Go East, Young Toon (Part 5)

We have a lot of Max Fleischer to get through today. Three Popeyes (two double-length in Technicolor), and a Color Classic. Warner Brothers provides the remainder of the program, contributing work of several of their best directors – two by Tashlin, one by Clampett, and one by Avery – all with middle Eastern themes.

A couple of minor Fleischer oversights should be briefly brought up for completeness sake, without time-outs for extended discussion. Popeye’s crosses with middle-Eastern customs could be said to have begun right from the start, as, in the original Popeye the Sailor (1933), he encounters a snake in the sideshow where he is hula-dancing on stage with Betty Boop, which snake, as declared by a poster, is the property of the unseen Cleopatra the Snake Charmer. Popeye doesn’t let the serpent distract him for more than a second, dispatching of him by letting him inhale a whiff of the smoke from Popeye’s pipe – enough to knock the snake out. Another glancing mention should be made of Betty Boop’s Is My Palm Read from the same year, where Bimbo adds atmosphere to his fortune-telling business by wearing a turban – though it might have been just as convincing if he had worn gypsy earrings and played a violin.

Out of sequence, and overlooked in last week’s run, notable mention should go to Popeye’s The Hyp-Nut-Tist (Fleischer/Paramount, 4/26/35 – Dave Fleischer, dir., Seymour Kneitel/Roland Crandall, anim.) – Possibly based on the radio success of Chandu the Magician, and likely happening in stage circuits as well, a now-outdated stereotype occurred that performers of stage magic might be as likely to wear a turban and feign the learning of their craft through study of the occult of the Middle East, as to wear a top hat and tails. Bluto is cast here as just such a turbaned magician, though given no Arabic-sounding name nor making any direct references to Arabia (aside from the foreign-sounding mumbo-jumbo he utters as magic words). So, this film is not a true Arabian epic, but at least deserves honorable mention. (It would be re-jiggered with new gags in Technicolor over a decade later, as A Balmy Swami, at least making more reference to the Arabic twist through its title.)

Popeye accompanies Olive to the theater, handling their dating arrangement in true gentlemanly fashion (he flips a coin with Olive, heads or tails, the loser having to pay for both their prices of admission – and gets in for free). Popeye is not at all impressed with the performance of Bluto, claiming he doesn’t believe in such stuff, though Bluto seems to possess marvelous magical powers transmitted through his fingertips – allowing him to make a cane dance off stage, and an orchestra bass drum and mallets rise above his head and play without human intervention. Popeye busies himself cleaning his pipe, and toots it in the middle of Bluto’s performance, breaking the trance and causing the drum to fall atop him, much to Popeye’s delight. Bluto seeks revenge, and decides to get at the sailor by taking things out upon his girl. He asks for a volunteer from the audience, and though Olive tries to refuse, Bluto magnetically draws her from her balcony seat with chants of the magic words “Abba Dabba” and “Hocus Pocus”. Once Olive is helpless to run away, Bluto commands that she shall be a chicken. Olive is an easy subject for hypnotism, and immediately begins clucking around, pecking the stage with her nose, and even lays a giant egg! (How do animated characters always manage this? It took a gun to his head to get Daffy Duck to do it.) Popeye paces nervously back and forth in the balcony during the act, his pipe blowing smoke puffs like an over-active locomotive – but the egg bit is “all I can stan’”. Popeye leaps down onto the stage, demands Bluto quit mistreating his girl, and attempts to lay a blow on Bluto’s chin. A repeat of the magic words, and Popeye’s fist is halted in mid-swing. Now Bluto focuses his eyes and fingers upon Popeye, commanding him to be a monkey.

Popeye feels himself weakening, but still has enough control of his senses to pull in front of him a large stand-up mirror from the theater wings. Bluto’s trance ricochets upon himself – and suddenly, Bluto’s hairy face transforms into the spitting image of a gorilla. Popeye adds to the effect, by pulling out onto the stage a prop tree from the stage scenery. Bluto immediately climbs the inviting arbor, and lets out a Tarzan yell once on the topmost branch. The branch snaps under his weight, and Bluto snaps out of it once he hits the floor. Popeye doubles up with laughter, but lets his guard down in the process. Bluto pronounces he shall be a jackass. Popeye’s ears lengthen to points, and he gets down on all fours and brays. But even as a jackass, Popeye sees the possibilities of his powers, and kicks Bluto a resounding blow in the rear. Bluto falls back down upon Popeye, and the trance is broken again. Popeye again resorts to his fists, but Bluto again halts every blow with the electricity of his fingers, then casts Popeye backwards repeatedly, to crash into the pillars of the stage. Time for a little spinach. With the aid of his secret weapon, Popeye is able to sock away the electrical bolts before they can reach him from Bluto’s fingertips, then deliver a blow to Bluto’s jaw that briefly knocks him out of his shoes into the air. As Bluto lands back on stage dazed, Popeye grabs one end of the fabric making up Bluto’s turban, and knots the loose end of it around his own head. He then engages in blows to Bluto’s face, that unwind the turban, spinning Bluto around all the way up to the balcony seats, then back again like a tetherball. A repeat of the blow snaps Bluto’s end of the turban cloth from his forehead, and lands Bluto in an exhausted droop over the balcony railing, while the turban fabric snaps back to Popeye, winding back into the form of a full turban hat upon Popeye’s head. The audience breaks out in cheers and applause – and all the dazed Bluto can do is weakly join them in applauding the sailor’s performance, looking totally goofy. Olive comes along, still clucking as a chicken – but Popeye now knows the secret of breaking the trance – so he socks her in the jaw. Olive is not angry at all, and instead plants kisses upon Popeye as a reward, while the camera closes in upon Popeye’s pipe for a final “toot toot” and iris out.

