Fiddle-de-dee (1947)
Article 5825 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-3-2020
Directed by Norman McLaren
No cast
Country: Canada
What it is: Abstract bluegrass

You can stomp your feet and clap all you want, but there’s no plot.

I must be on an animation kick lately, having gone from Felix the Cat cartoons to a short by Starewicz and now one of those abstract animations by Norman McLaren. Perhaps the most striking thing about this one is the choice of music; it’s a bluegrass tune called “Listen to the Mockingbird” played by an old-time fiddler, and I’m willing to bet that one of the reasons it was done is that it’s such an odd choice for this type of animation. Actually, though, the resulting visuals are fast-moving, colorful, vibrant and lively, and as usual, McLaren finds humor in abstraction (or, at least it looks that way to me – those are chicken feet I’m seeing, right?) I’m covering this one because it’s in the Walt Lee guide, and the only fantastic content is that it’s non-realistic. But I quite enjoyed this one.

Felix in Fairyland (1923)
Article 5823 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-2-2020
Directed by Otto Messmer
No cast
Country: USA
What it is: Felix the Cat cartoon

Felix the Cat rescues a fly who is in reality a fairy, and she grants Felix his wish to go to Fairyland. There Felix encounters several fairy tale characters.

There’s no shortage of fantastic content in this one. Yet, I must admit to being a little disappointed by this one. It’s probably because Felix doesn’t use his bizarre transformational powers as much as usual. He even defeats the giant by using the trick in PUSS IN BOOTS, and I expect something a little more original. As it is, it’s not much different than many others of its ilk where other characters visit the same place. Still, it is somewhat better than most of the other animated shorts of the era; the cartoon is certainly better than many of those that come across as merely “moving comic strips”.

Felix Finds Out (1924)
Article 5822 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-2-2020
Directed by Otto Messmer
No cast
Country: USA
What it is: Felix the Cat cartoon

Felix’s human friend is given a homework assignment to tell what makes the moon shine. Felix finds out.

Early Felix the Cat cartoons, like Tex Avery cartoons, flirt with unreality so pervasively that one is tempted to include them all in this survey, but I do tend to hold out for some more precise fantastic content. This one has hot dogs that act like dogs, the moon almost crashing to the Earth (Felix calls out to the Man in the Moon, which comes fairly close to Earth at that point), and in the (inevitable) scene where Felix has an encounter with a mug of moonshine, he hallucinates some very bizarre creatures. That’s enough content for me. The Felix the Cat cartoons are some of my favorites from the silent era, and though this isn’t quite as wild as some others, it’s still quite amusing, especially during the hallucination sequence. This one is worth a gander.

Fatal Footsteps (1926)
Article 5821 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-31-2020
Directed by Charles R. Bowers
Featuring Charles R. Bowers and Eddie Dunn
Country: USA
What it is: Slapstick comedy

A farmhand becomes obsessed with winning a Charleston-dancing competition.

I’m a bit disappointed by this short from Charley Bowers; it’s more into low-brow physical slapstick than it is in the stop-motion animation that sets him apart from the other silent comedians. Still, I do have to admire the man’s energy; since he spends almost the entire short cavorting around and rehearsing his dance moves, it must have been an exhausting film to make. The special effects do come in in the second half of the short when he converts a pair of roller skates into mechanical dancing shoes, which are capable of going out and dancing on their own without him. Still, even these touches don’t quite compensate for the low-brow shenanigans that fill the rest of the film.

Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies (1990)
Article 5820 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-29-2020
Directed by Sandy Oliveri
No cast (as such)
Country: USA / Canada
What it is: Mostly trailers

This is the movie that answers the baffling question – Can dinosaurs and dinosaur-like creatures be found in movie trailers?

I was amazed and a bit baffled to find that this video has a 7.7 rating on IMDB, but then I have to remind myself that presentations like this are probably rated only by people who are big fans of the subject matter anyway. After all, they’re the ones most inclined to like it. And, to be truthful, I’m that kind of person and I do like it. It’s just that I feel the video would have to be pretty outstanding to set it above other videos of its ilk, but it doesn’t; it’s just a collection of movie trailers featuring dinosaurs and other creatures that are vaguely dinosaur-ish. It’s fun enough, but it isn’t revelatory in any way.

The Fall of the House of Usher (1966)
Article 5819 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-26-2020
Directed by Kim Mills
Featuring David Buck, Susannah York, Denholm Elliott
Country: UK
What it is: British TV Poe adaptation

When a friend’s sister mysteriously appears and then disappears from his home, a student makes a visit to his friend to find out what is going on. But will he find madness and death?

This is an episode of a British TV series known as “Mystery and Imagination”, and since I’ve covered several individual episodes of this series before, I see no reason to skip this one. I’ve already seen several versions of this Poe story; it seems particularly attractive to directors on the arty side of the street, with the 1928 Epstein version the most striking. The story usually needs to be expanded somewhat to fill a feature-length running time, and to some extent, I do have to credit the writer of this adaptation in the way he manages to make it a much more conventional horror story; in fact, the first third of this adaptation all takes place before the events in the original tale, and sets up a romantic triangle situation that drives the rest of the story. However, there is a cost, and it’s not one I particularly like to see; in making it more conventional, it jettisons the hypersensitivity of Roderick Usher, the story element that usually adds the touch of hushed dread that imbues the story. Not that the story element is missing; it’s in the dialogue. It’s just that Denholm Elliott’s performance negates the quality; it’s hard to take his claims of hypersensitivity seriously when he’s declaiming to the rafters. Still, one thing that really does impress here is the set design; the interiors of Usher’s house are memorably grotesque, and they may be the best thing about this adaptation. Nevertheless, I can’t quite warm up to this adaptation; without that sense of hushed dread, it just doesn’t feel right to me.