the cast gave great performances. As well as all this the film just supplies the great sense of pure fun, and charming simplicity that we all know and love Frank Capra for doing.

After an early preview screening the film shortly switched its name to The Gilded Cage. However, it was changed back to Platinum Blonde on September 24, 1931, when it had its last preview showing because of Jean Harlow becoming a bit of a bigger star due to Public Enemy.

The film received decent reviews, but they were far from great.


Resources Used
http://www.jbkaufman.com/movie-of-the-month/platinum-blonde-1931
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/3747/Platinum-Blonde/articles.html

Movie Review: Pinocchio

 

Note: This film is only available to watch on the Disney+ streaming service.

Michael's Movie Grade: D

A bland remake of one of Disney's best films.

Even as a huge Disney fan, it is hard for me to even care about these remakes the studio keeps turning out these days. Pinocchio is not the worst of these remakes, but it still is not a good movie. Like all of these Disney remakes the worst parts of this film are the ones that directly follow the movie it is remaking. Some scenes are incredibly faithful and shot for shot copy the 1940 movie. There are two major problems with that. One is that the 1940 movie still exists and the other is that that movie was a cartoon. To do the same thing in live action or more realistic-looking animation (since many of the scenes feature a lot of CGI), just doesn't work the same. The I Have No Strings on Me musical number and the slapstick involving Honest John in Gideon simply pale in comparison to the 1940 movie because they don't work as well in this completely different style of filmmaking. This movie does change quite a bit though. Unfortunately none of these changes are that interesting. We get some new characters, but don't get to spend enough time with them for them to become interesting. The new songs simply are not very good and I can't see one of them sticking in your head after watching the film. Pleasure Island was changed quite a bit, but in a way that takes out all the creepiness and suspense of the 1940 film and replaces it with blandness. The more realistic designs of some of the characters such as Jimminy Cricket lack the charm or memorable-ness of the original designs. The humor here also doesn't work that well and there is a comedic scene that involves Pinocchio looking at a piece of poop. He smells it and wonders what it is and that is the whole joke. How that is supposed to be funny confuses me. This movie also completely wastes a great actor like Tom Hanks, but not giving him any opportunity to shine or do anything interesting.

I will say though that the film is competently made (well Robert Zemeckis is a great director) and some of the visuals look great. There is also such a charm to the film it is remaking that it can still retain a little of it. 

The 1940 Pinocchio is a masterpiece and one of my favorite Disney films. It will live in the hearts of movie fans forever. This is a film that I will probably forget exists in a few months. 

Walt Disney: Doctor of Answers

Hello my friends, as you all know I am definitely a fan of classic Disney and love when I can find vintage articles about "The Walt Era." Here is a gem I found from a 1938 issue from Boxoffice magazine. If you have trouble reading be sure to click on one of the pages and use your touch screen to zoom in. The page is the beginning of the article and the middle of the second page is the rest. Be sure to read some of the stuff on the sides of the second page they can be quite interesting as well.

Doggie Daddy Tells Augie Doggie the Story of Pinocchio

So with it being Father's Day why not look at Hanna-Barbera's father and son duo Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy. These characters started as a segment on my favorite Hanna-Barbera TV show, The Quickdraw McGraw Show (1959-1962). They would have a long career for Hanna-Barbera also appearing in the TV shows, Laff-A-Lympics (1977-1978) and Yogi's Gang (1973). They would also appear in some of the studio's made for TV movies, like Yogi's First Christmas (1980) and Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose (1987). They also appeared in record albums. 

In the 1960's plenty of record albums were made with the Hanna-Barbera characters. An often used plot for these was to have one character tell another a famous fairy tale story. The album we are looking at today involves Doggie Daddy telling Augie Doggie the story of Pinocchio. Though this record replaces the fox and the cat with Fibber Fox (From the Yakky Doodle segment on the Yogi Bear Show (1961-1962)) and Jinks (from the Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks segment from The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958-1962)) and we have Drop Out Land instead of The Land of Toys (Pleasure Island in the Disney film), this record is remarkable close at times to the book. Naturally some of the darker elements were left out and other things were omitted for time. Still what is here stays as close to the book as can come from a record like this. 

This record is from 1965. It features Daws Butler (the original voice of Augie Doggie, Mr. Jinks and Fibber Fox) doing all the voices except for Pinocchio (who is voiced by Dick Beals, who voiced Ralph Phillips in the classic Chuck Jones cartoons) and the fairy (who is voiced by Janet Waldo, the voice of Judy Jetson and Penelope Pitstop). By the way is it just me or does Daws Butler's Geppetto voice sound like Mario? The songs were written by Peggy Shows and Lyn Bryson, who often wrote songs for these Hanna-Barbera records. 



-Michael J. Ruhland