C’est l’aviron (1944)
Article 5765 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-9-2020
Directed by Norman McLaren
Voice cast unknown
Country: Canada
What it is: Early music video

As a French song is performed, we see images from the point of view of a boat sailing through the water juxtaposed with images from the song appearing in the clouds.

It’s Norman McLaren again. This one is less conspicuously abstract than his previous entries in this series; most of the images are clearly recognizable as objects and people, and it has the general feel of a music video rather than as the visual equivalent of music. The images in the clouds represent things described in the song, but as the song is in French, I couldn’t actually match them up. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed this one; for one thing, I just enjoy watching the landscapes rising up out of the horizon as the boat sails along. Still, because it’s less abstract than his other works, this feels even farther away from the realm of fantastic content, but the fact that the title was included in the Walt Lee guide guaranteed it a review.

Censored (1944)
Article 5764 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-8-2020
Directed by Frank Tashlin
Featuring the voices of Bea Benaderet, Mel Blanc, Sara Berner
Country: USA
What it is: Private Snafu cartoon

Private Snafu keeps trying to get letters through to his girlfriend, but the censors keep cutting them to ribbons. However, he does get one through…

I’m pretty sure I’ve covered at least one of the Private Snafu cartoons already, but if not, they were a series of cartoons made for our troops during WWII to raise awareness of their responsibilities as men of the armed services. Many of these were made by members of the Warner Brothers animation team, and some were even co-written by Dr. Seuss. Though the series had no anthropomorphic animals and much of the content can be filed under the heading of comic exaggeration, it does have one nod to the fantastic, and that is the existence of a character known as Technical Fairy – First Class who periodically appears to come to the aid of Private Snafu. He’s in this one, and he illustrates to Snafu the danger of passing classified information in his private communications. Overall, though, these cartoons play out like typical Warner Brothers cartoons, though they are a bit on the racy side. This one is an okay example of the series.

The Cave of the Silken Web (1967)
aka Pan si dong
Article 5763 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-8-2020
Directed by Meng Hua Ho
Featuring Chien Yu, Liang Hua Liu, Meng Tien
Country: Hong Kong
What it is: Oriental fantasy classic

When a monk is kidnapped by seven spider monsters, it is up to his three companions to rescue him before he is consumed.

I’m always delighted to rediscover a title I didn’t know I had. This is the third of a four-part movie series that adapts a classic Chinese tale called “Journey to the West”. I’ve not seen the other three, but I do know that I’ve encountered the four main characters in another movie; a monk, a warrior, a man-pig, and the monkey king. The spider monsters are disguised as beautiful women, and much of the plot revolves around the monkey king tricking them into turning against each other; several characters appear to have the ability to disguise themselves as others. It’s not quite satisfying on its own (possibly because it’s one of the middle chapters of a series, but it is colorful and energetic, and it does have its moments. At any rate, I’m always happy to see fantastic movies from other countries and explore other cultures.

Cat Feud (1958)
Article 5762 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-7-2020
Directed by Chuck Jones
Featuring the voice of Mel Blanc
Country: USA
What it is: Looney Tunes cartoon

While on guard at a construction site, bulldog Marc Anthony ends up befriending a little kitten and gives the little guy a sausage. When a mangy alley cat tries to steal the sausage, Marc Anthony has his paws full trying to prevent him.

On my own judgment, I probably wouldn’t have covered this cartoon; outside of anthropomorphic animals, there is no real fantastic content here. Even the anthropomorphism is on the lighter side; none of the animals speak, and outside of occasionally standing on their hind legs and operating machinery, they’re more animal than human. However, I once again bow to its listing in the Walt Lee guide, and review it.

This one is something of a sequel to one of Chuck Jones’ finest cartoons, FEED THE KITTY, a cartoon that manages to be utterly hilarious and completely heartbreaking at the same time. In comparison, this one falls short; it borrows a couple of elements of FEED THE KITTY, but here the focus is on a slapstick duel between Marc Anthony the bulldog and Claude the Cat, and it’s obviously just going for laughs. Some sequences are pretty funny; they have a lot of fun with the giant overhead magnet, and the moment Claude gets beaned by a girder and mistakes it for an attack from the kitten is memorable. Nevertheless, this one is more standard issue from the company and nothing special.

