This writer and animation buff, for reasons he will never, ever entirely understand, possesses a deep and profound affinity for B-studio cartoons.
This affinity is as strong as his love of 2-reel comedies, as well as B-movies (and sometimes C, D, E, F, F# and Gb movies) in the science fiction and film noir genres. Some of it is directly due to constant exposure to massively phantasmagorical animated mayhem on television in glorious black and white during the late 1950's and early 1960's.
Of the various B-studio cartoons, it's a tossup between the Charles Mintz/Screen Gems Studio, which produced series for Columbia release, independent producers Les Elton and Ted Eshbaugh, and the Van Beuren Studio, which cranked out Aesop's Fables, Tom & Jerry, Cubby Bear and Little King cartoons for release by RKO Radio Pictures (note: the Van Beuren cartoons have, fortunately, been well served by DVD releases from Steve Stanchfield's Thunderbean Animation).
First and foremost, before getting into those 1930's Columbia cartoons, we shall start with something most of you animation buffs reading this blog already know: a bit of Machiavellian film history, familiar to all who saw the Pixar movie Up and found themselves the sole individual in the theatrical audience to chortle loudly upon hearing that the evil bad guy's name was Charles Muntz.
Charles Mintz is known in the annals of animation history as the Universal Pictures producer of the Walt Disney Studio's popular silent era starring character, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit. Publisher and author David Gerstein has told this story of the break between Disney and Mintz at length in his article, Of Rocks & Socks: The Winkler Oswalds on Jerry Beck's Cartoon Research website, as has writer Don M. Yowp in a post from his excellent Tralfaz website, That's Oswald.
Mintz was married to pioneering animation producer and businesswoman Margaret J. Winkler. Also involved in the studio, from silent days to its closure in 1941: production manager George Winkler, whose job description was "crack the whip".
Winkler Productions, distributors of Otto Messmer's Felix The Cat and Walt Disney Productions' Alice In Cartoonland series, enjoyed great success with Disney's cartoons featuring Oswald The Lucky Rabbit and the sprightly animation of Ub Iwerks.
Disney was working as Mintz and Universal's employee and wanting a budget increase for the next season of Ozzie cartoons. Mintz countered by giving Walt an ultimatum: accept a budget AND a pay cut or be fired.
Mintz won this gambit and successfully took control of both the studio and the Oswald The Lucky Rabbit character. Having successfully wrested control of the popular character and hired animators Hugh Harman, Rollin Hamilton, Paul Smith and Ben Clopton from Walt's staff, Mintz finished the remaining Oswalds on the Disney contract and then organized a new studio to produce the next series on May 5, 1928.
Except for Ub Iwerks and apprentice animator Les Clark, the Walt Disney Productions staffers jumped ship to work for Mintz. You know the rest of the story: Ub joined Walt in California to create a new flagship character for the Disney Studio. . . and that would be Mickey Mouse.
Charles Mintz started his association with Columbia Pictures as the executive producer behind the New York animation studio, led by Ben Harrison and Manny Gould (1904-1975). Both had been animating on the silent Krazy Kat series that Bill Nolan had been making in 1925-1927, then began directing and producing them with Tired Wheels, released on October 8, 1927. Winkler Productions cranked out silent Krazy Kats and much of this crew would follow Mintz to the new studio in California.
By the time the Harrison and Gould crew started making Krazy Kat cartoons, the character was in at least its second movie incarnation, the first closer to the George Herriman comic strip character than those that followed (at least until Gene Deitch's made-for-TV series for King Features in the 1960's). While these cartoons advertise themselves as being based on the comic strip, that would be a tenuous connection at best. The look is there, but Herriman's minimalist universe and essential concept is not. Only one entry from the subsequent "talkie" Krazy Kat series, Lil Anjil (1936), attempted to tackled the George Herriman version of the character.
These initial entries in the Krazy Kat series were the first films Charles Mintz produced for Columbia release. The following, the first "talkie", released theatrically on August 15, 1929. . . well, it's pretty darn crude and not anywhere near the level of the Fleischer Studio's Inkwell Imps series.
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That said, soon after those first few talkies, the Krazy Kat series hit its stride. The series improved rapidly and began delivering striking and original ideas, with that wonderfully distorted imagery of "rubber-hose" era animation. Here's a 1930 entry The Apache Kid, seen provoking a rousing audience response more than seven decades later.
In particular, the Great Depression tale Lambs Will Gambol and the gritty gangster movie sendup Taken For A Ride, like The Apache Kid, are imaginative and memorable cartoons.
Once having hit their stride, the Mintz studio's Krazy Kat series delivered the "all talking all singing all dancing - and almost all bizarre" job description of early 1930's cartoons at times exceptionally well.
At their best, this series could, with some panache and originality, equal anything produced by Disney and Fleischer at the time.
