MOUSE TROUBLE (1944)
Article 4766 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-23-2015
Directed by Joseph Barbera and William Hanna
No voice cast credited
Country: USA
What it is: Tom and Jerry short

Tom gets a book in the mail on mouse-catching, but when he tries the tricks on Jerry, they all backfire.

As might be guessed, the presence of anthropomorphic animals is the primary piece of fantastic content in this short. That being said, I’m going to have to face a rather sad fact that my love for the classic Warner Brothers cartoons may have spoiled me somewhat. I mention this because this one gets a lot of praise on IMDB for being one of the very best of the Tom and Jerry shorts, and I’m willing to believe it is. Yet, while watching it, I find myself smiling a little at the gags, but I never quite lose myself in their hilarity. It’s as if there is always something very subtle missing, and I’m beginning to suspect it has something to do with the precision with which the Warner Brothers team would set up and set off a gag; the gags in this cartoon seem just a hair off in the timing department. I know in particular I miss the precision of the musical scores that Carl Stalling did for the Warner cartoons. There might also be an emotional element involved as well. In some ways, this cartoon is reminiscent of the Road Runner cartoons with Tom as the coyote and Jerry as the Road Runner. Once I made this observation, I realized that I relate on an emotional level with the coyote; I find something appealingly human about his perpetual frustration and the sense that everything (including the laws of physics) are against him. I feel no such emotional connection to Tom; there’s a certain sense of cruelty to him that turns me away, and I don’t really care what happens to him. Still, this cartoon does have one moment thing that stands out, and that’s that the wind-up female mouse toy that Tom uses to lure Jerry does a Mae West imitation, and that’s the type of extra little detail that can make a difference.

A MIRACLE UNDER THE INQUISITION (1904)
aka Un miracle dous l’inquisition
Article 4761 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-17-2015
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Tale of divine retribution

A cruel inquisitor ignores the pleadings of a woman and burns her at the stake. However, when an angel appears, he finds he will have to pay a price for his cruelty…

This is one of Melies’s more serious shorts; its tale of divine retribution is not played for laughs. In punishment for the inquisitor’s act, the woman is revived and set free, while the inquisitor is forced to take the woman’s place on the stake. The fact that an angel administers the punishment does seem to imply that he finds nothing divinely inspired by the acts of the inquisition, and I find it still relevant today to consider that not everything done in the name of God is necessarily holy. The special effects aren’t some of Melies’s best, and I’m curious about the very ending of the piece; the fire unexpectedly goes out but we still see the inquisitor struggling. I’m not sure if something was neglected in the special effects or if mercy was being given to the inquisitor. The short is interesting, but it doesn’t rank with Melies’s best.

THE MILKY WAY (1940)
Article 4760 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-15-2015
Directed by Rudolf Ising
Featuring the voice of Bernice Hansen
Country: USA
What it is: Animated whimsy

The three little kittens who lost their mittens are sent to their room without any milk. They decide to tie three balloons to a basket, which will lift them up to the Milky Way… and all the milk they want.

For some reason, this short won the Academy award for Best Animated Short of its year. Out of curiosity, I did a power search on IMDB looking for animated shorts from the year 1940 and sorted them by the user ratings, and not only is this short nowhere near the top (it came in 50th behind mostly a whole slew of Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons), it’s not even the highest rated MGM short from that year; that honor goes to PUSS GETS THE BOOT, a watershed cartoon that would eventually give way to the “Tom and Jerry” series. Granted, one-off cartoons are more likely to be overlooked nowadays, and those that emphasize whimsy over laughs (as this one does) have a further strike against them. Nevertheless, this is a likable little cartoon; I’m quite fond of cartoons that take place in surreal fantasy worlds, and there’s a lot of creativity to the way the Milky Way is portrayed here. It even managed to get one good laugh out of me; I love the way the planet Mars is portrayed. In short, this is a good cartoon, but I wouldn’t call it a great one.

MICKEY’S ORPHANS (1931)
Article 4758 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-13-2015
Directed by Burt Gillett
Featuring the voices of Walt Disney and Marcellite Garner
Country: USA
What it is: Mickey Mouse cartoon

Mickey and Minnie find themselves unexpected recipients of a basket on Christmas Eve – which contains hundreds of kittens.

Having watched cartoons from other studios from this era several times recently, I’m once again reminded how far ahead of the animation pack Disney was in those days; in terms of animation technique alone, this looks so much better than the others. I also notice that, though there is some music involved in the short, it doesn’t bring things to a complete halt for the mere sake of adding a song, which means the cartoon devotes itself wholeheartedly to animated antics. I am, however, a little surprised at the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a story; once the kittens show up, it’s just a non-stop barrage of destruction, and you wait in vain for Mickey to lose his patience with the brats. I suppose Mickey is just too good-hearted to lose his temper, but you’ll end up wishing Donald Duck was the star of this one, as then the sparks would really fly. And as good as the animation is, it’s never quite as funny as you might wish it would be. As you can probably guess, the fantastic content consists primarily of the various anthropomorphic animals on hand.