• “The Hyp-Nut-Tist” is at dailymotion.com

Little Beau Porky (Warner, Looney Tunes (Porky Pig), 10/24/36 – Frank Tashlin, dir.) – This film does right all the things that “Beau Bosko” and “Buddy of the Legion” did wrong, and easily ranks among the best of the foreign legion cartoons. And why not, with a talented, innovative director like Tashlin at the helm. Tash was not afraid to try for big screen cinematic touches crammed within the confines of a seven or so minute cartoon – even on the limited budget of a black and white film. Some of his touches would set a template which would be remembered and borrowed from by other Warner directors in later mini-epics – guaranteed to heighten the drama and energy of action/adventure sequences.

An atmospheric establishing shot, of a legion fort at sunrise, is gagged-up for the cartoon medium by having the sun bobble into place as if driven by the spring of a popping jack-in-the box. An interesting sequence of shots appears within the fort walls, as troops are not directly seen, but their presence indicated by well-posed shadows on the fort walls, of a bugler sounding morning call to attention, the flag being raised on the flagpole, a drummer drumming, and various soldiers marching out onto the parade ground (their shadows bending realistically into recesses in the passing fort wall). Finally, we see one important figure straight on – that of the Commandant. He emerges from his private office, in a manner similar to a shot from “Beau Bosko”, but with a difference. The same gag is presented, of the Commandant’s chest being bedecked with medals everywhere. However, while Harman and Ising’s Commandant’s medals merely hung upon his chest like real medals would, Tashlin’s swing back and forth with every bold stride forward of the Commandant’s gait, resulting in the medals making contact with each other, to chime like a set of small hand bells! Tashlin gets the laugh, where H-I did not.

The Commandant reviews his troops, now seen in direct camera view. We pan down a line of soldiers of all shapes and sizes, but still seeming to be reasonably disciplined. All except the last man – er, pig. Portly Porky is about half-asleep, casually leaning upon the side of the soldier next to him, just as if he were leaning on a wall in some back alley. “Porky Pig! Attention!”, calls the Commandant. Porky snaps to it, but spreads his feet wide, tripping up the next soldier, who falls into the next, causing a chain reaction of soldiers falling like a row of dominoes. “Attention!”, repeats the Commandant to the whole regiment. Reversing the action, the camera reverses its panning back the way from which it came, as the soldiers miraculously right themselves to stiff stances of attention, finally reaching Porky and propping him back up again. Porky’s name is once again called. “Wh-wh-wh-who, m-m-m-me?”, stammers Porky. In a well-animated shot, heightening the effect of the Commandant’s frustration, his jingling medals get a real workout, as he finds himself reflexively imitating Porky’s stutter, with the response of “Y-y-y-y-yes, y-y-y-yo-yo…YES YOU!” (Another excellent directorial touch, milking a good laugh and emphasizing personality in his lead character by playing with his recently-established trademark stutter.)

The Commandant leads Porky to the bays where the legion’s camels are housed. Porky changes his gait to try to match the Commandant’s bold strides, but doesn’t watch where he is going, and awkwardly trots right up the side of the Commandant’s mile-long sword scabbard. “Scrub my camel – and see that you do not hurt him”, are the orders. Porky tries his best, but finds the camel a stubborn opponent, who stands far too tall when Porky is on the ground, but stoops to his knees every time Porky mounts a ladder – always staying out of Porky’s reach, until the ladder collapses under Porky, dunking him in the suds of the washtub. Suddenly, a messenger arrives, charging across the desert on a camel, to deliver an important message to the Commandant. He trips while running inside the fort, and the paper goes flying around the Commandant’s head. The Commandant puts his facial hair to use, spearing the message with the pointed tip of his groomed goatee, then curling his moustache ends into the shape of a pair of spectacles to read it. The message announces that Ali Mode’s riff raff have attacked a nearby fort, and to come at once – lifting Snuffy Smith’s catch phrase, “Time’s a-wastin’!”