The second crew that brought a certain East Coast sensibility to sunny California turned out to be several artists formerly with none other than the Fleischer Studio - and actually did contribute animation to the aforementioned Inkwell Imps cartoons: the legendary Dick Huemer, previously known for his stellar work on Fleischer's Koko The Clown (and subsequently a key storyman with Disney, in collaboration with Joe Grant), gagman par excellence Sid Marcus and the great Warner Bros. animator and director Art Davis.
This crew's first series with Mintz was the, not surprisingly, quite Fleischer-like Toby The Pup cartoons, produced for RKO Pathe release in 1930-1931.
The next series to be produced by the Huemer-Davis-Marcus crew starred a little city kid named Scrappy.
The first in the series, Yelp Wanted, is an astonishingly dark cartoon; Scrappy is on the mean streets and surrounded by danger. There's astounding animation by Dick Huemer throughout.
Unlike Disney's Mickey Mouse, Hugh Harman & Rudy Ising's Bosko and the Walter Lantz version of Ozzie The Lucky Rabbit, all three emotionally and spiritually in sunny California, the first Scrappy cartoons definitely have an urban New York City flavor.
Without a doubt, both our protagonist and the bullies that bedevil him are definitely NOT from Park Avenue.
These initial opuses de Scrappy are truly twisted, often wildly push the 1931 "squash and stretch"envelope to its limits and look like they were drawn by R. Crumb - in short, everything we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog adore about early 1930's cartoons!
Not to be outdone, the Harrison and Gould crew produced a good number more highly inventive Krazy Kat cartoons at the same time. Several feature a very creative use of music.
As ace animator Dick Huemer's work on the first two seasons of Scrappy made for quite a few unbeatable classic cartoons, the animation of Manny Gould, Preston Blair, Al Eugster and others contributed lively pen-and-ink flair to the Krazy Kat series.
Other Krazy Kat entries - The Disarmament Conference, Prosperity Blues and the aforementioned Lambs Will Gambol - are distinguished by how they incorporate surprisingly stark social commentary about current events and the Great Depression into the cartoony landscape.
Meanwhile, the 1932-1933 Scrappy cartoons add a double shot of very goofy, anarchic humor into the mix.
In such cartoons as The Flop House, the results are hilarious.
With high hopes to emulate the Fleischer Studio's success with Popeye, the Mintz Studio bought the rights to Billy DeBeck's comic strip Barney Google in 1934. Unfortunately, the series, produced in 2-strip Technicolor, folded after four films.
What little this 1930's animation fan has seen of the surviving Columbia Barney Googles indicates that they may have, after working with the characters for a bit, settled in and produced very good work.
While unlikely to have reached the high level of the Fleischer Popeyes or the two Milt Gross MGM cartoons starring his own characters, Count Screwloose and J.R. The Wonder Dog, these cartoons definitely have their moments.
There's considerable promise in quite a few individual scenes, as this reconstruction of the first Barney Google cartoon, Tetched In The Head, from the handful of surviving 50 foot silent 16mm home movie prints indicates.
The Mintz/Columbia Barney Googles are somewhat comparable to the MGM Captain And The Kids (a.k.a. Katzenjammer Kids) cartoons, very good in segments and occasionally an entire cartoon but never quite hitting the mark overall, Friz Freleng's fine work directing the latter series notwithstanding.
With that observation on silvr screen efforts to translate comics to animated cartoons, we close today's post. The "rest of the story", what happened to the Color Rhapsodies as the 1930's wore on and how this affected the B&W Krazy Kat and Scrappy cartoons, will be in Part 2.
Acknowledgements go to Milton Knight, Craig Davison, Don M. Yowp, David Gerstein, Pietro Shakarian, Mark Kausler, Lee Glover and Jerry Beck. For more on Scrappy cartoons, check out the Scrappyland site by journalist and vintage animation expert Harry McCracken. See the aforementioned Tralfaz website and the Uncle John's Crazy Town comics and animation blog for more about the Charles Mintz Studio, Margaret J. Winkler and Krazy Kat. For more on Dick Huemer's career in animation, read the fascinating and incredibly thorough oral history conducted by author Joe Adamson.
Some extravaganzas on the short list of favorite movies here at Way Too Lazy To Write A Blog also feature favorite animated main title sequences. Hitchcock's Rear Window is remarkable on both counts.
Always got a big kick out of seeing Terry Gilliam's animation in the Monty Python's Flying Circus and Marty Feldman Comedy Machine television series.
It was a foregone conclusion that when the Pythons transitioned to features, naturally there would be main titles drenched with Gilliam's distinctive stamp.
Considered Paramount as in both all-time favorites and Paramount Pictures, here are the wonderful animated titles from The Lady Eve, singular in the category of "movie in which Preston Sturges, Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda are ALL involved."