LA METAMORPHOSE DU PAPILLON (1904)
Article 4757 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-12-2015
Directed by Gaston Velle
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Trick short

A caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly.

The metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly is a fairly common occurrence, so I’m not sure if it really qualifies as “fantastic content” in and of itself. However, this silent short isn’t a documentary. We see a puppet caterpillar crawling around a flower, which then fades into a cocoon. Then there’s a jump cut to an appearance of a butterfly, though, once again, it’s not a real butterfly. Perhaps the most startling moment is when the design of the butterfly’s wings magically transforms into another design, which I must admit is rather startling, and this moment alone causes the short to qualify as fantastic. I wasn’t sure at first how the butterfly special effect was handled, but the short eventually shows how it’s done, and I found the revelation charming. Once again, this is one of those shorts that is beautiful to look at, and the fact that it keeps things pretty short (it runs under two minutes) makes it work on that level. This one is very nice.

METAMORPHOSES (1912)
Article 4756 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-11-2015
Directed by Segundo de Chomon
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Magic trick short

A female magician causes objects to transform into other objects with the use of a magic fire.

From what I gather, this was one of the last gasps of the “magic trick” shorts which I’ve been covering so many of lately. It falls roughly into two parts; in the first, we get close-ups of small objects going up in flames only to be transformed into other objects, which then do some stop-motion animated movement. The second half has the magician transforming the backgrounds of the sets. Obviously, it’s the first half of this one that’s more fun; stop-motion is one of the few special-effects techniques that Melies did not use, so it adds a bit of novelty value to this one. The second half is dull, but pretty. Like Melies, Chomon was nearing the end of his cinematic career at this point.

MESMERIST AND COUNTRY COUPLE (1899)
Article 4755 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-10-2015
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Magic trick short

A country couple visits a noted mesmerist, who gives them a demonstration of his hypnotic and magic powers.

Here we have another Melies-inspired early short in which a magician demonstrates his prowess with the help of early film special effects. It’s tempting to dismiss it as just another knockoff, but there are couple of noteworthy points to this one. For one, the short does show a certain amount of energy, which does add to the fun value. The other is that it seems less arbitrary than some of Melies’s shorts, in that there’s a certain character relationship at work here; the magician isn’t working with known assistants but with a couple of people who haven’t met him before. Though this latter point is very minor, it does add a slightly different flavor to the proceedings, and considering how many of these shorts were made, any little thing that can make them stand apart is worth noting.

MARVELLOUS WREATH (1903)
aka La guirlande merveilleuse
Article 4753 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-8-2015
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Another magic trick short

A magician dressed as a musketeer performs tricks.

Here’s yet another of Melies’s “magic trick” shorts; I imagine I’ll have a few more to watch in the next few months and that’ll be the end of them. There are some noticeable jump cuts on this one; I don’t know if they’re examples of clumsy editing on Melies’s part or if they’re due to missing frames on the surviving prints. The wreath of the title is a transformed jump rope from which various images and characters emerge (including one of those ubiquitous tumbling imps). All in all, this is another typical example of the form, with nothing particularly novel about it to set it apart from the pack.

MARS (1930)
Article 4751 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-6-2015
Directed by Walter Lantz and William Nolan
Voice actors unknown
Country: USA
What it is: An Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon

During a fight over a girl, Oswald is knocked into outer space and lands on Mars, where he encounters strange creatures.

It’s tempting to describe Oswald the Lucky Rabbit as a Mickey Mouse clone, but it would be both unfair and inaccurate; Oswald was in fact a co-creation of Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks that pre-dated the existence of Mickey, so if anything, the lines of imitation went the other way. In this cartoon, he does what any self-respecting cartoon character from the early thirties would do; he warbles a song and encounters other animated characters, all in a framework that has the barest hint of a plot. The preponderance of songs at this era in cartoondom was, of course, due to the novelty of sound; it’s also probably one of the reasons it’s one of the duller periods in cartoon history. However, once you get past the songs, the cartoon starts trotting forth an abundance of strange and bizarre critters; it’s almost like an early version of PORKY IN WACKYLAND. We also have a witch to add to the fantastic content, as well as the ubiquitous talking (and singing) animals. The strange Martian creatures are the most appealing thing here, and it makes the short one of the more entertaining ones of the period.

THE MAGICIAN (1900)
Article 4747 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-31-2015
Directed by Edwin S. Porter
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Magic trick short

A magician appears and performs magic tricks, most of which involve his clothes.

Sometimes the difference between a dreary magic trick film and a fun one is a matter of performance. Even in his weakest magic trick films, Melies gave energetic and deeply involved performances; he looked like he was interested in the proceedings and having fun. The magician that shows up here comes across as somewhat bored, and since the tricks aren’t particularly interesting (he mostly throws pieces of clothing up into the air and they don’t come back down), you end up a little bored as well. Thankfully, the short lasts only just over a minute, so it’s rather painless. If you imagine Melies in place of the magician you see here, you’d see how much more fun it could have been.