An Out-of-the-Inkwell Origin Tale

The Ouija Board (1920)
Starring: Max Fleischer and Anonymous Fleischer Studio Employees

Director: Max Fleischer

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

While studio staff members play with a Quija Board, the Animator (Fleischer) draws a haunted house from which the ghostly inhabitants emerge and strike fear in the heart of KoKo the Clown.

 "The Ouija Board" is an early entry in the Out of the Inkwell, a series that merged animation and live-action footage to create situations where our world and the cartoonworld collided in more or less surreal (but always chaotic) ways. Fleischer and his team were clearly still finding their footing with the technology, as the interaction between the animated characters and the live-action footage is minimal, and the rotoscoping of an actor (Dave Fleischer, most likely) that forms the foundation for Koko is more obvious and hamfisted than in future installments.

Although this is by no means the best of the Out of the Inkwell series, it's still lots of fun. The variety of ghosts that emerge from the haunted house have got to be the most diverse group of spooks to ever appear together in a single animated film. Despite Koko's terror and aggression toward them, they are also among the nicest--they even cook him breakfast at one point.

I also found this to be a fun installment in the series because it triggered a thought in my head that may or may not have been the intention of the creators: This was the first time that Koko left his two-dimensional world and entered the three-dimensional one... and it was triggered by the magic (or the curse) of the Ouiji Board the staff members were playing with. This may not have been the first in the series by release date, but in my personal Koko Canon, it's the first time the Animator and his staff encountered living cartoon characters. (Watch their surprise when they spot Koko... and compare it to later episodes where it's commonplace for him to run wild in the studio.)

Maybe someday, I'll do a post with a "suggested viewing order" to tell the complete, epic tale of Koko and the Animator. After all, the entire world is destroyed in one of them, so now I have a beginning and end to the saga.

The overall weakness of "The Ouija Board" can be taken as perhaps the clearest example of my repeated assertions that Walt Disney's Alice in Cartoonland (aka The Alice Comedies) series is an inferior and borderline inept attempt at capturing the magic Fleischer created in Out of the Inkwell. I encourage you to watch the cartoon embedded below, and then click on the link in this paragraph and pick any of the Alice cartoons you'll find there. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who agrees or disagrees with my assessment.

Musical Monday with Primus

On this Musical Monday, Primus reminds us with song and video that people were doing stupid, dangerous things for public attention long before TikTok came along. They just had to work harder at it in the old days.

Over the Falls (1997)
Starring: Les Claypool, Larry Lalonde, and Brian Matia
Director: Les Claypool
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

One of the best 'Alice' entries is still weak

Alice the Whaler (1927)
Starring: Lois Hardwick
Director: Walt Disney
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Alice (Hardwick) is the captain of a whaling vessel operated by a literal zoo crew of cartoon animals.

 The "Alice Comedies" (also referred to as "Alice in Cartoonland") was an early series of 50+ short films by Walt Disney. It merged live action footage with animation in a fashion similar to the "Out of the Inkwell" series from Max Fleischer, but much cruder in execution.

"Alice the Whaler" came toward the end of the series, and it's one of the better ones I've watched so far... but it's also incredibly inconsistent in the level of quality as it unfolds. There are some really nice bits of animation with flying birds, some of the crew antics are fairly complex and funny. On the other hand, there are some jokes that get drawn out well beyond the point of being funny and there's some cheaply and lazily executed animation sequences, and the live-action Alice is barely incorporated into any of the cartoon action. 

What really ruins this cartoon, though, is the ending. It involves Alice's whaling ship successfully harpooning the whale, and, given how this is set up, I can't believe that even 100 years ago audiences would have found that turn of events amusing or entertaining. Either Walt Disney conceived of one of the worst endings to a cartoon ever, or the full ending has not survived to present day. (The only satisfying finale *I* can think of for this one, would have seen Alice's ship smashed to bits and she and her zoo crew bobbing in the ocean, clutching flotsam.)

But don't take my word for it--click below and watch for yourself. Aside from the completely botched ending, this is a pretty cute cartoon. The music is also matched nicely to the action.

Taking pictures can be deadly

Black and White (2017? 1987? ???)
Starring: Bobby and Nikitha
Director: Karthik Subbaraj
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A celebrated photographer (Bobby) receives a mysterious camera that literally captures life through its lens. 

"Black and White" is an interesting flick with a strong Twilight Zone vibe. It ends on a serious cliffhanger and every single mystery that arises as it unfolds remains unanswered, without even the slightest indications of what the answers might be. Normally that would bug me to the point where I'd knock the rating a Star or Two but in this case the film moves swiftly and is filled with enough tension throughout that the lack of answers at the end didn't bother me all that much. In fact, this is one of those films that stirred my imagination, and I would love seeing a sequel. I might even make a post about how Bessie Love came across an enchanted camera and took it out of the hands of evil-doers.