Now who animated the splendid title sequence for this splendid Sturges opus remains a bit of a mystery, as the smiling serpent does not stylistically resemble animation by the Fleischer Studio, producers of numerous cartoons for Paramount Pictures. It has been credited to Leon Schlesinger/Warner Brothers, but does not look like anything from Tex Avery and Bob Clampett, either. That leaves Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng. Perhaps an individual animator on staff was given the job of animating the titles.
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, one of the comedy team's best movies, starts with a very creative and beautifully executed main title segment. One would assume it was created by the ace animators from the Walter Lantz Studio, who had been cranking out cartoons for Universal release for almost two decades by then. Then again, the Lantz Studio did close in the late 1940's due to financial difficulties and was not operating when A&C Meet Frankenstein was made (the studio subsequently re-opened in 1950).
Author and animation expert Jerry Beck noted in the February 13, 2013 post on the Cartoon Research website that Dave Fleischer was at Universal Pictures at that time. Fleischer, in collaboration with the studio of former Disney and Screen Gems animator Howard Swift, was responsible for providing animated titles to Universal Pictures features in the late 1940's.
Here's the animated opening to a flick Rick starred in that made a gazillion bucks for Disney and proved a fabulous choice for an excursion to a movie matinee back in 1989, Honey I Shrunk The Kids.
Back in the early 1950's, Disney's bête noire (full of former Disney animators), the UPA Studio, riding high from the critical success of their high design Jolly Frolics "cartoon modern" series, not to be outdone, created equally stylish main titles for The Four Poster, as well as the following animated sequences in the body of the film.
UPA would follow this up with the extremely atmospheric titles to arguably their best film, an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. While not a feature film, it never feels like a short subject or cartoon and the viewer is led, without any graphic violence onscreen, into Poe's madness. The graphic design, expressing a foreboding The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari quality throughout, adeptly conveys the underlying terror.
On the other hand, such feature films possessing a very cartoony feel as Blake Edwards' Pink Panther series, starring Peter Sellers as dunderheaded Inspector Jacques Clouseau - a live-action cartoon if there ever was one - also have clever animated main title segments, in this case produced by the De Patie-Freleng studio.
Animated features, especially those produced by Walt Disney Studios, were no slouch either in the "very cool animation throughout the main titles" department.
Vintage cartoon shorts also featured character animation in their openings. We say this noting that both the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies from Warner Bros. generally did not include character animation in the openings but did offer surprises aplenty for the closing "That's All, Folks!" The last 10 seconds from Tex Avery's Looney Tunes manifesto Porky's Duck Hunt (1937) would be a prime example of this.
Note - the following compilations of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies openings and closings also confirm this. Pardon the use of titles from godawful "colorized" B&W cartoons.
Lively opening titles, featuring character movement galore, begin the Columbia Phantasies, Color Rhapsodies and Fox & Crow cartoons from the 1942-1943 season. Alas, the following Columbia Phantasy, Mass Mouse Meeting, is just one of several which makes one wish the cartoons actually delivered something remotely resembling the zaniness, invention and energy seen in the opening titles.
A personal favorite and fitting closer for today's post is the charming main title segment, animated by Rod Scribner, for UPA's musical Ham and Hattie series. Here are the imaginative titles, then a complete Ham & Hattie short subject, Trees & Jamaica Daddy.
Completing a trifecta that has thus far spotlighted Jay Ward Productions, Bert & Harry Piels ads voiced by Bob & Ray, Tom Terrific, Nudnik, Q.T. Hush and Roger Ramjet, today's tip of a top hat worn by either Jay Ward or Bill Scott goes to (drum roll). . . Aardman Animations!
While this writer often finds current CGI animation - with the exception of those features made by Pixar - a bit too snarky and dialogue-heavy (and lacking the saving grace of Jay Ward Productions/Stan Freberg style witty repartee), the films of Aardman, from their first music videos and short subjects to the latest efforts, delight this lifelong animation fan. That certain indefinable but welcome element of genuine whimsy - a quality not seen at all in the overwhelming majority of American movies and TV shows - delivered with intelligence and nuance, permeates the Aardman films and has since the very beginning.
Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog does not cover much along the lines of 21st century pop culture, but shall make an exception here, given how much we like the Shaun The Sheep movie.
And also the splendid 21st century Aardman Animations features that preceded Shaun The Sheep: Chicken Run and Wallace And Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (note: have not seen the 2006 Aardman CGI feature Flushed Away).
A Grand Day Out, the first Wallace & Gromit adventure, originated as a student film.
Indeed, the very British world of Wallace & Gromit possesses a knack for hitting this animation buff's sweet spot every time. We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are not alone in this assessment, as Wallace & Gromit have their own YouTube channel.
