Month: March 2020

Santa Claus (1898)

SANTA CLAUS (1898)
Article 4297 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-27-2013
Directed by George Albert Smith
Featuring Laura Bayley, Dorothy Smith, Harold Smith
Country: UK
What it is: Holiday trick short

Two children are tucked into bed on Christmas Eve. While they sleep, Santa arrives.

This is a pretty basic trick short, but I do admire the way it sets up some of its tricks. The scene begins in a well-lit room, and once the children are tucked into bed, the nurse turns out the light, and the background turns pitch black. This is just they type of background needed for the special effects at that time, and I admire the skillful way the preceding scene sets it up. The special effects include a shot of Santa on the roof preparing to come down the chimney, and when Santa appears in and leaves the room, he seems to come in out of and disappear into nowhere. There’s no real story; it’s just barely over a minute long. Still, it was early enough historically that the special effects would impress, and the short is simple and likable enough.

1 CommentLeave a comment

Undressing Extraordinary (1901)

UNDRESSING EXTRAORDINARY (1901)
Article 4296 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-25-2013
Directed by Walter R. Booth
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: Comic trick short

A man is removing his clothes in preparation for a good night’s sleep, but new clothes keep reappearing on him as he does.

We’ve been here before; this is one of the several imitations of Georges Melies’s GOING TO BED UNDER DIFFICULTIES. That movie is one of Melies’s funniest, partly because it builds up to a frantic breakneck pace. Most of the imitations fail to achieve that pace, and this one is no exception. It tries to offset that by having the unfortunate disrober finding himself in some pretty silly costumes, but that doesn’t quite cover up the fact that this three-and-a-half minute short is running too long on what is basically a one-gag premise. Still, the transitions are smooth and well done.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903)

UNCLE TOM’S CABIN (1903)
Article 4295 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-24-2013
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Drama about slavery

The story is told of the fortunes of a black slave who is sold by his owners.

Every once in a while I’m startled to consider what I’m covering for this project, and this is one of the examples; I would have never guessed this one would pop up. Granted, I’ve never read the novel, though it was one of the sensations of the nineteenth century and had a big influence on the abolitionist movement. Probably the reason the novel isn’t read much anymore is that the black characters have become stereotypes that are no longer considered acceptable. The novel is somewhat sprawling, and any attempt to condense it into a thirteen-minute short (as is done here) is bound to lack coherence, and sure enough, it’s pretty difficult to follow this one if you haven’t read a plot summary beforehand; back then, the story was so famous, that wasn’t a problem. According to the plot summary I read, I guessed the fantastic content would involve the vision of heaven one dying character has; in this short, the fantastic content manifests itself by having angels appear a couple of times in the action. I couldn’t help but notice that, even with the time condensation necessary, the plot does come to a halt a few times for some unnecessary dance sequences, at least one of which involves a lot of characters doing the cakewalk, and though I’m not really sure about the history of that dance, I suspect its presence here is anachronistic. Nevertheless, whatever faults this short has, there’s no doubt it was a rather ambitious movie for its time.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Law and Order (1950)

LAW AND ORDER (1950)
Article 4294 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-22-2013
Directed by Eddie Donnelly
Voice cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Mighty Mouse cartoon

A gang of cats is capturing mice and turning them into mousicles for sale. Can Mighty Mouse come to their rescue?

This is one of the non-operatic Mighty Mouse cartoons, which means it’s mostly about Mighty Mouse fighting some evil cats to save a bunch of mice. This is one of those cartoons that illustrates why Terrytoons remained a second-tier animation company. It has plenty of gags, but executes them weakly and without imagination. It also wastes opportunities; though the cartoon is framed in the device of being presented as a radio show, the cartoon does absolutely nothing with the idea. This one feels as if it was churned out with very little care to fill a quota. It may be one of the weakest Mighty Mouse cartoons I’ve seen.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Les tulipes (1907)

LES TULIPES (1907)
aka The Tulips
Article 4293 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-21-2013
Directed by Segundo de Chomon
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Trick film

A female gardener has experiences with tulip fairies and fends off the unwanted advances of a male suitor.

There may actually be a plot to this one; the presence of the unwanted male suitor seems to indicate there’s some sort of storyline. Still, it’s nearly impossible to tell what that story is, as most of the film is a random array of special effects in which fairies appear in garden scenes. There’s a giant face of what I suppose is some sort of a demon, and since we have so many females, we get the obligatory dance sequence as well. Certain special effects here I’ve come to associate with Chomon; there are fountains of colored water, and lots of smoke and sparks. It’s a pretty typical Chomon short; I probably would have liked it a little better if the story had been clear.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Le troubadour (1906)

LE TROUBADOUR (1906)
aka The Troubadour
Article 4292 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-20-2013
Directed by Segundo de Chomon
Featuring Gabrielle Robinne
Country: France
What it is: Trick film

A troubadour performs tricks in which he duplicates himself.