With that said, this film is also a bit of a mystery in and of itself. I was unable to track down any history on it through my usual half-assed research, so I can't tell if it's a film that dates from the 1970s or 1980s, or just is made to look like it due to the technology that's featured. If it is a period piece, it's quite well done, with only one major possible slip-up that I noticed. (I know that the Bobby character uses the 35-milimeter camera different than I recall doing in several ways. I can't say if this is the crew and actor having limited knowledge of how such cameras actually worked, or if I just had different habits.)

Why don't you take a few minutes and check out this mysterious little film. I think you'll enjoy it!

'Ripped' is strong

Ripped (2007)
Starring: Paul Gray and Freda Evans
Director: Christian Linke
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A artist (Gray) finds a mysterious sketchbook that gives him the power to eradicate what he draws from existence.

"Ripped" is another excellent film that I found while wandering through the deep recesses of Facebook. I thought I recognized the filmmaker's name, but I can't find anything else that's done that I might have reviewed, nor can I find him anywhere on my contact lists. I hope he's done other things since leaving film school, because this is a really neat film.

Writer/director Christian Linke says he was inspired to make this film by episodes of the original "Twilight Zone" series. He's done a great job capturing the look and mood of some of the most iconic episodes of that show while also bringing an appropriate silent movie aesthetic to the actors' performances that echo the best of what that era had to offer. The storytelling is fast-paced, the camera- and lighting-work is creative, and the special effects are simple and effective. Linke did a fine job in general.

There are only two things that dragged the film down from the Seven Rating I was thinking about to the Six Rating that I ultimately gave it. 

First, I found some of the stock music that Linke used distracting. One bit featured a motif that I knew from somewhere, so I found myself thinking more about where from than what was happening on screen. Once I placed the music, I began to wonder why he chose that particular piece; was he trying to evoke the very famous films and even more famous character that it's associated with, or was it just coincidental? (This could just be a "me" issue--I have the same problem when Chinese films lift famous film scores and use them for scenes and genres that have nothing to do with where it was taken from. It could be I notice these things more because I'm a nexus point for film-buffery and music criticism, so this might be a non-complaint complaint as far as most viewers are concerned.)

Second, I kept wanting the stakes to be a little higher, especially in light of the ending. When the Arist realized he could make things vanish via the magic sketch pad, he should have moved onto things far more impactful than just nick-nacks, escalating past annoying pets and to people in quick succession. The film is so well-made that this isn't a huge problem, but it still something I had to "ding" it for.

All that said, I think if you enjoy things like "The Twilight Zone" and "Tales From the Crypt" or classic short-form horror comics, I think you'll get a kick out of "Ripped". Take a few minutes to check it out... and perhaps even let me know in the comments if you could tell what music I found distracting.

'Edge of Doom' is a fascinating look at the psychological effects of poverty

Edge of Doom (1950)
Starring: Farley Granger, Dana Andrews, Paul Stewart, Robert Keith, Joan Evans, Mala Powers, Howard Vermilyea, Houseley Stevenson, and Adele Jergens

Director: Mark Robson

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When his devoutly religious, beloved mother dies, Martin (Granger) snaps under the pressure of living life in poverty and murders an elderly priest (Vermilyea) he blames for much of his misery. As he spirals deeper into despair and madness, Martin becomes obsessed with getting enough money to provide his mother with the elaborate funeral he feels she deserves.

"Edge of Doom" had the potential to be one of the bleakest, most depressing, and emotionally impactful films ever made. It takes place almost entirely at night, which is an embodiment of the everpresent gloom in the impoverished inner-city neighborhood in which the story unfolds. The central character is one of the working poor who, despite living an honest life and working hard can't get ahead. There is no way to not feel empathy for him, because circumstances have literally been against him his whole life. The film gets even darker, because those in his life who could possibly stop his downward spiral are either self-interested criminals, trying to keep their own heads above water, or so distracted and/or burned out by the unending cycle misery and social and economic struggles of the neighborhood that they are blind to Martin's meltdown and that they have the ability to stop it.

The villains in this picture aren't any of the characters (although Paul Stewart, in an excellently performed supporting role, comes close to filling that slot)... no, the villains here are Fate, Luck, and perhaps Society. It's rare that a film that a film successfully manages to have ephemeral concepts as the primarily antagonists in a story, but "Edge of Doom" pulls it off. Mostly. Some terrible decisions are made, which I get into below.

The set design, camerawork, and lighting are excellent and all work together to emphasize the unescapable gloom that permeates the neighborhood and infects everybody. Most of the performances are likewise fitting for the characters and situations, with the way the characters are written and how the actors portray them . Even the main police detectives who initially seem to be one-dimensional, dimwitted bully-boys that populated many films of the 1930s and 1940s, end up being portrayed with some nuance, both due to the story and to actors portraying them. 

Although Farley Granger does not get top billing, he is the undisputed star of the film. His character is central to almost everything that happens in the picture, and he has more screen time than any other actor. He also delivers a star-caliber performance, even if he goes a little over the top on a couple of occasions. He's not as good here as he is in "Strangers on a Train" (which he would star in the following year), but it's close.