An unusual-for-its-day dramatic montage follows, framed by the transparency of a bugler sounding a rousing call to arms, while other shots are superimposed of men gathering from the barracks, grabbing rifle after rifle out of racks, racing to the camel stalls, and emerging mounted and ready for battle. The kind of thing a live-action director would try, but a true extravagance for a cartoon. Yet, it left such a favorable impression, it was nearly duplicated a few seasons later by Bob Clampett, for a similar montage in his cavalry comedy, “Scalp Trouble”. When Scalp Trouble was remade in color in the 1940’s as “Slightly Daffy”, the technique was apparently too costly for Friz Freleng’s blood, so the montage was omitted from the film. Porky tries to join the troops, riding atop a camel of slower gait. (Where did he get the steed? The Commandant is already mounted, so should be using his own camel seen previously – yet the sequence of shots would lead a viewer to believe that Porky is astride the same camel who was giving him trouble with the bath. Odder still is that the camel Porky tried to wash and the one he is now riding seem to be the same shade of black, while the one the Commandant is now atop is of a lighter shade – so did the Commandant in his haste choose a mount different than his own personal ride?) The Commandant stops Porky at the gate. “Where do you think you’re going? We need men – not camel scrubbers!” Porky is left behind, all alone except for the camel. Porky mutters to himself that he’d rather be a camel scrubber than an old “jingle bell” general. He continues aloud with a wish that he could meet Ali Mode face to face, and punch him in the jaw – just as he passes a life-size wanted poster depicting Ali on the wall. Porky leaps with fright at the sight, races to the fort door, and bolts it securely. Returning to the poster image, Porky talks to it: “I w-w-wasn’t sc-sc-scared. I just felt a d-d-d-draft.”

A pair of binoculars peers over the dunes outside the fort. It is Ali Mode, who observes the lack of activity at the fort, and whistles for his riffs to move in closer behind him. Creeping up to the fort door, Ali hears the hammering of Porky inside, who is trying to reenforce the door with boarding up. Playfully, he begins knocking upon the outer door in the same pattern of thumps as each of Porky’s hammerings. “It’s an echo”, Porky concludes to his camel companion. Ali outside repeats the phrase in a distant-sounding voice, still playing along. Porky tries the echo out for sound, letting out a weak and tremulous yodel. Ali responds back, with a beautiful full-toned, prolonged yodel. Satisfied with the sound as if it were his own voice, Porky remarks to the camel, “Pr-pr-pretty good, huh?” Ali, disappointed with this critique of his performance, responds, “Pr-pr-pretty good? Heck, that’s perfect!” Now Porky knows something is phony, and asks who’s there. Ali lifts a well-known line from the Big Bad Wolf of Disney’s “Three Little Pigs”, giving it his own personal twist: “I’m a poor little Sheik, with no place to sleep. Please open the door and let me in.” Porky peers through a peephole, and quickly realizes who he is up against. Ali Mode! When Porky refuses to open the door (“No, no, a thousand times no!”), Ali orders his men with mock-Arabic commands followed by the pig-Latin “Am-scray!” A line of men tunnel under the wall. Porky sees their heads emerging from the sand, and fells a palm tree atop them, launching them backwards out of the tunnels. On the opposite wall, one riff gets over the top, and mans a machine-gun platform on the wall, aiming it at Porky. Porky beats a retreat up a spiral staircase to the fort’s tallest gun tower, as the stairs below him are shot away. In the tower, Porky finds another machine gun, turning it to attack the underpinnings of the Arab gunner’s platform, and causing him and his gun to fall from the wall.

Another riff attempts to raise a ladder to the underside of the trap door through which Porky entered the tower, but Porky stomps upon the trap door while continuing his gunning, causing the riff to fall. Both of the falling riffs set up a running gag, landing repeatedly in a well bucket, and clobbering another gunner with the spinning well handle as the bucket descends to the bottom. Porky polishes off another gunner atop a flagpole, sawing away the pole’s top with his machine gun fire. The ladder assault on the tower is tried again, this time by Ali himself. Porky tries to stomp upon the trap door again, but blows his timing, missing the door altogether, and stomping directly upon Ali’s head, then falling through the open door with him. Ali slides down the ladder, bounces off the ground and lands between the humps of the camel, which act like two rebounding punching bags to give him a good shaking up from both sides. Porky sees an opportunity, from a barrel nearby labeled “Cairo Syrup” (play on words on the still-existing brand, “Karo Corn Syrup”). Opening the lid of the barrel, he signals the camel to take aim. With a last bounce of Ali off his humps, the camel sails the chieftan straight into the barrel, where he is caught in the sticky goo as well as wedged in by his own girth. Ali rests stunned and helpless, while the camel gives him several slurps, realizing he now tastes good. We fade to a final set of shots, as a new morning dawns, and the fort’s Commandant makes his entrance. But it is not the officer we saw before. Now, little Porky has been promoted to the position of honor (though it’s not exactly clear what the old Commandant did so terribly wrong to lose his position – where is he now assigned?) Porky’s chest isn’t broad enough to hold all the medals of the old Commandant – so he wears two metal brackets affixed to his chest, extending outward on one side three times the width of his uniform, from which his new medals now dangle in two straight rows. Porky gives a whistle, and we find that he isn’t the only one newly decorated. The camel makes an entrance behind him, with an assortment of jingling medals hanging from a wire strung between his two humps and supported by clothes-pins, as we iris out.

