In observance of Veteran's Day, we invite you to taka e few minutes to watch "There's Something About a Soldier"--a tale of war, bravery, and love... not to mention lots of silliness. It's embedded at the bottom of this post!
There's Something About a Soldier (1934)
Starring: Mae Questel (the voice of Betty Boop) and Jack Mercer (the voice of Fearless Fred)
Director: Dave Fleischer
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
Betty helps recruit the men on the country to join the army to battle an invading hoard of giant mosquitos and fights along side them on the front lines.
By 1934, the Betty Boop cartoons were losing their edge, due in large part to the now-in-full-force Motion Picture Production Code. Still, this Betty Boop outing is still a lot of fun, with gags coming fast and furious while everything from war-time melodramas, army recruiting methods and army recruits, and even war, is being lampooned.
What's most remarkable here is the animation. At first glance, it appears like the well-composed and smooth-flowing imagery we expect from this series, but a closer look reveals that an amazing amount of attention and effort was put into the details here. For example, each soldier in formations is drawn with an individual look instead of the typical method of just repeating the same character design on such insignificant characters. That extra effort on the soldiers is a big part of what makes "There's Something About a Soldier" worthy viewing on this Veteran's Day.
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