With all the praise I'm heaping on "Edge of Doom", why is it only getting a Six-Star rating? Well, because someone, somewhere, made the absolutely awful decision to tell the story in flashback, bookending the main story with a sequence featuring Dana Andrews trying to convince a young priest to not quit the parish, because, despite the harsh nature of life there, he has a chance to make a difference if he just sticks with it. This sappy framing sequence not only undermines the dark tone of the story, but it removes any tension that surrounds Andrews' character as the main story unfolds, since we already know how his part in it ends. 

The cheesy narration that the flashback structure provides an excuse for, further undermines the tone of the film and brings to the fore what might otherwise have been a preachy under-current. The message that poverty breaks those trapped in in and those who try to get them out of it is delivered clearly enough through the story without the narrator beating us over the head with it. It also undermines Andrews character, since he does seem like a devout, humble and empathetic priest and not a holier-than-thou, preachy one--which is what the voice-over narration borders on. And this is a real shame, because Andrews does a good job with the character otherwise.My dislike of the framing sequence and related narration can't be overstated, and it caused me to knock at least a Star off my rating.

Despite the terrible decision to tell the dark and tragic story of "Edge of Doom" in a flashback sandwiched by a hokey priestly pep talk, I think this is a film that's well worth watching. Farley Granger and Dana Andrews are both very good, and their performances are enhanced by equally remarkable performances from the supporting cast. As mentioned above, Paul Stewart is particularly impressive as Martin's sleazy neighbor. Adele Jergens, as Stewart's wife play a much smaller part, but she is equally remarkable. Both these characters are obviously bad people, but they are portrayed with deftness and nuance by the actors to the point where the viewers can actually find them somewhat sympathetic.

If you are an Amazon Prime subscriber, "Edge of Doom" is, as of this writing, one of the films you can watch for free. Click here to check it out.

Saturday Strangeness with Xing Xu

Mushrooms (2022)
Starring: Laura Dromerick
Director: Xing Xu
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A woman wanders a lakeside orchard and... oh, just watch it. You tell ME what makes a good summary.

YouTube is a great place for filmmakers to share short films that otherwise might never be seen by random members of the public. Sadly, they mostly end up in obscure corners of the site, so while they may now be out there to be discovered and appreciated, they still go mostly unseen. But at least they're there for ME to find and feature in post here, upping the chance of these creative efforts to be seen.

Every so often, I come across one such film that makes me say, "I don't think I know what this film is about, but I like everything about it!" The latest of these is "Mushrooms" from New York City-based writer/director Xing Xu. She describes herself as an artist who makes "music videos and magick art".

I might classify "Mushrooms" as a music video--the spooky, sometimes chilling music by Nurse With Wound is a prime driver in this two-minute film--if not for the free-verse narration. It's a non-narrative bit of filmmaking that I THINK is about beginnings and ends and the life that exists between them, but it could also just be a bit of spookiness that I should have saved for the 31 Nights of Halloween extravaganza crossover with Terror Titans in October.

But why don't you take a couple minutes (literally) to check out this neat little bit of art. And, like I asked above, if you can give us a good "teaser summary"--share it!

(Also, keep an eye out for another work from Xing Xu on a future Musical Monday.)

Mary and Jim are gonna marry! Nothing will stop them! Except...

They Would Elope (1909)
Starring: Mary Pickford, Billy Quirk, and James Kirkwood
Director: D.W. Griffith
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A young couple (Pickford and Quirk), convinced their families are opposed to their desire to get married, decide to elope. But Fate keeps trying to stop them.

I almost gave up on "They Would Elope" roughly one minute in, because it felt stagey even for an early silent movie. Not only that, it felt stagey in a bad way, with the actors performing on a stage that was far too small for the scene they were attempting. (Her parents walk in on the young lovers canoodling, but they don't notice them initially, despite standing right next to them and talking. And the young lovers don't notice the parents intially, despite the fact they are standing right next to them, talking. The scene is so badly done that I found it hard to believe that it was in a D.W. Griffith film.)  

I'm glad I kept watching, though, because moments later, an amusing twist was introduced into the story... and from that point forward the film went down a very deliberate, very silly path. Even as it grew more silly, it grew more charming. I went from almost turning the film off to eagerly wanting to see what would happen when the young lovers inevitably reunited with their families.

I think "They Would Elope" is the first comedy from D.W. Griffith I've seen. While it has its flaws, it's just as fast-paced as his dramatic short films, and I think modern audiences will be as entertained by it as they were in 1909. One thing I personally realized (or perhaps rediscovered after forgetting, because I feel like I should have known this already) is that filmmakers were making full-on satires of melodramas as far back as the early days of cinema. 

I am embedding "They Would Elope" via YouTube to make it easy for you to enjoy this fun movie. Feel free to leave a comment on this post if you think my estimation of it is off.