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Aardman Animations was founded in the 1970's, made their reputation as creators of wonderful short subjects and commercials in the 1980's. Many of us first encountered the model animation of Aardman in the 1986 Peter Gabriel music video Sledgehammer.
Not long afterwards, in such touring feature-length compilations as The Tournee Of Animation and Spike And Mike's Festival Of Animation, the Aardman Animations short subjects would premiere on the big screen in America. Audiences went nuts over the good humor, invention and, most importantly, the whimsy in such Aardman productions as Creature Comforts.
Subsequently, the first Wallace & Gromit adventures would be on the Tournee and Spike & Mike programs - and frequently were the runaway hits.
Ranking high on the short list of this writer's all-time favorite films is Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers.
The followup, A Close Shave, would introduce another Aardman Animations stalwart, Shaun The Sheep.
The three short subjects, A Grand Day Out (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995), were followed by a TV series, Cracking Contraptions, the Curse Of The Were-Rabbit feature, the featurette A Matter Of Loaf & Death and the Wallace & Gromit's World Of Invention TV series.
The studio has survived much hardship, including a fire in the Aardman Animations warehouse, to re-emerge, most recently with the Shaun the Sheep movie. After the October 10, 2005 fire, the hope was that the company would eventually be able to return from the damage. The blaze wiped out just about all the original sets for the Wallace and Gromit films and panels of original storyboards.
The studio made it back from this adversity, rebuilt and would launch the Shaun The Sheep TV series, as well as the children's show Timmy Time.
Wallace & Gromit returned to the big screen with the half-hour short subject, A Matter Of Loaf & Death (2008).
These would be followed by Wallace & Gromit amusement park rides, video games, an association with The National Trust and TV commercials.
We close with behind-the-scenes clips direct from Aardman Animations - and, last but not least, a cracking good concert from The Royal Albert Hall paying tribute to our heroes.
To paraphrase Wallace, "cracking good cheese - Gromit!"
Watching Jay Ward cartoons in the last post got this writer thinking of other animated series designed for what Ernie Kovacs called "the orthicon tube" in the late 1950's to mid-1960's.
Ace animator, writer and animation historian Mark Kausler beat us to the punch with a well-written and comprehensive article on the Cartoon Research website about a very good show Your Correspondent liked a great deal, Ed Graham Jr.'s Linus The Lionhearted.
There were some odd 1-shot syndicated series that transcended low budgets with clever ideas and a bit of style. Q.T. Hush, produced in 1960 by Animation Associates - readers may recognize the name of Lou Zukor from the credits of Fleischer and Famous Studios cartoons - was a serialized sleuth series that many children of the early 1960's still remember fondly (note the sound is extremely low on this clip).
It's a tough call to select the funniest of the latter 1950's and 1960's TV cartoon series not produced by Jay Ward. Certainly the animated version of Beany & Cecil (many entries directed by former Walt Disney Studio "duck man" Jack Hannah) featuring a winning, funny and likable cast of characters backed with fine voice work, would be in the running.
Chuck Jones termed many of the made-for-TV toons "illustrated radio" - and there were positive and negative examples of this. It all started in the late 1940's, when Jay Ward and Alex Anderson figured out how to make entertaining cartoons on no budget; write exceptionally funny scripts - and spend the budget on damn funny voice actors. Voila - the first cartoon series produced specifically for TV, the witty Crusader Rabbit.
The first made-for-TV cartoon, Alex Anderson and Jay Ward's Crusader Rabbit basically was still frames. Except for a moment in the opening, there really wasn't any animation. Still, the comedy writing and storylines by Anderson, the voice work and central characters were very funny.
Besides Crusader Rabbit, other than the Tele-Comics series – quite literally comics – in the early days of TV, daily puppet shows as Kukla, Fran & Ollie and Time For Beany were the rage.
In animated commercials, the quintessential example of the new breed would be the Bert & Harry Piel ads produced by Gene Dietch at the New York wing of the UPA studio. The Piels were voiced by two of radio's finest, Bob & Ray. It was a very successful campaign which combined limited animation with stylish graphic design and winning yet understated humor.
Dietch would go on to be hired by Terrytoons, write and directed a group of fascinating theatrical cartoons (the best designed specifically for the wide dimensions of CinemaScope) and then create the series Tom Terrific that aired on CBS-TV’s Captain Kangaroo show. While Tom Terrific is not of the same satiric or subversive cloth as the TV shows by Jay Ward, it remains a prime example of designing a series specifically for children which also offers great entertainment value for all ages. Much of this is due to the contrast between ever-plucky Tom and phlegmatic Manfred The Wonder Dog - and how the minimalist pen-and-ink design and soundtrack music fits the storylines and series concept beautifully.
The series Gene subsequently produced at his Prague studio featuring a little nebbish named Nudnik might have also made a wonderful TV show.
And then there was our favorite at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, the both silly and satiric Roger Ramjet.
