Tag Archives: Salvador Dali

Snow

Welcome to Fleischer World

Heard

The arrival of sound in the late 1920s added a new dimension to animated films.  Many of the early live-action “talkies” did virtually nothing but talk; however, the cartoon successfully combined the aural and visual without excessive dialogue. The animators most aware of this quality during the 1930s were Max and Dave Fleischer.

Produced for mainstream audiences, the early Betty Boop and Screen Song cartoons were daring, somewhat experimental works. In many ways, Fleischer classics such as Minnie the Moocher (1932), Snow White (1933), I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You (1932), I Heard (1933) and I Ain’t Got Nobody (1932) represent the first music videos with their ingenious fusion of animation and bluesy jazz. The shorts also helped promote the records and upcoming appearances of the guest performers.

Like some of the jazz artists, the Fleischer animators were gritty New Yorkers whose free-wheeling existence was reflected in their cartoons. If Disney, Warner and MGM maintained a sunny optimism in the early 1930s, Fleischer Studios took viewers on a wild ride through the Depression-era psyche.

The Fleischers’ cultural insulation was a significant factor in their best work. By embracing a world of sex, violence, hot jazz and bad times, the studio developed an absurdist vision of nonconformity that was unique in animation. The transition to sound only fueled the Fleischers’ playful anarchy. Until the Hays Office reared its head in 1934, there were no established rules for the East Coast animators to follow.

Electrocuted ghosts in Minnie the Moocher (1932).

Electrocuted ghosts in Minnie the Moocher (1932).

Perhaps the first Fleischer cartoon to seamlessly fuse its bizarre imagery with a Jazz Age bravura was Minnie the Moocher. The pairing of Betty Boop and Cab Calloway resulted in some of animation’s finest moments. In this striking display of music and movement, the rotoscoped Calloway emerges as a ghostly walrus who confronts Betty and her canine pal Bimbo in a darkened cave — singing the classic title song with its references to prostitution, cocaine addiction and venereal disease. The black-and-gray images are stunning as the Calloway walrus performs amid unusual backgrounds ranging from decayed fingers to jagged skulls.

In his 1994 book Cartoons, author Giannalberto Bendazzi singled out Minnie the Moocher as “a masterpiece of American animation” while its “visions and the allusions to danger and sex demonstrate the power of a totentanz, a dance of death.” The film also can be seen as a metaphor for the fears and uncertainties of the Depression.

Minnie the Moocher provided the framework for the dazzling Boop-Calloway masterpiece Snow White. A few historians have compared Snow White to the Salvador Dali-Luis Buñuel short Un Chien Andalou (1929) for its surreal, unconnected imagery — accompanied by Calloway’s downbeat song “St. James Infirmary Blues.”

The painted backgrounds in Snow White are dark and treacherous, particularly the “mystery cave” with its sleazy taverns and skeletal remains.  As in Minnie the Moocher, Calloway’s movements are rotoscoped; however, this time around, he is a metamorphosed Ko-Ko the Clown who leads a funeral procession through the cave with Betty literally “on ice.” In the Calloway song, the ice coffin is equated to a “long white table” in the morgue as Ko-Ko/Calloway mourns the loss of his “baby.” During the song, the evil queen transforms Ko-Ko/Calloway into an elongated ghost who visualizes the “St. James” lyrics by morphing into a “$20 gold piece” and “a shot of booze.”

A rotoscoped Cab Calloway in Snow White (1933).

A rotoscoped Cab Calloway.

In both Calloway-Boop cartoons, the animated songs evoke grim atmosphere with a plethora of throwaway gags. The Fleischers’ stream of cartoon consciousness appears limitless. Rich in detail, Minnie the Moocher and Snow White demand repeated viewings.

Featuring Louis Armstrong in one of his first film appearances, I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You swings in the best sense of the word — not only in terms of Armstrong’s music, but also in the Fleischers’  visual style. In this fast-paced Betty Boop cartoon, every aspect is in rhythmic motion:  trees, volcanoes, footprints, porcupine needles, and cannibals who transform themselves into bushes.