It is worth a footnote that, when this film was assigned for a hand-traced color redo overseas around the 1970’s, it seemed to set the record for the most animation errors allowed to slip through in any Warner recoloring. This may be considered a sort of ironic tribute to the complexity of Tashlin’s original animation – though mistakes such as labeling the barrel “Criro Syrup” on one shot are more the result of simple carelessness and stupidity than from inability to duplicate complex cel setups. It would take until the advent of computer colorization for someone to produce a semi-convincing color version that at least preserves for posterity all of the original drawings Tashlin created so many years ago.

• “Little Beau Porky” is at Facebook.

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Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (Fleischer/Paramount, “Popeye Color Feature”, 11/27/36 – Dave Fleischer, dir., Willard Bowsky/George Germanetti/Edward Nolan, anim.) – If you were a fan of public domain VHS tapes in the day, you’ve seen this film. That is, at least you know the plot and basic animation. It was certainly one of the most heavily released PD staples of its day, available from everybody and his brother, in typically washed-out colors from a bad transfer of an old A.A.P. television 16mm (at least generally without a ton of splices). Still, in whatever shape it was in, virtually every animation buff treated it as a personal favorite, to be turned to again and again. Then came the DVD era – where for years, it still remained exclusively a PD dealer’s item – until Warner Home Video finally dug into the vault elements and financed a restoration. The visuals for the missing opening and closing titles, which seemed to have not survived in any collector’s hands, were finally unearthed from the negatives. But there were still a few flaws. Although original opening music cues were found, there appeared to be no vault source for the original closing music cue. And (still showing up in current copies), it appeared that someone, using a lobby card of the day as a color guide, overdid the blue on Sinbad’s (Bluto’s) shirt, making it much brighter than is currently known from a surviving but battered 35mm Technicolor nitrate obtained by the Library of Congress. Despite these blemishes, if you haven’t seen at least this Warner redo, you really haven’t seen this film. The clarity, vibrance of images, quality sound, and those artistic opening titles boldly proclaiming this to be “A Popeye Color Feature” make all the difference in the world – even if one wishes Bluto’s shirt had been toned down. But wait! – You may still not have seen this film right. Up until just recently, the only clue to the final music cue I was aware of was the Library of Congress’s post, from a print loaded with splices, missing the opening Paramount logo entirely, and including the closing music but fading it quickly before its final note, as if the last shot were broken off at the end and to cover for a jump-splice to black. I assumed this was as close to seeing the film through as we would ever get, if even said Library had no better source. Who would have thought that a new version would turn up (embedded herein), seemingly visually-sourced from the Warner print (though perhaps dimming Bluto’s blue just slightly), but including the complete ending music, matching the Library of Congress’s fragmental version, but with no board-fade-out of the sound, and a seemingly complete last note with natural room ambience as its only fade-away! Where was it found?? I’d love to know the detective story behind this find, as the note doesn’t sound faked or spliced-on from another recording session. Who finally found the missing piece to the 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle? Congratulations, whoever you are! (Now, pull the same rabbit-out-of-the-hat for the missing music cues of the Ali Baba epic.)

While seemingly a gamble, this film proved to be a convincing financial success, said to have drawn more attention than features with which it shared the bill. It was also critically acclaimed, bringing Max and Dave one of their few certificates of nomination from the Oscar committee. Though Max had previously tried out the two-reel format in two short reels of Cinecolor stock for Betty Boop, this would mark the first time that two reels of genuine Technicolor were devoted to a single animated subject. Its success has generally been considered to have paved the way for Disney to secure further backing for his ambitious “Snow White”, though Max himself would not commit to true feature length until Disney proved it could be commercially done.

The plot of this film is actually the weakest of the three two-reelers Max would produce with Popeye, using up nearly half of the allotted footage in setting up the premise for the film, largely in song. We begin with the camera closing in upon a sign notifying tresspassers that they are upon the Isle of Sinbad (Whoseoever passes in, passes out). An innovative, if a bit jumpy, establishing shot tracks the camera view up a winding mountain road, with various monstrous creatures peering out at every curve and cranny. We finally arrive at a mountain fortress at the top of the road which Sinbad (of course, Bluto) calls home, guarded by two live lions. Sinbad emerges, putting the lions in their place by socking them in the nose.