Gun Fury Returns!

Gun Fury Returns #1 - #4 

(Aircel Comics/Malibu Graphics, June - September 1990)

Story: Barry Blair
Art: Dave Cooper

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

New York City has been overrun by costumed heroes and villains. Millionaire Donald Lump believes Gun Fury and Ammo can restore some semblance of order, so he coaxes them out of retirement by funding new equipment for them and providing a base of operations. The city has been overrun by costumed heroes and villains, and only Gun Fury can restore some semblance of order!

Gun Fury and Ammo were the stars of a ten-issue superhero parody series that ran from January to October of 1989. There are hints that, despite the series wrapping up with the heroes retiring at the end of #10, there were course adjustments in the final 2-3 issues, because the creators knew cancelation was looming due to low sales. 

In mid-1990, Gun Fury and Ammo returned for four more whacky adventures of questionable taste, brought to us by the original creative team of Barry Blair (writer and creator) and Dave Cooper (artist and sometime co-plotter) in the limited series "Gun Fury Returns". In keeping with the tone of the original series, "Gun Fury Returns" is full low-brow spoofs of popular comic book characters and dominant industry business and storytelling trends. (You can read my thoughts about the original series by clicking here [issues 1-5] and here [issues 6-10].

One thing that immediately jumps out if you put the four issues of this series side-by-side is that the covers get progressively more unappealing and downright ugly. Take a look:

Does the interior artwork and stories follow this same progression, you may ask? Generally no--except for #4 where artist Cooper didn't do the excellent ink washes that graced all the pages up until that point. There is a fairly steady level of quality throughout the series... which is both good and bad.

"Gun Fury Returns" follows the rhythm that the first series fell into as of issue #6: Each issue features a self-contained story, with Gun Fury and Ammo being the only recurring characters and everything being tied together with a thin subplot that's little more than a running joke. In this mini-series, the subplot is about Gun Fury's hemorrhoids, which should tell you something about the level of humor present within the pages.

The first issue of the mini-series is perhaps the weakest. I remember reading it back in 1990 and being disappointed in it. I particularly found the Batman spoof that is the central feature of the issue to be overly juvenile and crass (even by the standards of the previous series), as well as a little trite and redundant since Gun Fury and Ammo were already something of a Batman spoof. 

Thirty years later, I still find "Batman and Throbbin" and the related, embarrassingly obvious scatological humor to be lame, but, because there have been one redundant Batman movie after another, I also feel like this target is even more deserving than it was Back In The Day. The Alfred-type character made me chuckle back then, and it is still one of the more amusing (and darker) elements of the parody. 

Issue #2 offers an X-Men spoof -- The Yes Men. The story here is an improvement over the first issue, and the subplot involving Gun Fury's hemorrhoids actually serves a purpose other than providing some mildly gross gags. This issue's main target was the seemingly never-ending, ever-present X-Men crossovers that Marvel was dishing out during the late-1980s--and into the 1990s, as well as the big-boobed women that became increasingly common in the pages of comics. I was never much of an X-Men reader--the mutant stories in "Marvel Comics Presents" was all that I followed--and the incessent crossovers into titles I DID follow were a contributing factor to my getting away from Marvel Comics (except when I had to read them for work purposes). For this reason, some of the humor in this issue may be lost on me, but them being cast as basically a fetish sex club was something I found very amusing. Further, over all, the timing of the gags were better in this issue than any one previously; Blair and Cooper seem to have found a perfect rhythm... and this carries through to the end of the series.

Issue #3 skewers two indie comics properties that exploded in popularity during the 1980s, ElfQuest and the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles. This issue features what is probably the most mature industry commentary featured in all 14 issues in which Gun Fury appeared. Wrapped within the usual, off-color gags, the story takes shots at how art can take a back seat to creativity (with caricatures of ElfQuest creators Wendi and Richard Pini callously exploiting dog-riding elves to enrich themselves) and how putting greed above all else will eventually come back to haunt and destroy creators (or at least their reputation and stature).

This issue may stand out from the rest, in part because the villains here are satirical versions of friends of Blair--and they would eventually hire him to contribute to their expanding ElfQuest fiefdom, in the "New Blood" spinoff series. More care and less vitriol was probably infused into this script than any of the others--although I assume the Pinis were consulted on the jokes, because Richard comes off REALLY badly. (For what it's worth, I had some small dealings with Richard Pini during the early mid-1990s and my last halfhearted attempts to break into comics. He came across as a nice guy.)

The mini-series closes with a Spider-Man spoof, including the sentient suit from "Secret Wars" (which eventually became an even dumber concept via the invention of the Venom and Carnage characters). Story-wise, this issue is on-par with #3, and Blair's comedy version of Peter Parker at his most whiny is hilarious. The only disappointing aspect of this issue is that the art feels unfinished and a bit empty, because the excellent ink wash finishes  are not applied here as they had been in the previous 13 issues. (The panel that opens this post is from "Gun Fury Returns" #4.)