The series creator, Fred Crippen, previously worked at UPA and subsequently made some excellent indie animation short subjects; Network Awesome has paid tribute in a Films Of Fred Crippen collection. Other key figures in the series went on to work on the Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart shows, while radio great Gary Owens, not long after contributing stellar voice work to all 185 Roger Ramjet episodes, joined the cast of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.
What happened? It's pretty clear that as the 1960's progressed and vast numbers of individuals across the nation were dropping LSD-25 tabs as if they were peanut M&Ms, the TV cartoon world was getting . . . well, more conservative. Among the last series that Jay Ward and Hanna-Barbera would launch in the 1960's, George Of The Jungle (17 episodes) and Scooby Doo, Where Are You? ended up establishing the direction for the next decade. The former, often hilarious albeit not as satiric as Rocky & Bullwinkle, ended up not getting renewed and would being the last show produced by Jay Ward - subsequent pilots did not sell - while the latter, which recycled plots and animation ad nauseum, would prove a harbinger of series after series after series produced by Hanna-Barbera and Filmation.
The writing was on the wall. The labor-saving, budget-lowering techniques and, most importantly, storyline repetition of Scooby Doo were the polar opposites of the blueprints for how to do entertaining limited animation series for TV established by Jay Ward Productions, Bob Clampett Productions and other studios - and would usher in the Saturday morning Dark Ages.
Much of this could be attributed to Action On Children's Television. These were well-meaning folks who saw the growing and alarming violence in our society and thought that ACME anvils dropping on Wile E. Coyote may have been a determinant that led to Charles Whitman shooting people randomly on a tower in Texas.
For two decades, stringent rules were placed on cartoons made for TV. Producers of Sesame Street for PBS worked within those rules as best as possible, as did the Schoolhouse Rock series, but nonetheless these would be dreary days for Saturday morning television - and the end of the trail for such imaginative producers of content as Jay Ward Productions. The Action On Children's Television era is also where the idea that cartoons were entertainment designed for children and, unlike Tom Terrific, ONLY for children - a concept that must have made Tex Avery cringe - truly took hold with a vengeance, leading to two decades of terrible animation for TV.
The one thing that can be said for the unending recycling and repetition of Scooby Doo and countless other animated series from the 1970's and early 1980's - besides the fact that it gave animation artists employment - is that the Saturday morning formula ended up inspiring some pretty wonderful parodies, all very much in the spirit of Rocky & His Friends, Fractured Fairy Tales and Roger Ramjet, decades later.
Scooby Doo, Scrappy Doo and Dippity Do (but not Hüsker Dü) would be the norm until those very first glimpses of The Simpsons on The Tracy Ullmann Show, ushering in the next era. These initial efforts were darn near as crude as the early Crusader Rabbit shows, but on the right track.
The Ralph Bakshi produced Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures would soon follow, debuting in the 1987-1988 season - and a new and far less rigid era was at hand.
Having just made a cross country trip involving trains, planes and automobiles, the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog has enough energy to. . . well, watch Planes Trains & Automobiles but even more likely relax on a Friday with some cool cartoons.
The series of Jay Ward Productions, starting with Crusader Rabbit in the late 1940's, are a perennial favorite.
I'll admit it - I'm a sucker for the cartoons of Jay Ward Productions, even to the extent of having tracked down Bill Scott in November 1981 and interviewed him at length.
Jay Ward Productions' incredible roster of character actors/voice talents - Scott, June Foray, Bill Conrad, Daws Butler, Edward Everett Horton, Hans Conreid, Charlie Ruggles, Walter Tetley - combined with the studio's satiric edge, still gets Mr. Blogmeister laughing after all these years.
In the TV cartoon field at that time, the Jay Ward cartoons were only equaled - in comedy mojo and voice work - by Pantomime Pictures' Roger Ramjet series.
Even the second string Jay Ward shows - Fractured Flickers and Hoppity Hooper - have much to offer in the way of big time belly laughs, in large part due to all of those incredible voice talents and the consistently brilliant comedy writing by Lloyd Turner, Allen Burns, Chris Hayward, Chris Jenkyns, George Atkins and head writer Bill Scott.
As far as the Jay Ward Productions commercials for Quaker Oats go, they were frequently wonderful and superior to the programs they sponsored.
The Jay Ward studio's last series, George Of The Jungle, also featuring Super Chicken and Tom Slick, certainly had moments of serious hilarity. Alas, the two decades after this went off the air, the 1970's and 1980's, would be a dark, dreadful, arid, awful and worst of all, boring stretch for American cartoons. . . a bombed-out wasteland.
June Foray's career in radio, recordings (Stan Freberg), movies and in the cartoons of Warner Bros. and Jay Ward Productions has been responsible for a gazillion laughs. Here she is with animator and writer Darrell Van Citters, author of The Art Of Jay Ward.