Sindbad then takes us on a guided tour of his “Island on the back of a whale – a whale of an island.” Treasures abound laying about, as well as an abundance of dangerous creatures he has captured and brought back from his many voyages. Among the monsters is a dragon (whom he kicks in the snout, leaving a foot imprint upon its nose), a two-headed giant named Boola (who seems ferocious, breaking his chains, but cowers when under the gaze of Sindbad, who calls him “My stooge”), and the legendary Roc (of even larger dimensions than the bird seen in Up Iwerks’s film). The tour is talk-sung to a number entitled, “Who’s the Most Remarkable Extra-Ordinary Fellow?”, which lasts nearly five minutes into the film. Then, another minute and a-half is used up as a second singing voice “fills the air with notes so sour” – that of Popeye, singing a full rendition of his theme song while steering a sailing vessel, with passengers Olive and Wimpy aboard. Sinbad orders the Roc to “Wreck that ship – but bring me the woman.” The Roc apparently knows of Sindbad’s tastes for the ladies, and gives Sinbad a sly wink before departing. We get one of several good views of the island in a 3-dimensional turntable camera set, as the Roc takes off in prolonged, lumbering fashion, and makes several slow circles around Popeye’s vessel in the sky (again eating up remaining footage of reel one), before taking a couple of whacks at the masts of Popeye’s ship with his wings, and causing the ship to capsize. Before the ship tips fully into the briny, the Roc grabs up the startled Olive in its talons, flies off with her, and deposits her on the island before Sinbad. Popeye, muttering, “That was a nice ship we had once”, rescues Wimpy, spots Olive’s predicament through his telescope while standing on the ship’s inverted hull, and swims off to the rescue, carrying Wimpy above the waves with one arm. They arrive on shore, and Wimpy disappears in search of a duck dinner, following a local fowl with a meat grinder. End of reel one.

Since all the real action is packed into reel two, one wonders if the original script might have been intended to fit in only one reel, and was padded in a last-minute decision to extend to a spectacular. It is evident also that there wasn’t enough even with the padding to provide a full two reels, as this would be the shortest of the three featurettes, lasting only about 16 minutes instead of a possible twenty.

Popeye proceeds into a spooky cave entrance, encountering inside the same two lions as seen previously, now having taken up new guard positions. Their roars barely ruffle Popeye’s feathers, as he responds with a louder roar of his own, sending the “dumb aminals” scattering. Popeye pierces a wall of stones around Sinbad’s fortress, by merely launching his body into a corkscrew twist, drilling through the rocks with his own head. Sinbad is found passing the time with Olive, making her dance for him by spitting mouthfuls of buckshot like machine-gun fire around her feet. Wimpy makes a surprise visit within the walls, still after the duck, prompting Popeye to ask, “How did you get in here?” (It is of note that this may mark Jack Mercer’s first, and possibly only, voicing of Wimpy in the theatrical era, though he uses basically the same voice he would come to be known for in the King Features television cartoons for the character.) Now Popeye demands Olive back. Sinbad responds with a challenge to see how “great” Popeye really claims to be – by tossing him into the talons of the Roc. The Roc flies off with the sailor to another neighboring island, disappearing with him into the smoking crater of a volcano. Yet, in a tornado whirlwind of a re-entrance, Popeye returns unhurt, carrying on a huge platter the Roc – in roast form. “There y’are – with gravy.” Sindbad follows up by tossing Popeye to Boola, who roughs him up some, while singing “Go to sleep, my baby” and threatening to close Popeye’s two eyes – the hard way. Popeye smacks both heads back across the face, steps on their toes while the heads bicker between themselves, fells a tree which produces a lump on the head that didn’t get conked by the falling lumber, then delivers a final blow by crawling between the giant’s legs, and socking both heads in the jaw as they bend to look underneath. Popeye mutters that he calls this move a “double-header”.