 

Like most satire, "Gun Fury Returns" is, to a large extent, a product of its time. Much of the humor will be silent or even baffling to readers who aren't familiar with tropes or controversies or fads that permeating comic books and the comic book industry in the late 1980s/early 1990s. The original 10-issue series was broader based in its humor, in the sense that the pot-shots at fans and creators and publishers involve stereotypes and issues that continue to present day, so in that sense its held up better to the passage of time. As a snap-shot of history and as a irreverent and off-color walk down memory lane for Gen-X comics fans, "Gun Fury Returns" still entertains.

--

For an excellent exploration of the man behind the creation, Barry Blair, click here.

'Say Nothing' is a stylish mini-thriller

Say Nothing (2022)
Starring: Jake Libner, Craig Roath, and Callie Stonecipher
Directors: Joe Rosener and Jak Velinsky
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Jake (Libner) is a prisoner being subjected to a brutal interrogation. When sees an opportunity to escape, he takes it. But will his interrogator (Roath) capture him before Jake reaches the warmth and safety of his home and loving wife (Stonecipher).

"Say Nothing" is a stylish mini-thriller with an aura of film noir hanging around it thickly. I liked it so much that even though I recognized what it was inspired by, and thus knew where it was ultimately headed, I still enjoyed it right up until the end.

One thing I really liked about the film was the clever way the filmmakers handled transitions. There was already artificial abuse and aging (of the kind you see on those bargain DVDs of public domain or copyright-orphaned films from producers like Alpha Video) done to the footage, and they used the appearance of severe scratches and damage to denote scene changes. I also liked the lighting of the scenes in general, as well as the camerawork. The technical aspects of this film really made it for me.

The only real complaint I can mount is that the entire film was too dark. Although I liked the way the scenes were lit, it was sometimes hard to see what was going on because everything was so dark. If the picture had been a bit brighter and with a little more contrast, I think I might have given this a rating of Seven. (I suspect the dark quality of the film may be a product of the desire to make the footage seem "old", despite the prominent presence of a cellphone.)

A less valid complaint, but one that also probably would have prompted me to give "Say Nothing" another Star (for a possible total of Eight) is that I think it could have been served well with a few lines of actual dialog. While it works as a silent movie, and is enhanced by a well-synchronized score, it would have been even stronger if there had been a voice on the cellphone, or if the interrogator spoke a few lines, and even if we got ot hear from Jake and his wife.

But, like I said, this works well enough as a silent movie. Craig Roath is particularly impressive and sinister as the interrogator, but Jake Libner and Callie Stonecipher also do as much as they can with their parts. (They don't get to emote as much as Roath).

Check out "Say Nothing" below; it's only six-and-a-half minutes long. Feel free to share your opinion in the comments below, and let me know if you caught onto where the film was going early on as well.

(BTW, I think I've seen Callie Stonecipher and Craig Roath in other things, but none of their IMDB credits look familiar, nor can I otherwise place them. Anyone out there know what else they've been in recently?)

Men, Women, and In-Between in the Workplace

Mabel's Stratagem (1912)
Starring: Mabel Normand, Fred Mace, and Alice Davenport
Director: Mack Sennett
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A secretary (Normand) disguises herself as a man so she can get her job back after her boss's jealous wife (Davenport) insists he fire all female staffers and replace them with males.

"Mabel's Stratagem" is a straight-forward and silly comedy about sex, gender, and sexual harassment in the workplace.  The film is 110 years old, but pretty much all of the situational and gender-based humor works almost as well today, what with all the talk about how there's no difference between men and women, how the society is rotten with power imbalance with the hypocritical rich always abusing the workers, and so on.

While the acting styles are outdated, the film is so fast-moving that viewers hardly have time to notice the excessive pantomiming and emoting (except on the part of Fred Mace who really goes above and beyond). In fact, the only serious complaint I can mount is that maybe the film is a little too fast-moving; the story would be more effective if a little more time could have been spent developing the characters. 

"Mabel's Stratagem" is only five minutes, so I recommend you click below and check it out. I think you'll have fun. 

There's a student film project in crisis!

Black and White Short Film (2022)
Starring: Michael Buss, Emma Thurston, and Branden Hume
Director: Branden Hume
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A student filmmaker (Hume) desperately needs an appropriate idea for a class project. He turns to an actor (Buss) brainstorming help... with mixed results.

 "Black and White Short Film" is a comedy that I'm certain every arts student and professional creative can relate to: The problem of needing to fit an idea to a specific length and format, or even coming up with an idea that will fill a specific length and format, on a deadline. Those people "fortunate" enough to be their friends or colleagues will also be able to relate. Meanwhile, those out there with normal lives and "real jobs" will at the very least find the gags here very funny.

