Month: March 2020

Ko-Ko’s Hypnotism (1929)

KO-KO’S HYPNOTISM (1929)
Article 4267 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-17-2013
Directed by Dave Fleischer
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Silent Ko-Ko cartoon

When Ko-Ko’s animator takes up hypnotism (with the help of inserted hypnotic eyes), the clown humiliates himself by doing his animator’s bidding. Seeking revenge, Ko-Ko consults with a witch in order to learn hypnotism himself.

When you consider that an animator has control over what his creations do in the first place, you’d think he wouldn’t have to stoop to hypnotism, but we’re in the land of cartoon logic here, and those rules don’t apply. That being said, this is one of the more amusing Ko-Ko the clown cartoons I’ve seen, with the animator (I’m assuming it’s one of the Fleischer brothers) having a lot of fun in the process. For a few moments, I found myself wondering if the cartoon was actually made partially with sound; some of the music and sound effects seems particularly apt on the copy I saw on YouTube. It threatens to get a little gruesome at one point where Ko-Ko, thinking that his dog Fitz is a nut, is about to crack him open with a nutcracker, but things stop just in time.

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Kiss Me! (1904)

KISS ME! (1904)
Article 4266 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-16-2013
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Comic short

A passing man finds himself tempted by a woman in a theatrical poster who is winking at him and inviting him to kiss her.

There’s a full plot description of this one on IMDB, and if you see the same copy of this that I did (I found it on YouTube), you’re going to need it. The problem is that the impact of the short relies on our being able to see the woman in the poster winking and offering herself for a kiss, but the print is so ragged that it’s impossible to tell if she’s moving at all, and if you can’t see her moving, then the short will make very little sense. Still, even if you could see it, it really wouldn’t make the comic content here a lot greater, and if you’re curious about the special effects, there are none; what is supposed to be the poster of the woman is obviously a woman standing in front of a black background, and the whole thing is probably shot in one take. Because it involves a poster coming to life, it qualifies as fantasy, but in its present shape, it’s hardly worth checking out.

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Spiritualist Photographer (1903)

SPIRITUALIST PHOTOGRAPHER (1903)
aka Le portrait spirituel
Article 4265 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-15-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France
What it is: Magic film

A magician turns a woman into a portrait of herself, and then back.

This is a pretty ordinary Melies trick film, and I’d probably be largely finished with this review if it weren’t for one interesting little touch. It opens with a man holding up two placards, one in French and one in English, which convey to the viewer the knowledge that a dissolve effect will be demonstrated in the short without the use of a black background, and that this is a novel effect, and, if the truth be told, I do remember that this particular trick was almost always done with a black background up to this point. I don’t know just how difficult it was to switch to a technique using a white background, but it must have been tricky enough for Melies to take the trouble to explain the change in the film itself. If anything, this does demonstrate that the purpose of some of these magic shorts was to experiment with new techniques, which makes this short at least a little more interesting historically.

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Soviet Toys (1924)

SOVIET TOYS (1924)
aka Sovietski igrushki
#4264
Date: 7-14-2013
Directed by Dziga Vertov
No cast
Country: USSR
What it is: Animated Soviet propaganda

A greedy capitalist devours everything and gives nothing back. Can the worker and the peasant force him to put his excess funds into the state bank?

What we have here is another foray in Soviet propaganda; it’s basically an allegory about conditions that arose in USSR at the time that Lenin instituted a New Economic Policy that resulted in the rise of greedy entrepreneurs. Much of the imagery is grotesque, especially the sequence where the capitalist gorges himself, vomits into a barrel, and then drinks the contents of the barrel. It verges into fantasy several times, the most striking of which is the merging of the peasant and the worker into a single two-headed creature that was capable of extracting the funds from the capitalist. The animation has a vaguely Emile Cohl-ish quality to it, which makes it a bit primitive for the time. I found it somewhat interesting but also quite predictable at times, and it is best viewed as a product of its time and place.

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Hurricane Island (1951)

HURRICANE ISLAND (1951)
Article 4263 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-13-2013
Directed by Lew Landers
Featuring Jon Hall, Marie Windsor, Romo Vincent
Country: USA
What it is: History on a budget

In order to recover from a curse brought about by a poisoned arrow, Ponce De Leon must find the fountain of youth. Unfortunately, pirates are also after the fountain of youth… and the gold that is supposed to be there.

Sometimes the opening credits can set the appropriate expectations; the second I saw that the producer was Sam Katzman, I knew this rather fanciful historical epic was going to be very budget-conscious. Still, there are worse directors for this sort of thing than Lew Landers, and though much of the movie is stiff and silly, it’s also entertaining enough to get by, the acting is mostly acceptable, it does have some decent spectacle, and, despite the historical background, it doesn’t back away from the fantastic content (the fountain of youth really exists). It’s far from great, but if you keep your expectations in check, it passes muster.