“There’s only room for one great sailor in this world, and that’s me!”, challenges Sindbad, for a final showdown, man to man. All the beasts gather around the canyon where the fight will take place to watch the event of events. Sinbad advances first, backing a standing, stalwart Popeye forcibly in reverse, though Popeye retorts “You can push me just so far.” Sinbad clutches Popeye like a boa constructor, squeezing him in his mighty hands until Popeye’s face transforms into a red beet. But Popeye socks back, flexing his neck to use his whole head as a fist. Sinbad begins using Popeye as a punching bag, jostling from Popeye’s pockets all manner of nautical gear he carries along for any emergency, including binoculars, a lantern, life preserver, rigging block, ship’s wheel, and an anchor. “Do ya give up?”, the defiant sailor still mutters. As the sailor finally reaches for the one remaining item in his pocket – his spinach can – a lucky punch from Sindbad sends the can rolling along the ground, and almost over a cliff (one of the only notable animation errors in the film, as the can’s rolling is not smooth, but seems to be missing several frames of motion before reaching the edge, as if someone thought the shot was timed out too long, and clumsily clipped out some animation in the cutting room to tighten it up. “Don’t leave me now”, says Popeye, grabbing the can just before it falls into the abyss. But Sinbad is far from through, and grabs Popeye’s legs, while Popeye attempts to hold onto a tree limb with one arm, and the spinach can with the other. As so frequently occurs, Popeye’s pipe comes to his rescue, as Popeye positions the pipe with his lips to hook over the end of a bent tree limb, and clutches the other end of the pipe with his teeth, allowing him to release the grip of one arm from the tree and use his hand to open the spinach can and eat his fill. A cutaway view of Popeye’s bulging muscle displays the roaring motor of a power-house dynamo. Popeye springs into action, beating Sinbad silly with his feet, knocking Sinbad with an upper cut into a palm tree for a cocoanut-milk bath from the fractured palm-fruit, then with Olive’s encouragement, delivering his patented “twisker punch” from a corkscrew-wound arm. “You’re goin’ places, young feller”, boasts Popeye, as he reaches inside his own shirt, to tie a surprise bundle to a sash around Sinbad’s waist, then socks Sinbad for a final blow up a tree. Sindbad becomes snagged by the sash at the top, and a banner unfurls from Popeye’s surprise bundle – displaying a victory flag with Popeye’s favorite signature imagery thereon – a can of spinach. Everyone hails Popeye as “the most remarkable extra-ordinary fellow”, for the lost-for-decades final dissolve to the Paramount mountain.

Chicken A La King (Fleischer/Paramount, Color Classic, 4/16/37 – Dave Fleischer, dir., Dave Tendlar/Nicholas Tafuri, anim.) – A day in the life of a Sultan and his harem. Our first view of the Sultan is of his shadow on the wall, pictured sitting on velvet pillows, smoking a hookah. But there is a surprise to be learned. Though the shadow looks definitely human, a pan of the camera to the throne reveals the Sultan to be – a common barnyard rooster! Following the norms of nature, it seems in fact quite suitable that a rooster would naturally have a harem – of at least ten hens, also lounging around on velvet pillows, and busying themselves in either gazing fondly at “Sultie”, or trying to look beautiful for him. The rooster pays no particular mind to them, but sits in haughty grandeur, while one hen applies nail polish to his talons. Finally bored of smoking, the rooster calls, “On with the dance.” A hen attempts to entertain, at first swaying before him with reasonable grace, but tripping on her own feet and falling on her face. The Sultan sounds a gong, and an unseen hand produces a Vaudeville hook to yank the fallen hen out of the scene, while the Sultan says, “All right, all right” (the first of two instances we’ll encounter today of references to the standard routine of radio’s “Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour”). Six more hens dance in unison, but the Sultan remains bored and unimpressed.

Outside, a palace guard (a black rooster who sounds like Stepin Fetchit) is visited by a female duck dressed in black form-fitting dress and boa hat – an attempt at a dead ringer for Paramount siren Mae West – who asks the guard to tell “Sultie” that “Duckie Wuckie” is calling. The guard relays the message, and the Sultan’s eyes bug out. He crows loudly, followed by the order, “Show her in!” He then shoos away all of his wives, who still stay within viewing range, to watch Duckie overtly flirt with their man, in a Mae West-style musical number (which might have worked, had Fleischer been able to employ the services of the voice of Disney’s Jenny Wren – instead, they wind up settling for a poor attempt by Jack Mercer), and engage him in a Carioca-like dance of “La Cucaracha”. The hens can do nothing but gossip about the scandal among themselves.

From out of the desert arrives a whirlwind – which is really a large male duck, dressed as a desert sheik. He is here to claim back his girl. He grabs her away from the Sultan by the wrist, and casts her off to one side, intent on doing battle with the Sultan. Unphased by being tossed around, Duckie declares from the floor, “Oh, you fascinatin’ monster.” A beak-to-beak battle begins, in which the duck is outclassed due to his flat bill. But one of the jealous hens evens up the odds, by providing the duck with a scimitar. The battle becomes sword-to-sword, as the duck makes a clever tactical move by unraveling the Sultan’s turban with a yank, sending him into a spin, then clipping the Sultan’s tail feathers with his sword point. The hens group into a college football-style rooting section for the sheik, while Duckie just yawns at the carryings-on as if typical in her life. The sheik’s swordplay begins to tell upon the Sultan, as the Sultan’s blade is sliced away bit by bit down to the hilt. Minus a weapon, the Sultan challenges the sheik to put up his dukes, bird-to-bird. But the sheik is more than qualified at hand-to-hand (er, wing-to-wing) combat, and gets the drop on the Sultan by pulling his rewound turban down over his face. When the Sultan gets the hat off, the sheik socks him in the chin, converting the Sultan’s rooster-comb into the shape of one for styling human hair. The Sultan begins a retreat, but the sheik grabs hold of what is left of the Sultan’s tail feathers, and hitches a ride in tow like a water skier, balancing upon his own webbed feet as the Sultan dashes twice across the royal pool. The battle climaxes with the duck tossing the Sultan around as if performing an Apache dance, and once the Sultan is finally down, the sheik grabs Duckie, and disappears over the desert sands like a whirlwind, the same way he came in. Gradually, the Sultan rises, observes that that didn’t turn out so good, rearranges his garments, and claps for a repeat of the command, “On with the dance”, as if nothing ever happened. But the hens know better. “Oh, yeah?”, they respond in unison, each producing the classic prop of a jealous wife – a rolling pin. The film ends with the Sultan as low man within a huddle of hens, getting bopped from every direction with said kitchen appliances, for the iris out. (It’ll be nice when UCLA gets around to restoring the original Technicolor hues to this one.)

Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves (Fleischer/Paramount, Popeye Color Feature, 11/26/37 – Dave Fleischer, dir., Willard Bowsky/George Germanetti/Orestes Calpini, anim.) – With the success of “Sinbad”, it was inevitable that another “Color Feature” would soon be in the works, making its way to screens about one year after the original. In quite a few ways, Fleischer attempts to (and manages to) outdo his previous effort, this by far being the best of the Popeye trilogy. Another array of elaborate turntable camera sets, this time with generally better illumination and special lighting effects to create reflection and glitter. A tighter, more gag-oriented plot, which is only padded by a musical number that takes up only about one-fifth of a reel – more than sufficient for Gus Wickie to melodiously air out his windpipe. A determination to actually present 40 thieves on screen when the film advertises such presence. And, a longer running time, giving movie houses their money’s worth for booking of two reels.

Sadly, no one has come to the rescue of the original sound for this film’s opening, which is presently faked by patching on the fanfares from “Sindbad”, then repeating twice the fragment of original music left on surviving edits for television. But, it appears that closing cue was found intact, ending differently than any other similar Popeye cue, with a hint of harp on the last note. (Even the orchestration was more expensive on these specials.) It would also be sweet were a new soundtrack source to be located for this picture’s reel 2, which for decades was plagued by a break in the master element, casting the climactic fight out of sync by almost a full second. The Warner restoration fills with some repeated audio for the missing break, correcting the synchronization problem, but there are still some artifacts in the last shots, where a few music notes seem clipped and fail to keep rhythm, suggesting more differing breaks between picture and sound elements. Despite all this, somehow the closing bars of Popeye’s vocal are made to synchronize through the iris out.

This is another well-known PD-video staple. (Amazing that Paramount wouldn’t spend the minimal bucks to renew the copyrights upon these marvelous films, yet would preserve rights on comparatively forgettable titles such as “I’ll Never Crow Again”. Perhaps their thinking was that if a film was short, TV stations would want to license it – while the double-length episodes didn’t easily fit a TV schedule and would not be in so much demand. But then, why renew “Abner the Baseball”?) Given its comparative familiarity, I’ll try to cover this one a little more concisely. Popeye is here a member of the Coast Guard, on patrol at a private docking station on an undisclosed shore, being kept company by his girlfriend Olive, and his crew (consisting of Wimpy). A worldwide radio bulletin cones in announcing the raids of bandit chief Abu Hassan (Bluto) and his 40 thieves on innocent men, women, and children. Directions to the bandits are indistinct (an electrical bolt from the radio set merely points “Thatta way”). Popeye, Wimpy, and tagalong Olive this embark on a globe-hopping expedition in search of the bandits, spanning both sides of the Atlantic (“Skip the gutter”), in a custom ship which at a touch of the controls sprouts wings to become an airship. This device lasts them long enough to touch four continents, until the engine develops a severe knock. Paraphrasing a popular catch-phrase of bandleader Kay Kyser’s “College of Musical Knowledge” radio show, Popeye remarks, “Something’s definitely wrong – I’m right, it’s wrong!” The airship crashes into a sand dune in the Sahara desert.

Out trio trudge day and night across the burning sands, in memorable 3-D sets dotted with the skeletal remains of animals who have passed this way. Wimpy begins to see mirages (or as Popeye puts it, “invisible garages”) of a well-stocked dinner table suitable for a banquet, but it disappears (“A bitter disappointment”). In the middle of nowhere, a giant, gleaming traffic signal flashes red, to stop them for cross-traffic that isn’t there, then changes to green again. Olive collapses upon the sand, but Popeye boosts her up, compressing her spine so that it resembles the curves of two camel humps. The trick lasts only a few seconds, and both Wimpy and Olive collapse simultaneously. Popeye links everyone and himself together, hands to each other’s feet, and rolls the three of them forward like tank treads (“I tank we go now”), until a walled town is located, and a water pump partially uprooted by Popeye to give them all a refreshing drink.