This is another of those films I found in an obscure corner of YouTube that I think deserves to be seen. This is a simply made film with naturalistic acting and a concept I found to be very clever. (And which may actually have been borne into existence from the very situation that is chronicled.)

Click below to check it out. I'm sure you will find the next five minutes well spent if you do. 

 

It's Opening Night for Cubby the Bear!

Opening Night (1933)
Starring: Anonymous Singers and Voice Actors
Director: Mannie Davis
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Cubby the Bear tries to sneak into the hottest new show in town and ends up conducting the orchestra.

The title of this 1933 entry into Van Beuren's anthology series Aesop's Fables, "Opening Night", can be taken in at least two different ways. The first, and most obvious, the setting is the opening of a new show at the Roxy theatre. Secondly, this cartoon was the first appearance of Cubby the Bear, an attempt on the part of the Van Beuren Corporation to come up with a recurring character for Aesop's Fables. (They were possibly taking this step because the unofficial recurring characters--Milton Mouse and Rita Mouse--were coming increasingly under threat from the Walt Disney Corporation which was annoyed by the way the pair had increasingly come to be off-color copies of their successful Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse characters.)

This first outing for Cubby is a little uneven quality-wise. After a mystifying opening scene involving Santa Claus (probably an artifact of the film's original release date), viewers are treated to a series of repetitive and barely amusing gags as Cubby tries to sneak into the theatre. Once our pint-sized hero gets inside and ends up in front of the orchestra, things start getting better and a lot funnier. 

As is almost always the case with a Van Beuren cartoon, the best part is the music. the cartoon opera (which I think is a hybrid of "Carmen" and "Faust") is hilarious and the action is perfectly matched with the music and the singing. They didn't quite go as far as I think they could have gone with the diminutive romantic lead and the big-breasted diva during the operas climax; if they had gone even more risqué, I think the bit would have been even funnier.

In fact, this might be problem with "Opening Night" in general. The best Van Beuren cartoons are usually so wild that they enter the realm of the surreal. Here, although there are several impossibly bizarre moments, none rise to the level of crazy that one can find in the best "Tom & Jerry" entries. As a result, we've got something here that's a bit slow at the start and eventually gets into the silly and cute territory, and which ultimately feels like it never reaches its full potential.

"Opening Night" was the first of somewhere between 17 and 20 short features starring Cubby. I'll eventually get around to watching and reviewing all of them in this space. In the process, I will also discover which source is correct on the number of Cubby cartoons that were produced. 

For now, I invite you to check out the subject of this post by clicking below. I hope you enjoy it. If you do (or if you don't!), feel free to leave a comment.

A tale of a clown and his brother

The Clown's Little Brother (1920)
Starring: Max Fleischer
Directors: Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer
Rating: Six of Ten Stars


A new cartoon character arrives via the mail and springs to life. He quickly outshines the clown created by the Animator (Fleischer), as he can do everything he can--only better!

"The Clown's Little Brother" is one of earliest in a series of shorts that merge animation with live-action footage that would eventually become branded as "Out of the Ink Well". It is the sixth or seventh adventure of a cartoon clown who freely comes and goes between our world and the animated universe he exists it, sometimes to the great frustration of his creator. In fact, this installment is so early in the series  that the clown isn't even formally named yet.

Although it comes at the beginning of the series, all the basics of an "Out of the Inkwell" series can be found here, with cartoon characters leaping off the page and causing--intentionally or not--chaos in the Real World. What's more, we get the sense that the world of Animator is a bit stranger than ours, since he doesn't find it strange that he not only gets a package in the mail with a cartoon character, but someone also sent him a kitten. 

Although this was Early Days for the reality-crashing animated clown, the scenes of him interacting with the Real World in this film are excellent. The Clown's battle against a kitten is impressively executed as many of the action scenes that will follow until the series is retired in 1930. (This is also not the only time Ko-Ko is seen interacting with kittens, and if the short linked here is any indication, he makes his peace with them somewhere along the way.)

The only major complaint I have about "The Clown's Little Brother" is that the purely animated sequences drag on just a little bit too long. We, the viewers, get the point that the Little Brother is more capable in the realm of animated craziness than is the Clown/Ko-Ko, but it gets hammered home to the point where I found myself wishing Fleischer would move on. Maybe a 50+-year-old adult shouldn't be watching these films; maybe the one-upmanship scenes are JUST the right length for younger viewers (or maybe even adult viewers back 100 years ago when this film was made.)

All-in-all, though, I feel the five minutes I spent watching "The Clown's Little Brother" were well spent. I encourage you do click below and check it out, too.

An interesting effort from a new filmmaker

Loop (2022)
Starring: Bryn Wilson and Christian Gillam
Director: Aaron Delaney
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A young woman (Wilson) takes the path less traveled... and finds herself trapped in the Twilight Zone with a mysterious fellow wanderer (Gillam).

"Loop" is another gem that I discovered in the distant corners of YouTube while searching for interesting things to watch and write about in this space. I assume it's an effort by a beginning filmmaker, and I think that if he sticks with it and masters his craft, we'll be treated to great stuff in a few years.

