The Fly in the Ointment (1943)
Article 6053 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-24-2022
Directed by Paul Sommer
Featuring the voices of Hans Conried and Frank Graham
Country: USA
What it is: Columbia cartoon

A spider does battle with a tough fly.

It’s not the plot here that pushes this one into the realm of the fantastic; it’s the fact that it’s set up as a scene from a horror film; it opens with bats flying out of a spooky castle followed by two bats discussing how all horror movies have to start that way. The spider is played as if he were the Phantom of the Opera and the fly as if he were an East End Kid. I wish this one were more fun, but it’s very talky and short on action; it’s also distinctly short of laughs, and outside of the opening and closing scenes, it’s short on atmosphere as well.