When Betty, Bimbo and Ko-Ko are captured by the cannibals, the latter two escape — only to be pursued by a live-action Armstrong. In fact, Ko-Ko runs so fast that his clown suit must catch up with him. Armstrong continues to chase Ko-Ko while crooning the title song, which focuses on adultery and includes the suggestive lyric “You gave my wife a bottle of Coca-Cola so you could play on her Victrola.” Welcome to Fleischer World.

Betty Boop and Bimbo go underground in I Heard (1933).

Betty Boop and Bimbo go underground in I Heard (1933).

Unlike previous Boop rhapsodies, the jaunty tone of I Heard evolves into a darkly surreal climax. Accompanied by Don Redman and His Orchestra (who introduce the cartoon in a rare film appearance), Betty delivers an infectious rendition of “How’m I Doin’?” as the workers at the “Never Mine” enjoy a hearty lunch in her tavern. The Fleischers provide a steady flow of gags to match the rhythm of Redman’s music.

After the steam whistle finishes its lunch, Betty and the coal miners discover gossip and baseball-playing ghosts down below.  One ghost hits a bomb to Betty and Bimbo — resulting in a back-and-forth escapade that leads to a mine explosion. In the bizarre closing shot, the ghosts fall into ready-made graves opened by Bimbo, who literally gets the last laugh in his final screen appearance.  Betty’s amorous co-star became a casualty of the repressive Production Code, which brought down the curtain on the “Boop-oop-a-doop” jazz extravaganzas.

Largely unavailable on home video (though resurrected on YouTube), the Fleischer Screen Song cartoons of the 1930s utilized wrap-around animation to showcase a musical performer in live action, along with the famous Bouncing Ball to lead the chorus. In some instances, the overall short truly benefited from the strength of its guest artist.

The Mills Brothers with the “Famous Bouncing Ball.”

The Mills Brothers with the famous Bouncing Ball.

I Ain’t Got Nobody, one of the finest Screen Song efforts, marked the film debut of the Mills Brothers, who are introduced as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The off-the-wall “premise” centers on a hypnotic lion who has the ability to make inanimate objects (except for a grumpy statue) sing the Mills Brothers’ hit “Tiger Rag.”  In a classic display of Fleischer animation, the entire living room harmonizes in unison — followed by a lion rug scat-singing in Mills fashion.

This inventive use of music complemented the Fleischers’ distinctive surrealism, which mirrored the Depression era better than any animation studio. If Disney’s early work revealed a rural midwestern quality, the Fleischer landscape was a black-and-white urban jungle — an ideal environment for artists such as Calloway, Armstrong, Redman and the Mills Brothers. The Betty Boop and Screen Song cartoons remain valuable cinematic records of the musical talents who accompanied Max and Dave Fleischer in their symphony of visual madness.

Inkwell

Jekyll Hyde Barrymore

Savant Blu-ray Review: “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1920)

Hyde 5

One can’t get closer to the roots of modern horror than Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Predating modern psychology, Stevenson’s notion of a personality split along moral lines played well in Victorian times, as it rationalized the need for society to repress man’s baser nature. Freed from moral restraints, the benign Dr. Jekyll becomes a soulless hedonist. He defiles women, tramples children and murders men without guilt. The ‘innocent’ Jekyll cannot control his alter ego, who eventually takes over.

The book was almost immediately adapted as a London play by Thomas Russell Sullivan, who added a love interest and hyped Jekyll’s big transformation scene into a shocking showstopper. The popular stage star Richard Mansfield made Jekyll his signature role. Perhaps it was partially a publicity stunt, but Mansfield’s notoriety resulted in his being interviewed about the Jack the Ripper murders. A hundred years later, Armand Assante played Mansfield performing Jekyll & Hyde on stage in a TV movie, Jack the Ripper. Mansfield is seen using special makeup effects to pull off his transformation scenes.

