Hot Dog (1930)

HOT DOG (1930)
Article 4140 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-27-2013
Directed by Dave Fleischer
Voice cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Cartoon

A car-driving dog tries to pick up girls, and finds himself arrested and on trial for abducting one.

Some of the early Fleischer talking cartoons (or Talkartoons, as they were called) weren’t really that good, but if this one is any indication, they were weird and a little racy. In this one, an early version of Bimbo the dog makes passes to women on the street (most of whom look like they’re women of the night, or at the least, not very fussy), but is repeatedly turned down. The one exception is a woman so ugly, he retreats. Eventually he abducts a woman (by having his car scoop her up in one of its seats) and begins trying to kiss her. The cops catch him and he goes to trial, where his testimony consists of a banjo solo. There’s lots of weird cartoon imagery (such as one of the women spontaneously sprouting roller skates) which, surreal as it is, is hardly funny, and the whole thing ends up more warped than fun. Still, it is interesting to see some of the touches that they would improve on over the years.

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Hooligan Assists the Magician (1900)

HOOLIGAN ASSISTS THE MAGICIAN (1900)
Article 4139 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-26-2013
Directed by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton
Featuring J. Stuart Blackton
Country: USA
What it is: Comic magic trick movie

Happy Hooligan comes on stage while a magician is performing a trick with barrels, and soon finds himself dealing with more than he bargained for.

Happy Hooligan was a popular comic strip character of the time, and he was featured in several movies. From what I can tell, he’s your basic clown, and most of this movie is a mixture of Melies-style magic tricks and clown shenanigans. It’s competent and mildly amusing, but nothing really special.

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The Hilarious Posters (1906)

THE HILARIOUS POSTERS (1906)
aka Les affiches en goguette
Article 4138 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-24-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France
What it is: Comic trick film

The characters in a wall of posters come to life and torment some local policemen.

I get the impression from the title that this is supposed to be one of Melies’s funnier shorts. Sadly, it doesn’t really work all that well on that level; the comic bits are dull, unfocused and vague. Quite frankly, I find the special effects the highlight here, especially when the posters first come to life; the way the various posters look like they would have to inhabit the spaces of the other posters in order for the actors to fit into them makes for a bit of an interesting puzzle in trying to figure out how the effects were done. It might be a bit more amusing if you can read the French writing on the posters themselves, but I’m out of luck there. It’s not one of Melies’s best, but it has points of interest.

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Flowers and Trees (1932)

FLOWERS AND TREES (1932)
Article 4137 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-23-2013
Directed by Burt Gillett
No voice cast
Country: USA
What it is: Disney Silly Symphony

Two young trees strike up a romance, but a jealous tree stump, angry at having been rejected, sets fire to the forest.

This is a Disney short from the era when they were the dominant force in cartoon shorts. This was the first three-strip Technicolor cartoon and it netted Disney the first of his 32 Oscars. It’s a charming piece of whimsy, with dancing anthropomorphic trees and flowers filling up the screen. The story is simple, but the story isn’t really the point; it’s the excellent and innovative animation that makes this one, as well as its fine use of music.

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Le rituel des Musgraves (1912)

LE RITUEL DES MUSGRAVES (1912)
aka The Musgrave Ritual
Article 4136 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-22-2013
Directed by Georges Treville
Featuring Georges Treville and Mr. Moyse
Country: UK / France
What it is: Sherlock Holmes mystery

Sherlock Holmes is called in to investigate the disappearance of a butler and a precious jewel. The solution to the mystery is tied to a strange family ritual.

This Sherlock Holmes mystery really only falls marginally into the realms of the fantastic, and that is because the solution of the mystery involves the death of a character by a specific means; without giving away the solution for those not familiar with a story, let’s just say that it’s related to a type of death that Poe was fond of dealing with. This short is more or less faithful to the original story, though not slavishly so; it changes a few plot details, at least partially due to the fact that they would have been clumsy to deal with in a short silent movie. Treville definitely looks the part of Holmes, and does well enough in the role, given the limitations of the production. All in all, this is not a bad adaptation of the story.

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Gekko Kamen (1958)

GEKKO KAMEN (1958)
aka Moonlight Mask
Article 4135 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-20-2013
Directed by Tsuneo Kobayashi
Featuring Sen Hara, Mitsue Komiya, Hiroko Mine
Country: Japan
What it is: Masked hero hijinks

The evil Skull Mask is after the plans for a new bomb, but runs into resistance from a hero called Gekko Kamen, aka Moonlight Mask.

From what I gather, the whole “Gekko Kamen” movie series is pretty confusing, but the one I’m watching is an American welding of the first two Japanese movies into one. That’s ideally, of course; the fact of the matter is that I couldn’t find the American version, but I did get hold of the two Japanese movies that were welded together, and given that these two movies are 51 minutes each, and the American version was timed at 102 minutes, I’m guessing little was cut. And, as you might guess, the version I saw was in Japanese with no English subtitles.