For more info, by all means get a copy of the Jay Ward Studio history, The Moose That Roared, A.S.A.P. The story of Jay Ward, Alex Anderson, Bill Scott and the multi-talented animators and voice artists involved in these shows has been painstakingly researched and very entertainingly written by character actor/voice artist/impressionist and film and radio historian Keith Scott.
As our friend and collaborator Robert Emmett from KFJC-FM likes to say, silent films are never silent, so, this Friday night, vintage films and cartoons produced 100 years ago will be accompanied live by the music of Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Septet at Angelica's in downtown Redwood City!
From the press release:
Angelica's and Montuno Productions present Jeff Sanford’s Cartoon Jazz Septet, a smaller version of the Cartoon Jazz Orchestra, which Jeff Sanford organized in 2003 to play the eccentric, highly entertaining and challenging music of American composer Raymond Scott. This music is known to millions around the world—it was the soundtrack to 120 classic Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons.
The vision of the Septet extends far beyond Raymond Scott’s music these days. Among other icons, Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington are represented, as is Charlie Shavers, the brilliant trumpeter, composer and arranger who “jazzed the classics” for the John Kirby Sextet in the 1930s.
Since 2009, Lenny Carlson has been composer-in-residence for both the Septet and the Orchestra.
Lenny has taken the spirit of Raymond Scott and updated it, combining classical and jazz elements with klezmer and folk styles from around the world.
The show will also feature a comedy and magic performance. Old school 16mm films will be presented by film historian Paul Etcheverry.
The Date: Friday August 5, 2016 Showtime: 8:30 p.m. The Place: Angelica's, 863 Main Street, Redwood City, CA
If you wish to be seated with another ticket purchasing customer please send a request to info@angelicasllc.com.
Band members will be interviewed on KALW-FM on Thursday (August 4) at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. For more info, see: Angelica's website
Cartoon Jazz Orchestra official website
Cartoon Jazz Orchestra Facebook page
Today's post, reviewing George Cukor's 1939 adaptation of the hit Claire Boothe play skewering "Real Housewives Of Park Avenue", The Women, starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Rosalind Russell, (note: spoilers start immediately) is Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog's contribution to the 2016 Joan Crawford Blogathon, hosted by Crystal of In The Good Old Days Of Classic Hollywood.
In a five decade career, Joan Crawford was a fascinating screen presence, especially once she had been doing talkies for a few years and had transitioned from perky Our Dancing Daughters ingenue to pre-Code "hot babe" to those hardworking and ambitious shopgirl parts to, eventually, the wide range of characters and genres she'd successfully tackle in her 1940's and 1950's films.
Throughout this review this movie will be described via clips of songs that, although not a single one had been recorded when The Women was released theatrically on September 1, 1939, nonetheless express the movie's essence. After all, this is not a movie blog but a "20th Century Pop Culture" blog - and proudly so!
The Women features no men in front of the camera - alas, Dorothy Arzner, who directed Joan Crawford in The Bride Wore Red was NOT behind the camera (the formidable George Cukor was) - but 135 actresses total, headlined by Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Rosalind Russell, lead a super talented ensemble.
Here's George Cukor, both happy he got dismissed from directing Gone With The Wind and flanked by Florence Nash, Phyllis Povah, Russell, Crawford, Shearer, Paulette Goddard, Mary Boland and a very young Joan Fontaine.
Since The Women revolves around a bunch of largely unhappy Park Avenue housewives dealing with a deadly combo of boredom, a sense of powerlessness and either philandering or absentee spouses, this tune from a movie musical box office smash from 14 years later, says it all.
A topic central to The Women and related to "When Love Goes Wrong, Nothing Goes Right" is. . . well, let's not tell you, let's show you via the following two songs. First, let's hear Hank Williams Sr. in 1953.
The latter describes what both the women and the (offscreen) men in this movie do and have done to them. It is an equally great single recorded in 1968 at the mighty Stax/Volt Studios by r&b ace Johnnie Taylor.
While as much or more a product of its time than Gone With The Wind, the other massive box office hit produced in 1939 by MGM, The Women remains fascinating on many levels: a viciously funny screenplay, the consistently top-notch acting from the talented ensemble cast and the film's places in the celebrated movie careers of its stars, as well as director George Cukor.
Robert Osborne's introduction to the film on Turner Classic Movies touches upon much of this and then some.
The Women is a witty and at times raucous comedy about the wealthy Park Avenue set: quite the compendium of in-fighting, infidelity, Machiavellian intrigue and general skullduggery - with tea cakes served in between by the maid. Men are spoken of, but never seen or heard.
The back stabbing practically begins in the first frame. Indeed, a certain #1 hit recorded by The O'Jays four decades later sizes up these lethal ladies perfectly.