The flashy role was a magnet for flamboyant actors. Eight films on the subject had already been produced when actor John Barrymore, “The Great Profile”, starred in the extremely popular 1920 Adolf Zukor version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Directed by John S. Robertson, this version is based on the Sullivan storyline. Barrymore’s performance retains the theatrical excesses that seem dated today, yet are still quite impressive. Using heavy makeup to give his hands a spidery appearance, Barrymore twists and stretches his face into a series of nasty smiles, glaring wide-eyed (even cross-eyed) at the camera. Additional makeup is added across camera cuts, until Barrymore’s Hyde is a hunched, straggle-haired fiend, with a horrid, half bald pointed head.

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Taken with a proper appreciation of the film’s age, Barrymore’s interpretation is startling and disturbing. The dull Jekyll tends to stare with a vacant, noble look on his face, while Hyde is a repulsive embodiment of evil. Modern impressions of the film have been affected by many parody versions, and the use of film clips out of context for comic purposes. One of the actor’s expressions, with his face stretched out and his eyes staring downward, pops up from time to time in the rubber-face schtick of popular comedians: Danny Kaye, Sid Caesar, Red Skelton, even Dick Van Dyke.

The story is the same as the more familiar later versions by Paramount and MGM, minus Rouben Mamoulian’s Pre-code sexuality and the bizarre Salvador Dali dream sequences in Victor Fleming’s tame remake. The conventional Dr. Lanyon (Charles Lane) warns Jekyll against pursuing “the wrong kind of science.” As in the book, attorney Utterson (J. Malcolm Dunn) drafts the document in which Jekyll bequeaths all of his worldly belongings to Hyde. In the film, Utterson serves double duty as a rival for the attentions of Millicent, Jekyll’s chaste sweetheart. Millicent’s hypocritical father Sir George Carewe (Brandon Hurst) goads Jekyll into sampling the seedy Soho nightlife, advising the innocent young doctor to sow his wild oats while he may. Carewe chats up a female guest at his own party, telling her that she “is Paradise for the eyes but Hell for the soul.” In the original novella Carewe is a Member of Parliament, has no daughter and is one of Hyde’s more mysterious victims.

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One story point neglected by all the screen versions is the question of what becomes of Dr. Jekyll’s benevolent charity ward. Even before the trouble starts, Jekyll is too busy with his research and his clinic work to properly woo Millicent. As in the other versions, it looks as if the ‘indispensible’ Jekyll leaves the poor children in his clinic to rot. Another basic inconsistency is the idea that the Dr. Jekyll character is inexperienced in sexual matters. In Victorian London, a doctor working in a clinic for poor people would soon know everything there is to know about human behavior, of all kinds.

Some of the supporting characters make strong impressions. Hyde’s elderly, cackling landlady is well played by an unbilled, toothless actress. Pug-faced Louis Wolheim (All Quiet on the Western Front) runs the low-class music hall, where performs the seductive dancer Gina. Jekyll is clearly aroused by her embrace. He turns away and excuses himself, but the flame has been lit. A title clarifies things: “For the first time in his life Jekyll had wakened to a sense of his baser nature.”

Hyde 3

The Dancer Gina is played by the legendary Nita Naldi, in her first film role. She’d very shortly become silent cinema’s “female Valentino” in Blood and Sand. Although Naldi wears a daringly low-cut costume, her character isn’t given equal time or billing with the “good” Millicent Carewe. Gina’s relationship with the domineering Hyde is barely suggested: we see no more than the frightened look on her face when they’re introduced. Later on comes a scene meant to depict the rock bottom of Hyde’s vices. He finds Gina in a low dive, compares her to another prostitute in a mirror, and then rejects both for a younger moll brought to him in the opium parlor next door. For 1920 it’s a fairly depraved set-up: while Hyde manhandles the women at the bar, a drug addict nearby hallucinates ants crawling over his body.

Eventually Jekyll’s transformations into Hyde begin to happen spontaneously, even against his will. One of them is handled with a simple, effective dissolve. The most weird by far employs a surreal effect: pure “evil” is manifested as a ghostly spider creature, which climbs onto Jekyll’s bed and merges with this body. The hairy abomination is genuinely disturbing.