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The Skipping Cheeses (1907)

THE SKIPPING CHEESES (1907)
aka Les fromages automobiles
Article 4262 by Dave Sindelar
7-9-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Bizarre trick short

When an argument about the odor of the wares of a cheese vendor result in her arrest, her own wares come to her rescue.

I’ve shown several of Melies’s shorts to my friends, and for some reason, this little oddity seems to have become the favorite of the bunch. It’s not really Melies’s special effects expertise that is the reason for its popularity; it’s the sheer absurdity of the premise coupled with the “English as a second language” narration by a Frenchman. The vision of a police department under attack by murderous cheeses is something to be reckoned with, and the deadpan description in particular of the death of the magistrate is pretty hilarious to these ears. No, it’s not one of Melies’s best, but it is one of the more jaw-dropping concepts he’s worked with.

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Sightseeing Through Whisky (1907)

SIGHTSEEING THROUGH WHISKY (1907)
aka Pauvre John ou Les aventures d’un buveur de whiskey
Article 4261 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-7-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Drunken visions

A lazy servant on a tour of ancient ruins decides to lag behind and get drunk on whisky. He collapses and has strange visions.

Maybe it’s because I’ve had a bit of a movie drought lately, but I rather enjoyed this Melies short, despite the fact that it has a fairly poor reputation. Still, one of the accusations made against this short must be reckoned with, and that is that Melies doesn’t break any new ground; it’s mostly a series of “things-appearing-out-of-nowhere” tricks that he’s done before, and even the most surreal moment (in which the drunkard is tormented by a bunch of dancing girls with mops) has popped up in an earlier short. I think I may have liked it a bit more because the title had me expecting a rehash of THE DREAMS OF A RAREBIT FIEND, and the short goes in a different direction; still, that doesn’t mean it went anywhere new. And, if you’re like me, you may spend some time wondering when the sleeping woman in the foreground will play into the action, but you’ll have to be patient; she’s there to set up the final gag.

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The Shriek of Araby (1923)

THE SHRIEK OF ARABY (1923)
Article 4260 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-6-2013
Directed by F. Richard Jones
Featuring Ben Turpin, Kathryn McGuire, George Cooper
Country: USA
What it is: Movie parody

A cross-eyed bill poster dreams that he takes the place of Rudolph Valentino’s character in THE SHIEK.

I’ve not seen much of Ben Turpin’s comedic output; the most prominent role of his I’ve seen so far was some cameo scenes in MILLION DOLLAR LEGS. I will say this much for him, though; he had one of the most iconic faces of silent comedy, and may be the most instantly recognizable comedian of the era next to Charlie Chaplin. Unfortunately, if this movie is representative of his work in general, then it’s for his face he will mostly be remembered. It’s not that the movie is bad, mind you; it’s just that it’s pretty ordinary. Beyond the admittedly funny concept that Turpin is taking on a character played by Valentino, he doesn’t really come up with a particularly engaging personality to set himself apart from the pack. It also lacks the comic inventiveness that would help people like Buster Keaton rise to the top of the craft. For me, the funniest gags were the ones that played off the domestic life of a sultan of the desert being pretty much like the domestic life here at home; my favorite moment has the sultan’s wife going out of the tent to pick up the newspaper and milk, and that’s a pretty mild gag. Oddly enough, the original Valentino movie doesn’t qualify for this series; this one does via the appearance of a magician who can do real magic. Again, I haven’t seen much of Turpin’s work, so maybe he will grow on me, but at this point, I do find myself a little disappointed.

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The Shadow Girl (1902)

THE SHADOW GIRL (1902)
aka La clownesse fantome
Article 4259 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-4-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Melies trick film

A magician and his clown assistant make a woman appear, change into a man, and then back to a woman.

It’s another one of Melies’s magician shorts, and like most of them, there’s no real plot; it’s just a series of tricks. The print isn’t in the best of condition, but some of the tricks are handled quite smoothly here. Nevertheless, there’s nothing really special about this one and is a pretty minor entry into his oeuvre.

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Scrappy’s Television (1934)

SCRAPPY’S TELEVISION (1934)
Article 4258 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-1-2013
Directed unknown
Voice cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Mid-thirties cartoon

Scrappy tries to demonstrate his new invention (a television set) to a not-entirely-appreciative audience.

In the opening credits sequence, the still picture of Scrappy makes him look vaguely Peter Lorre-ish, but in the animation, he’s fairly characterless, though he does have a Mickey Mouse style voice. If there’s a highlight to this rather dull cartoon, it’s the boxing match that is shown on the television that makes up the last half of the cartoon; in it, a boxer who looks like the Frankenstein monster takes on a boxer who looks like Ed Wynn (complete with fire hat). This sequence really isn’t much funnier than what went on earlier in the cartoon, but the animation is more ambitious. Overall, this one is pretty forgettable.

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