The basic idea and execution of "Loop" is an engaging one, but it's one that is very tricky to execute and which could become very boring to watch, very fast. Delaney, however, keeps things moving and shows a near-perfect sense of timing with the points at which he introduces plot complications and story elements as the film unfolds. This film got my imagination going, and I find myself thinking about the unanswered mysteries it presents, long after the end credits rolled. There's no higher praise I can give a film other than to say it left me with questions that I have fun puzzling out answers to.

As much as I enjoyed "Loop", I can't ignore its technical flaws. Delany makes several ambitious attempts at in-camera edits/effects that he doesn't quite pull off, and the sound mixing leaves a lot to be desired--the dialogue is too soft and the soundtrack music is too loud. There are also a couple points where the camera should have placed in a slightly different place to avoid having a sign in the background. That sign undermined the sense that the characters are trapped in some unknowable paranormal place and thus came dangerously close to spoiling the whole film. (As it is, that sign is responsible for me giving this film a Five instead of a Six Out of Ten Stars.)

If you have a few minutes, check you "Loop" by clicking below. I hope you find it as interesting and imagination-stirring as I did!

'The Session' is worth attending

The Session (2012)
Starring: Alice Bristow and Niloo Ravaei
Director: Emelie Claxton

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A girl (Bristow) undergoes hypno-therapy with disturbing results.

 
"The Session" is another student film I came across while trawling through YouTube for things to watch and write about in this space. It was made primarily to show its creator's competency with three-point lighting--which she demonstrates that she had--but it is also a very interesting, very creepy silent film that's well worth the few minutes of your time it takes to watch. I hope she got a good grade for it!

I admit that I don't know what to make of the patient's mindscape... but she probably has many more therapy sessions in her future.



Note: The creator of this film graduated from film school in 2015, and she has gone onto be a working director-for-hire. You can visit her website by clicking here.

Felix Goes to War!

Felix Turns the Tide (aka "The Inventor") (1922)
Director: Otto Messmer
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When the rats and cats go to war, Felix does his patriotic duty, joins the military, and faces the enemy on the front lines.

"Felix Turns the Tide" is a fast-moving cartoon from the silent era as Felix the Cat was reaching the height of popularity. It starts out violently whacky (with rats and cats blowing each other smithereens on a WWI-type battle field) and ends up in the area of the completely insane as Felix brings in some highly unusual reinforcements for the cats. The craziness is bookended by some cute and amusing scenes, as Felix saying goodbye to his friends on the home-front and then as he returns from the war. 

If you enjoy the early Felix the Cat cartoons, I am certain you will love this one. In addition to being firmly set in that crazy world where intelligent, tool-using cats live and work along side humans, it's one of those relatively rare tales where Felix is a straight-up hero in every way. (Just beware--after watching this, you may find yourself thinking twice before you eat sausages again

The version embedded below (for your convenience, easy viewing, and a guaranteed seven minutes of fun weirdness and cartoon violence) was retitled for distribution to television stations in Australia.

(This is the second Monday in a row where we've posted something with a war theme. We didn't really plan this, but maybe we need to start Military Mondays, to go along with Wonder Woman Wednesdays and Firearms Fridays?)

The Further Adventures of Gun Fury

Gun Fury #6-#10 (Aircel Comics/Malibu Graphics, June - Oct 1989)
Story and Layouts: Barry Blair
Art: Dave Cooper

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

The city needed a hero. What it got was Gun Fury and his sidekick Ammo. They were better than nothing at all. Well... most of the time...

"Gun Fury" was a series that poked fun at superheroes, the comics business and fandom, and mass-media trends of the late 1980s. The first five issues presented and complete storyline that introduced Gun Fury, Ammo (and Peter Pane, the replacement Ammo), and a supporting cast that served the double purpose of poking fun at superhero tropes and taking pot-shots at comic book industry figures. You can read a review of those issues by clicking here.

With the sixth issue of the series, there were a number of changes. First, Dave Cooper became both the penciller and inker of the title, while Barry Blair continued to be the writer and provided page layouts. The story-telling style also shifted from a serial that continued from issue to issue to each issue being self-contained. The supporting cast all but vanished, with Gun Fury and Ammo being the only recurring characters. (There's also a minor running gag revolving around Gun Fury and Ammo being couch potatoes, deciding what crimes need to be fought on what they see on television.)

Another big change is that beginning with these issues, the characterization of Gun Fury as an eccentric, mildly delusional blowhard into someone who is just one step shy of being a complete idiot who exists in a world that exists only in his mind. It leads to some funny one-liners, but, overall, I think it weakened the humor of the title, pushing from a series that made fun of the ultra-violent superheroes of the late 1980s to one that seemed contemptuous of superheroes in general.