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As with other stories about evil doppelgängers, Dr. Jekyll moves a mirror into his lab to assure himself that no Hyde characteristics peek through his mild-mannered normal form. He leads a double life and spends all of his energy hiding his ugly secret from his friends and Millicent. Although all believe Jekyll to be a saint, he is of course highly corruptible, and therefore not really an inverted image of Hyde. The morally delinquent Jekyll even says that his intention is to evade responsibility for his actions: “I propose to do it … to yield to every impulse but leave the soul untouched.” After the final act’s savage murder the guilty Jekyll cannot face being unmasked. As might be expected, Millicent has been kept in the dark about everything. When Lanyon and Utterson witness a transformation with their own eyes, they lie to Millicent for her own good. The last impression is of the handsome John Barrymore, lying still — in facial profile, of course.


The Kino Lorber Classics Deluxe Blu-ray of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a good new transfer and encoding of this 97 year-old gem, billed as the first serious American horror film. The primary source is a 35mm negative with a great many fine scratches, digs and minor damage built-in. The image is reasonably sharp and stable, but no digital cleanup appears to have been applied. We’re told that five minutes of missing footage have been incorporated back into the film. We see some introductory shots in the Carewe household that appear to come from another source, as well as an interesting flashback to the time of the Borgias, to explain how poison is hidden in a special ring. It is difficult to know exactly which scenes are new, if any. Kino’s previous (2004) DVD release carries the same extras. It has a shorter running time, but this 79-minute version may be longer by virtue of a more accurate, slower frame rate. However, it has been noted online that Kino’s edition may not be as complete as David Shepard’s edition, and specifically is missing footage after the intertitle introducing Brandon Hurst as Sir George Carew. The entire show is given color tinting in keeping with original prints.

The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra performs a full score compiled by Rodney Sauer. The music fits the show nicely, working up to some impressive melodramatic climaxes.

As the style of inter-titles changes more than once during the presentation, it’s a sure bet that multiple sources were used to reassemble the movie. Archivist David Shepard’s Film Preservation Associates is credited with the first extra, the 1912 James Cruze one-reel version of the story. Considering its brevity, it is very well made: in his Hyde makeup, future director Cruze looks like a crazed ghoul, with vampire-like fangs. In 1920 at least two copycat productions followed Barrymore’s film. F.W. Murnau’s German Der Januskopf starred Conrad Veidt, and is still considered lost. But Kino offers a 15-minute excerpt from Louis B. Mayer’s version, starring Sheldon Lewis. It’s a polished show in its own right.

“The Transformation” is an audio excerpt from 1909 that appears to be a recording of a stage act. Actor Len Spencer quotes passages from Robert Louis Stevenson as part of his dramatic buildup.

The final treat is a Stan Laurel farce from 1925 called Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pride. Laurel’s spoof of Barrymore’s Hyde is very funny; he transforms while his gum-chewing girlfriend looks on, suitably unimpressed. Running loose in the streets, the mirthful “Mr. Pride” pulls off a series of infantile pranks.

Looking into the histories of the cast members, we find that more than a few were personal colleagues of the star. Barrymore apparently encouraged Louis Wolheim to become an actor, telling him that his face was made for the stage. But the story of beautiful Martha Mansfield is a forgotten chapter of silent movie horror. Three years later on the set of The Warrens of Virginia, the actress’s dress caught on fire. Mansfield was so badly burned that she died the next day. She was 24 years old.


On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Blu-ray rates:

Movie: Excellent

Video: Good

Sound: Excellent

Supplements: two other silent film interpretations of the story (see above), audio record “The Transformation”, Stan Laurel spoof short subject from 1925.

Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly?
YES; Subtitles: English

Packaging: Keep case

Kino Lorber Classics

1920 / B&W with tints / 1:33 flat Silent Aperture / 73 min. / Street Date January 28, 2014 / available through Kino Lorber / 34.95

Starring John Barrymore, Martha Mansfield, Brandon Hurst, Charles Lane, Nita Naldi, Louis Wolheim, J. Malcolm Dunn, George Stevens.

Cinematography Roy Overbaugh

Art Director Clark Robinson

Written by Clara Beranger from the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson

Produced by Adolph Zukor

Directed by John S. Robertson
Reviewed: January 10, 2014

 

 

DVD Savant Text Copyright 2014 Glenn Erickson