So, what’s it like? Well, I’d say it’s similar to PRINCE OF SPACE, INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN, or the various Starman/Super Giant movies. It certainly beats all three in terms of its production values, and, taking into account the language barrier on this one, I’d rate it better than the two movies listed above, but I would have to say it lacks some of the energy and outrageousness that makes the Starman movies work for me. It’s hard to say whether the heroes and villains have superpowers; Gekko Kamen is either bulletproof, or he’s unflappable in the face of henchmen who have the targeting ability of Imperial Stormtroopers. He does seem to be able to vanish pretty efficiently. As for the villain, he blows fire on a couple of occasions. Some of the fight scenes suffer from the pulled punch syndrome of the Starman movies (where you watch them in full confidence that no one is getting hurt), but some of the stunt work is impressive, and an extended scene where everyone is chasing after a bag is a lot of fun. The two movies edit together very well, since the first ends in a cliffhanger resolved by the second, so the movie can be easily seen as a single story. However, it is convenient to split them into two movies in one way; I realized how much more fun the first one was than the second, since all the most interesting scenes (from a visual sense) occur there. Granted, that judgment might change is I could see them with subtitles, but even with the language barrier, the action seems pretty straightforward.

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Motor Pirates (1906)

MOTOR PIRATES (1906)
aka The Modern Pirates
Article 4134 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-19-2013
Directed by Arthur Melbourne Cooper
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: Science fiction thriller

Criminals use an armored car to perform robberies, but the police get on their trail.

Armored cars aren’t science fiction anymore, but back in 1906, they were, and this one (which is vaguely submarine-shaped and has a hood that opens up like a monster opening its mouth) looks pretty exotic. Even more interesting is that this short is played more for thrills than laughs, which is rather unusual for its time. This is not to say that there aren’t a few laughs here; some of the cops’ actions seem vaguely comic, and there is something rather funny about seeing the car open its “mouth” and swallow things. Still, the emphasis is on action and thrills, with several people killed in the opening scene and some early stunt work. In some ways, this is a fairly impressive little short, and I’m glad it just got saved from my “ones-that-got-away” list, which it entered yesterday.

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The Hat with Many Surprises (1901)

THE HAT WITH MANY SURPRISES (1901)
aka Le chapeau a surprises
Article 4133 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-17-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France
What is it: Magic film

A gentleman uses his hat to set up a fancy dinner, using it to provide tableware, chairs, and even dinner guests.

This is another of Melies’s “magic” films, but it does have a little novelty in the fact that it actually has something of a theme; rather than using the hat to produce random items, it’s actually focused on the issue of setting up a dinner. He even has to increase the size of the hat at one point so it can disgorge chairs and dinner guests, as well as a servant. Granted, it all goes to pieces during the last half minute or so, with the table vanishing and a painting coming to life, but that’s Melies for you. I’d rate this one as one of the better of this particular genre of short for him.

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Hare Ribbin’ (1944)

HARE RIBBIN’ (1944)
Cartoon
Article 4132 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-16-2013
Directed by Robert Clampett
Featuring the voices of Mel Blanc and Sam Wolfe
Country: USA
What it is: Bugs Bunny cartoon

Bugs Bunny has to contend with a red Russian poodle who is stalking him.

Since Bugs Bunny is a talking rabbit, he falls under the classification of “fantasy” and is fair game for this series. This isn’t the best of the Bugs Bunny cartoons, but it is pretty typical of the period; Bugs runs into a fairly dim character who is hunting him, and humiliates him through various means. In this one, Bugs dresses up as a mermaid and plays a game of tag with the dog; he also pretends to be a French waiter trying to make him a rabbit sandwich (which leads him to put on an Elmer Fudd accent, who does not appear in the short), and finally, tricks the dog into committing suicide; I think the latter gag is the reason the cartoon also appears on a set of banned cartoons I have. The user comments on IMDB seem mystified by the dog and his Russian accent, but I suspect he’s a parody of Bert Gordon, the Mad Russian, a comic actor of the era; he does use Gordon’s “How do you do!” catchphrase at one point.

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Cubby’s Stratosphere Flight (1934)

CUBBY’S STRATOSPHERE FLIGHT (1934)
Article 4131 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-13-2013
Directed by Vernon Stallings
Voice cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Cubby the bear cartoon

Cubby the bear decides to take off for the stratosphere, but he ends up at the North Pole at a walrus night club.

Van Bueren was one of the more obscure cartoon studios of the thirties, and Cubby the Bear wasn’t a particularly memorable character. Still, there are a few decent moments in the cartoon; I like the means of locomotion Cubby uses to rise to the stratosphere (think of the old “horse-and-carrot” trick only using a pelican and a fish), and at least one gag got a laugh out of me (what happens to a fisherman’s can of bait after a giant snowball makes off with him). The rest is pretty typical early thirties animation, with things coming to a dead halt at one point when a quartet of walruses warble a song.

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