The tone is set immediately when Cukor gets his camera tracking in a beauty salon, catching a wide range of characters blithely trading vicious insults and snappy put-downs with the fervor of the crazed news reporters in another unbeatable classic movie filled with crackling dialogue and starring Roz Russell, His Girl Friday. The pervasive "all males, married or not, can't help themselves from being liars, cheaters and scumbags" theme also asserts itself throughout.
Norma Shearer had been a major star since her breakthrough role alongside 1920's heartthrob Ramon Novarro in The Student Prince In Old Heidelberg, the queen of the MGM lot for a decade and eventually Mrs. Irving Thalberg. By the time The Women was produced, she was winding down her very successful movie career. Along with Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer's competition for box-office laurels at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was Joan Crawford.
While the role of Sylvia Rogers is not the first major part in a movie for Rosalind Russell, it is, arguably, her coming-out party as a gifted screen comedienne and very likely the performance which specifically got that train a rollin' to her ultimate movie role as a gal we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog like a great deal, Auntie Mame.
In this writer's opinion, Norma Shearer has the most difficult part as the happily married Mary Haines who learns that Stephen, her hubby, is a philandering, lying prick.
The central dilemma, then as now, involving a marriage described as "one philanders, the other doesn't" is one summed up nicely by this rocker by The Clash.
The movie presents the case both for staying and going, clearly leaning towards the former - and at least, if the relationship can be saved, doing what The Beatles suggest in one of their hit records.
Now, back to the MGM Big Three divas, this reviewer strongly disagrees with writers who slam Shearer's performance in The Women. Her portrayal of Mary Haines is warm, genuine, just right for the movie and actually quite a bit less over-the-top than most of the other cast members. It is the reality that Shearer's character, unlike most of her Park Avenue pals, is likable, kind to her daughter and not mean-spirited in the least that makes the story work.
Norma's scenes with Virginia Weidler, the lesser known but remarkable young actress who plays her daughter (and soon to be outstanding in Cukor's The Philadelphia Story), are among the best in the movie. Expressing the loving relationship between the two and underscoring that Mary Haines is a good, attentive and conscientious mom, their sequences together are pivotal.
Crawford portrays clever, conniving, despicable, amoral and ever-avaricious perfume saleslady Crystal Allen, the evil doppelgänger of her previous plucky shopgirl characters in MGM movies, with more relish than Ford Sterling portraying a dastardly villain in a 1913 Keystone Comedy - but totally without the Mack Sennett Studio star's customary nudge nudge wink wink approach.
This scribe has heard the Crystal Allen character described, quite accurately, as reptilian and life-sucking succubus. Yes, it is apparent from the moment of her entrance as she browbeats her department store co-workers that Crystal Allen is trouble personified!
Gotta hand it to Crawford, frequently a better actress than given credit for, who rolls up her designer sleeves and delves headlong into that evil, inhabiting the character with skill and expressing her truth. Key to the Crystal Allen role is that she's less a killer than a show-off, an individual who clearly gets off on the act of demonstrating to others how evil she is and relishes watching reactions to her brazen "bad girl" antics. It is not necessarily about being naughty and bad, but always about making sure others see that she's naughty and bad.
The big boob we never see in The Women (since this movie post-dates strict enforcement of the Production Code and nudity's a no-no) is wealthy engineer Stephen Haines, who dumps his nice wife and marries the selfish, mean-spirited and abusive mistress. First on the poetic justice list in this movie is that Haines gets to live "I'm A Fool To Want You," the classic love-gone-terribly-wrong standard by The Chairman Of The Board, orchestrated by Gordon Jenkins, as well as learn exactly what "be careful what you wish for" means.
Those who saw Ab Fab The Movie when it opened last weekend and are aficionados of the John Cleese & Connie Booth TV show Fawlty Towers know that it's quite possible to derive big laughs from the thoroughly reprehensible behavior of totally unsympathetic characters.
In The Women, just such a wretched sort, the role of Sylvia Fowler, is played to the hilt by Rosalind Russell. It turned out to be a star-making turn. Watch Roz' loathsome character insult everyone within earshot here - it's white-hot comedy brilliance!
Collaborating with a dirt dishin' gossip-obsessed manicurist, Russell's character drives the storyline and the lives of her would-be "pals" over a cliff. In this scene, the vicious gossip meets Crystal Allen. Mrs. Rogers derives pleasure from harming others via the spreading of gossip the same way Ms. Allen gets off big time by showing off how bad and naughty she is to others.
Some of the funniest scenes in the movies feature Crawford and Russell together, in a truly symbiotic and twisted relationship. The two actresses play off each other beautifully.
The dynamic recalls a lizard the riding on the back of a toad who possesses a poisonous and instantly lethal sting.
