PUSS IN BOOTS (1936)
Article 5303 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-21-2016
Directed by Lotte Reiniger
Voice cast unknown
Country: Germany
What it is: Silhouette-animated fairy tale

A boy is sent out into the world with only a few items and a cat to keep him company. However, when he buys boots for the cat, the cat helps him to be a success.

The songs and dialogue in this short are in German, but the story is familiar enough and the short pretty much follows the standard story. Like all of Reiniger’s shorts, the silhouette animation is engaging and creative; I especially like the encounter with the giant that makes for the climax of the story. I also like the closing scene, which I don’t recall from previous versions of the story, but which gives a nice, fitting close to it. It’s not one of Reiniger’s most breathtaking efforts, but it is very enjoyable.

PORKY’S ROAD RACE (1937)
Article 5302 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-19-2016
Directed by Frank Tashlin
Featuring the voices of Elvia Allman, Dave Barry, Billy Bletcher
Country: USA
What it is: Porky Pig cartoon

Porky enters a road race. Will he win?

Porky Pig = Anthropomorphic animal, but he’s the only one in this cartoon. So who are the other racers? They’re a wide assortment of stars of the period, and though I can’t name them all, we get Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Greta Garbo (her feet, anyway), Charles Laughton (as Captain Bligh), Clark Gable, etc. However, to up the fantastic content, we get a character named Borax Karoff as the Frankenstein Monster, and he’s the villain of the piece (as you might expect), so we get a little horror into the mix as well. Actually, it’s a good thing this one is swimming with stars to add to the fun; the jokes aren’t particularly inspiring this time round. In fact, the best joke may be the opening blurb, which emphasizes the fact that the cartoon is pure fiction and that the characters within have no connection with real people.

THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL (1917)
Article 5301 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-18-2016
Directed by Maurice Tourneur
Featuring Mary Pickford, Madlaine Traverse, Charles Wellesley
Country: USA
What it is: Comedy/Drama

The daughter of a businessman (who is too busy trying to make money on Wall Street) and a mother (who is obsessed with making it in society) feels isolated and lonely, and tries to find fun and joy in her life.

Mary Pickford was in her mid-twenties, but thanks to her vivaciousness, energy and charm, she manages to pull off the challenge of playing an eleven-year-old girl in this one; in fact, her charm is easily the best thing about this movie, which ends up being less than subtle in dishing out its moral lesson. Still, I do find the fantastic content to be rather interesting here. It doesn’t really fully come into play until the second half of the movie when the girl is almost fatally poisoned by a neglectful servant and has a delirious fever dream in which she sees several metaphorical phrases given physical manifestation; a woman who is two-faced has two faces, a servant described as a snake-in-the-grass is literally seen as such, and her father makes money using a huge machine that does just that. Some slightly odd touches here and there also add a bit of fun to the proceedings and keep things from getting too stodgy.

PLANE CRAZY (1928)
Article 5300 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-16-2016
Directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks
Featuring the voice of Walt Disney
Country: USA
What it is: Mickey Mouse cartoon

Mickey seeks to become a pilot like Lindbergh, and invites Minnie to accompany him in the first flight aboard a makeshift plane. Things do not go smoothly.

This was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. It was shot silent, but after STEAMBOAT WILLIE was released, a soundtrack was added and it was re-released. There are plenty of anthropomorphic animals and impossible gags to add to the fantastic content. There’s a fair amount of risque humor here, including jokes about Clarabelle Cow’s udders, outhouses, and Minnie’s underwear. Despite his later reputation, Mickey is hardly a nice guy in this one; he’s a veritable masher as he makes unwanted passes to Minnie while in the airplane and ends up trying to scare her when she resists. The cartoon is quite well done, but it is working in that early animation style that looks pretty rubbery today.

THE PIT (1962)
Article 5298 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-14-2016
Directed by Edward Abraham
Featuring Burt Letts, Dave Lloyd, Brian Peck
Country: UK
What it is: Poe adaptation

A man is sentenced to death by the Inquisition and undergoes horrible torments.

In case you haven’t figured it out from the title and plot description, this is an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum”. As such, it is one of the only ones that retains the Inquisition setting, and, at a length of only about 27 minutes long, it doesn’t feel compelled to add unnecessary elaborations to the story. It’s also one of the most faithful versions of the story I’ve encountered. There are a couple of differences; one involves the absence of rats in the movie, which, given this was an experimental film that no doubt had certain budgetary constraints, is probably due the logistical problems of adding them to the mix. The other difference is in the ending of the movie, and I think this is due to the fact that one of the goals of the movie was to shoot it with as little dialogue as possible; the only coherent spoken word is “morte”. The ending as written would most likely have required more dialogue; as filmed, no more was needed. It’s moody, evocative and quite effective; still, I feel the change in ending does weaken the story, at least in my eyes.