The Cat and the Canary (1978)
Article 5761 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-7-2020
Directed by Radley Metzger
Featuring Honor Blackman, Michael Callan, Edward Fox
Country: UK
What it is: A remade old dark house

When a family gathers for a reading of the will, a single heiress is chosen, but she must survive the night and not be insane; otherwise, the fortune will go to the next on the list…

If you’re going to make an old dark house movie in the late seventies, you might as well do a remake of one of the cornerstones of the genre rather than just offering a variant that borrows many of the original’s cliches. There are a number of well-known faces in the cast, and the acting is generally acceptable; some of them do their best to add some fun to the proceedings. It’s a little bloodier and nastier than some of the original versions, but with a PG rating, it’s not really too bloody. But when you come right down to it, this version is a bit slow, rather dreary, and ultimately it’s not much fun. The thing I liked best is the whimsical way it handles the final credits. But if I wanted to see this story again, I’d opt for one of the two earlier versions.

Casper Genie (1954)
Article 5760 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-5-2020
Directed by Seymour Kneitel
Featuring the voices of Jack Mercer, Mae Questal, Sid Raymond
Country: USA
What it is: Casper cartoon

Casper’s search for a friend leads him to pretend to be a genie in order to get close to a young boy reading the story of Aladdin. But a burglar steals the boy’s lamp…

While watching this cartoon, it struck me that there’s a certain similarity between Casper and Pepe Le Pew; the appearance of either character is guaranteed to clear the area of people. The difference between the two characters is that Pepe remains narcissistically oblivious to his offensive qualities whereas Casper is all too aware of them. which is why Pepe is played for humor and Casper is played for pathos. In this cartoon, Casper’s compromise made for the hope of friendship seems a bit on the unhealthy side; you know there’s no way he’s going to be able to keep up this ruse and what it entails, but the cartoon throws in the burglar to move the plot in another direction, so they are spared from having to address this compromise directly. At any rate, it does sort of explain why Casper is always losing his old friends

The Case of the Screaming Bishop (1944)
Article 5759 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-5-2020
Directed by Howard Swift
Featuring the voice of John McLeish
Country: USA
What it is: Sherlock Holmes cartoon parody

Two characters modeled off of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson try to solve a case where a dinosaur skeleton was stolen from a museum.

This bizarre little cartoon hovers around the edges of the fantastic genres, but I’m not really sure it falls in; in fact, it doesn’t even have any anthropomorphic animals. In fact, I’m not sure it even has much in the way of laughs; every gag leaves me with a sense that it didn’t quite work, but I’m never sure exactly what I’d do to make it work because I’m not sure what it was trying to do. Unfortunately, it’s one of those cartoons I’d like to like; I’m sure you could do something with the idea of Holmes investigating a dinosaur skeleton theft. As it is, if it gets by, it’s on the strength of its weirdness. By the way, there’s no screaming bishop in the cartoon.

Captain America Battles the Red Skull (1964)
Article 5757 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-2-2020
Directed by Donald F. Glut
Featuring Larry Ivie and Donald F. Glut
Country: USA
What it is: Amateur film

Captain American battles the Red Skull.

This being an amateur film, I probably wouldn’t be covering it if it weren’t for the fact that it is listed in the Walt Lee guide compounded with the fact that Donald F. Glut’s amateur films have become famous enough that they even merit listings on IMDB. Still, this being an amateur film, I look at them more as artifacts of fandom and as learning experiences; Donald F. Glut would indeed go on to become a professional in the business. Even as an amateur film, I can appreciate the creativity that is necessary when you don’t have much in the way of money to help; in its short 2-minute run, it manages to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Its fight choreography is good, and it uses some clever methods to establish certain facts; I like the way it communicates to me that the building is on fire. For what it is, this amateur movie is pretty good.