It turns out to be the horrid Sylvia's complete and utter inability to keep any secret that proves to be Crystal's undoing, once the terror of the Black's 5th Avenue perfume counter marries Mary Haines' rich but hapless former hubby and commences cheating on him either 150 days before or 150 seconds after saying "I do." Immediately, Crystal cheats with the country western singer married to the Countess (played by Mary Boland) on the inaccurate assumption that the Jimmie Rodgers wannabee possesses a fortune worth many millions. After all, Crystal's all about money and power.
Also unusual in this movie is that there are two misbehaving Park Avenue Playgirl philanderers among The Women and only one is actually unsympathetic. There are two Hoochie Coochie Gals here - one portrayed by Joan Crawford, the other by Paulette Goddard, still beloved for her essential contribution to Charlie Chaplin's wonderful 1936 film Modern Times.
The difference? The former, Crystal Allen, is slimy, unethical and cruel, the latter, Miriam Arons, isn't. In addition, there is some poetic justice to Miriam's lusty character messing around with the husband of awful Sylvia, from the miserable Mr. and Mrs. Howard Fowler, a couple that very likely had even less affectionate physical contact and sex than Basil and Sybil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers.
The key is not that Crystal Allen is a philanderer and home wrecker, it's that she's mean. If Crystal Allen was a man, she'd be a dishonest and unscrupulous businessperson - and also cheating on his wife with both mistresses and prostitutes.
Mess with these two chain-smoking Hoochie Coochie Gals at your peril - but put your trust in Miriam Arons, at least a kind, decent and honorable serial philanderer, who might actually have the good sense to fall in love with and marry another player, then make a go of the relationship.
Crawford herself would revisit some of this territory in an entirely different part in an entirely different but also wonderful movie, When Ladies Meet. As far as topics of the political-economic power of women, the myriad problems in coupling, cohabitation and relationships, why men and women (straight and gay) choose to cheat even more than Chico Marx did, well, many have tried to address these difficult topics in the many decades since The Women. . . and very, very few have succeeded.
The ads in 1939 say "it's all about men" but it's actually about the political power, social status and roles of women in society - and who's got the power.
There is a dark context throughout the film regarding a quiet tragedy of wasted lives, partly due to societal orthodoxy and marriage mores in 1939 and especially less opportunities for women. No doubt Joan Crawford herself would have been happier in business than she ever was as a movie actress. Joan Crawford's all-time favorite role very likely was as international spokeswoman for Pepsi-Cola and member of its Board Of Directors.
Kudos, bravos and huzzahs to Joan Crawford and all those who made The Women an amazing movie that holds up to multiple viewings. Thanks to Crystal Kalyana Pacey for organizing the Joan Crawford Blogathon and thanks to all the participating writers as well.
We love giant thunder lizard movies at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog and there will be a double dose of it at Godzilla Night 5 at San Leandro's Historic Bal Theatre.
Bay Area Film Events, longtime
friends of the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival, with Curtain Call Performing Arts shall present a monster double bill of Godzilla 2000 and Mothra!
There will be special guests, vendors, artists, Godzilla related prizes, monsters roaming the theater and a raffle for autographed photos of Haruo Nakajima, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kenji Sahara, Tsutomu Kitagawa and Shinichi Wakasa. Special guest from Sony Pictures, Michael Schlesinger, producer of the English language theatrical distribution of Godzilla 2000, will discuss the acquisition, dubbing and theatrical release of the film.
Sounds like a blast and big screen fun! Doors open at 6pm and showtime is 7pm. The Historic Bal Theatre is at 14808 E. 14th Avenue, San Leandro, CA.
Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog will get a little less lazy later this week and contribute to the 2016 Joan Crawford Blogathon, hosted by Crystal of In The Good Old Days Of Classic Hollywood.
While this is very likely the last blogathon we shall participate in this year, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog much looks forward to reviewing The Women, director George Cukor's and screenwriters Anita Loos' and Jane Murfin's vehicle for big budget MGM splendor and a slew of iconic movie stars and character actresses - led by a strong performance by Crawford.
While the tendency among pop culture vultures has, unfortunately, been to sink deeply and inexorably in the quicksand of Joan's often fabricated offscreen legend rather than enjoy her onscreen work, it's clear looking over her career - from those first appearances in silent movies to her last roles in 1960's TV shows and William Castle films - that Miss Crawford was a fascinating onscreen presence in many ways, as well as the hardest working gal in showbiz.
If an NFL running back, she would surprise everyone (and the coaches) by catching a pass and/or cutting sideways, although her style is to power straight ahead and hit the line hard, fullback-style. More often that not, while imposing and larger-than-life in big screen glory, she's less over-the-top rather than more so and, especially in her film noir period, lets her co-stars have the spotlight.
Here's the lineup of contributors to the Joan Crawford Blogathon. Does Joan Crawford have her fans? Uh. . . yeah, I think so.