The basic trick of this film is that the troubadour makes duplicates of himself so he can have an orchestra. It’s basically the same sort of trick that Melies did six years earlier with THE ONE MAN BAND, and though this short isn’t a complete imitation of the earlier movie, it still doesn’t come up with anything really new using the idea. There’s a minor trick involving a fan presenting a scene in which the troubadour serenades a woman, but there’s not much to this section, either. This one ranks with Chomon’s less inspired efforts.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Transformations elastiques (1909)

TRANSFORMATIONS ELASTIQUES (1909)
Article 4291 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-18-2013
Directed by Segundo de Chomon (or Jean Durand)
Featuring Joaquim Renez (possibly)
Country: France
What it is: Trick short

A woman enters a room with a man. She creates a duplicate of him and changes his personality by throwing his clothes from one man to the next.

If I seem a little confused in the above credits, it’s for a reason. The listing for this movie was in the Walt Lee guide, where it is credited to Chomon. However, the listing from IMDB puts it a year later and credits the direction with Jean Durand, though they agree on the production company (Pathe Freres). The copy I found was on a Segundo de Chomon collection and sets the date back to 1908, so I’m confident I’ve watched the correct film; I’m just not confident the IMDB listing is correct.

As for the movie itself, it seems pretty minor for one this late in the decade; it runs about a couple of minutes, and just features a bunch of trick shots of dummies turning into a variety of different men as clothes are thrown back and forth to them. I suspect the movie may have actually been made much earlier, or that I’m watching only a fragment of the original. At any rate, there really isn’t much to it, and it’s a pretty minor work in the director’s oeuvre, whoever that is.

***NOTE*** I’ve since discovered that Chomon is the correct director of the short I’ve seen, which has long been confused with a lost movie by this name that is directed by Durand and features Renez.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Porky’s Hero Agency (1937)

PORKY’S HERO AGENCY (1937)
Article 4290 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-17-2013
Directed by Robert Clampett
Featuring the voices of Mel Blanc, Bernice Hansen, Tedd Pierce
Country: USA
What it is: Porky Pig cartoon

Porky dreams that he is an ancient Greek hero Porkykarkus, who is given a job to steal a potion from the Gorgon that can bring those turned to stone back to life.

This is one of the more amusing early Porky Pig cartoons. Outside of the “talking animals” motif, we have flying shoes and a monster (though the gorgon turns out to be an old woman with a camera stand with no snakes in her hair) with the ability to turn people into stone and back to provide the fantastic content. It has some fun with the concept, and some of the jokes are subtle; check out the hero’s pricing scheme and the identity of his phone holder, for example. It even manages to sneak in a few racy moments that got by the censors, one of which involves the statue of the discus thrower who is, of course, unclothed. There are references to both Popeye and the Three Stooges in the mix as well. I do question the credits on IMDB; though the voice cast is uncredited, IMDB says that Medusa is voiced by Bernice Hansen and the Gorgon by Tedd Pierce, but since Medusa IS the Gorgon, I’m not sure if this was a mistake or two different voices were used. Apparently, the “picket fence” features the faces of several of the animators on the project.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Slippery Jim (1910)

SLIPPERY JIM (1910)
Article 4289 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-16-2013
Directed by Ferdinand Zecca
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Comic escape story

The police capture a pickpocket, but have trouble holding on to him, since he seems to get out of every restraint they put on him.

This short appears on a recent DVD of Houdini movies, not because Houdini appears in it, but rather because the short may have been inspired by Houdini, who performed in France around that time. The short actually shows how the pickpocket escapes from his various restraints, but you can rest assured that none of Houdini’s secrets were given away; Slippery Jim’s escapes are clearly impossible. I won’t reveal just how he does them, because that’s part of the comic charm here; it’s a genuinely funny film. The pickpocket also appears to have several other magical powers as well that come into play during the chase scene in the second half of the film, so there’s plenty of fantastic content to go around. This one is a lot of fun.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Playful Pan (1930)

PLAYFUL PAN (1930)
Article 4288 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-15-2013
Director unknown
No voice cast
Country: USA
What it is: A Silly Symphony

A satyr plays his pipes for the benefit of the animals and the plants in the forest. Then a lightning storm sets the forest afire. Can the satyr deal with the crisis?

In structure, this Walt Disney Silly Symphony is standard issue for animated shorts in this period of time; the first half is mostly music, with a crisis only rearing its head at the halfway mark and then being resolved. Still, Disney was in the animation forefront at this time and there’s a real confidence at work here, especially in the ways that the music and the action are juxtaposed. I also like the way the jokes are sometimes handled subtly; it took me a moment or two to realize that in the scene where we see the rabbits running away from the fire, the turtles are also running as well… and faster than the rabbits. It ends with an amusing variation on the “Pied Piper” story, which is a fitting reference to make when your main character is Pan. It’s not one of Disney’s finest moments, but it’s amusing enough.

0 CommentsLeave a comment