The stories in the individual issues are hit-and-miss. The least interesting are in issues #6 and #9, mostly because they cover ground and recycle jokes that were already made in issues #1 through #5 and feature thin stories. 

Issue #6 has little noteworthy in it. It's mostly the above-referenced recycled jokes from earlier issues--pot-shots at comics dealers and collectors--along with setting up the "modern" method by which Gun Fury and Ammo find crime to fight. Gun Fury is also really, REALLY stupid here in ways that are more befuddling than funny. (I don't disagree with the commentary... it's just that the ground had already been covered.)

 Issue #9 makes fun of merchandising and, curiously, pedophiles. It's generally a badly executed mess--with a couple slapstick gags that rely on motion. The scenes could have worked, but Dave Cooper was just not up to the task, failing both to capture the motion and the timing of the gags. There's this iconic moment dropped into the middle of those sequences, but it's too little to save the issue:

In fact, the most interesting thing in #9 is the letters column. It gives insight into the lead-time when it comes to publishing and how plans can change: The editor makes reference to a coming "Gun Fury: Year One" story arc that would detail Our Hero's early adventures--and it would have most likely been a spoof of any and all "origin series" that were being pumped out by Marvel and DC Comics at the time. As it ultimately turned out, the only "Year One" type material we'd get was in issue #8, which revealed how Gun Fury was first set on the path to being a hero and how he got his costume. It's an amusing issue, but it also treads ground that was covered earlier in the series. (I wonder if this was a set-up for the storyline mentioned in #9, or if it was salvaged and slightly reworked and dropped into the mix when it became apparent that the series wasn't going to last much longer. It could explain the only truly lame part of the issue--a not-very-inventive fourth-wall-breaking gag that's drawn out longer than it should have been.)

The best issues in the second half of the "Gun Fury" series are #7 and #10. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they are also the ones that have most effectively survived the passage of time and could in some ways have been published a couple years ago, despite the fact they are firmly rooted in 1980s pop culture.

During the 1980s, there was an explosion of televangelism on cable TV; it didn't matter what time of day it was, you could find religious programming somewhere. There were even channels devoted to nothing but religious programming, such as the Christian Broadcasting Network (for the born-again, evangelical crowd) and the Eternal World Television Network (for the Catholics). 

Issue #7 of Gun Fury pokes fun at these flashy religious productions geared toward television and the, even in 1989, well-documented and laughable hypocrisy of many televangelists. The humor and themes in this issue are as fresh now as they were then, and the climax is perhaps the best of any issue in the series. Gun Fury is in full classic superhero caricature mode in this issue, but it's all very funny.

Meanwhile, issue #10 feels as fresh as the day it was published because it lampoons issues that seem to have exploded across the American cultural landscape over the past two or three years: Gang violence and petty crime of all sorts, and the appearance of casual police violence.

The issue also feels like it might have been published yesterday because there's a Donald Trump caricature that is central to the issue's story. While the character isn't involved in politics, it's an illustration of how long Donald Trump has been a big part of the American cultural landscape.

As hinted at throughout this article, issue #10 would be the  final issue of the "Gun Fury" ongoing series, with the last page seeing our heroes heading off to retirement and tropical climes--and offering up final, heavyhanded, double entendre joke.

 

This would not be fend of Gun Fury and Ammo, however. While "Gun Fury: Year One" would never materialize, Our Heroes would eventually return in a mini-series. Look for my opinions of it in this space at some future date!

(Meanwhile, if you have any memories or opinions about "Gun Fury" or any other Aircel Comics, that's what the comments section is for! Also, for an excellent exploration of the man behind the creation, Barry Blair, click here.)

2/22/22 -- Return of the Doppelgangers

It's another Day of Twos... so it's time for another short film around the theme of doppelgangers! (And remember... if you see yourself today, run the other way!)


Doppleganger (2007)

Starring: Sean Dory and Meghan Lees

Director: John Hollinger

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Not sure what to make of this one

The Call (2020)
Starring: Danielle Elisha Steiner
Director: Wolfgang Kern
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

While walking in the rain, a woman (Steiner) gets a phone call.

"The Call" is a quiet, technically well-executed film. I liked the creative, yet straight-forward, camera-work. The precisely calculated use of out-of-focus moments were among the things that impressed me the most about this film... and the well-deployed, touching (yet catchy) music on the soundtrack also stood out.

And yet, I found myself waffling between awarding this picture a High Six or a Low Seven on my 0-10 scale, because I am not left with a clear sense of what is going with the phone call mentioned in the title and my teaser summary. There are a couple obvious explanations--and a less obvious one that got my imagination going, but I'm fairly certain it's not something that was in the Wolfgang Kern's head when staging this film--but since I didn't feel that was enough here for me to lean in one direction or another as far as "meaning" goes, I went with the High Six Rating.

I strongly recommend you take a few minutes out of your day to check out "The Call". Just click below and sit back. Perhaps you can even leave a comment below to tell me (and other visitors) what you think is going on with the voice on the phone.