Before searching further for the bandits, everyone needs something to eat. Wimpy follows the trail of food aromas from a nearby kitchen, while Popeye and Olive choose to dine the more formal way, at a table inside a large but largely-deserted courtyard of an open-air café. A memorable scene occurs when a waiter provides Popeye with a menu, seemingly written in Arabic. (“I didn’t send out any laundry. I can read readin’ but I can’t read writin’. This writin’s writen’ rotten if ya happen t’ask me.”) The waiter solves the translation problem, by dog-earing the four corners of the menu around additional lines on the back side of the page, making the scribble read clearly “Bacon & Eggs 45¢”. Another radio bulletin announces Abu Hassan’s imminent approach, sending the townspeople into hiding. Last week’s article outlined marked similarities between portions of this film and Ub Iwerks’ “Ali Baba”, where Fleischer seems to have lifted or slightly modified Iwerks’ material, to which discussion I direct the reader rather than repeat the same here. Abu/Bluto charges into town, his thieves grabbing up everything in their path in a blur of speed. Popeye meets Abu in the café grounds, and the two take an instant disliking to each other. (“You want to make fool from me?” “Naw, nature beat me to it.”) Unfamiliar with the curvature of Abu’s scimitar, Popeye does him a favor by bending the “penknife” blade straight. He also removes Abu’s muscular knuckles which jut out like steel rivets, by converting his own hand into the form of a rivet gun, and hammering the knuckles back into Abu’s hand. Abu drops a candle chandelier upon Popeye, then hoists him back up, waist trapped in the chandelier frame, and two candles held by Popeye’s hands. Popeye resents having to “hang around” and “burn the candle at both ends”, and uses the candle flames to burn through the ropes holding the chandelier, and escape. But by this time, the thieves have already left town, taking with then an earthen jug in which Olive was concealed, and the kitchen stove, inside which Wimpy still is finishing off a hamburger.

As mentioned last week, borrowing from Iwerks, Popeye commandeers a camel, and fills it at a local filling station with a 7-day supply pumped into its humps. With the humps firing like automotive cylinders, Popeye quickly catches up to, and actually passes the thieves, taking a parallel path up a winding mountain tail. Popeye waits at the junction of the two paths to ambush the thieves, but they double-cross him by stopping just short of the junction, calling out “Open Sesame”, and causing a solid rock door to pivot upwards like a garage door to allow entrance into an underground cave. Popeye is too late to follow, with the door closing again before him. He can’t seem to remember the magic words (“Open sissy. Open Cecil”), so gets in his own way – by cutting a smaller door in the larger one with the flame of his pipe. Inside, he spies Olive, saddled with the washday chores of the entire 41-man army, and a chained Wimpy, who still manages by some well-timed body twitches to send two roast chickens from Abu’s table up the chain and into his own mouth. (An upset Abu remarks upon discovering the absence of the chickens, “Must be thieves around here.”) Popeye dives into action, demanding that Abu “give back the jewels to the people you took”. But Abu and a line of thieves (already hiding in jugs, predicting a final chapter of the original story which never takes place in the film) sock Popeye into a rope noose around his waist and down a deep well, with a huge shark waiting in the waters below. Tethered just shy of the water, with the shark lunging at him (Popeye refers to him as a “snapper”), Popeye, not wanting to see the poor fish hurt his teeth upon him, lands a couple of well-placed blows upon the shark’s forward fangs, bending them to clamp closed his mighty jaws. Then Popeye reaches for his spinach can. Instead of opening it the normal way, he remembers enough of the magic words to ad-lib his own command – “Open, sez’ me!” The can magically opens in the same manner as the door. After swallowing, Popeye’s muscle displays a cutaway view of a rolling tank with six cannons. He performs a spin, winding up the rope around his waist, to rise back up the well and clobber in the face the thieves peering down at him. Abu commands the thieves into attack, first in single file, then by twos, then by fives, with Popeye’s socks always scattering them left and right until he counts to 40. Ten thieves line up in a triangular wedge formation to block a bridge. Popeye rolls himself into a bowling ball, knocking them all down (“How does that strike ya’?”). Abu tries to launch attacks of his own, but repeatedly loses the encounters, finally launched by Popeye into a treasure chest, the lid of which latches down over his head, followed by straps and locks clicking shut upon him to securely hold him prisoner. The final masterpiece scene shows Popeye, Olive and Wimpy riding atop a 3-D treasure-laden wagon, dragged back to town by all 40 thieves and Abu in chains as beasts of burden, as the whole town cheers their return. Popeye sings the closing coda to Olive: “I may be a shorty, but I licked the forty. I’m Popeye the sailor man.”

You’re an Education (Warner, Merrie Melodies, 11/5/38 – Frank Tashlin, dir.) – One of Tashlin’s trilogy of “Midnight in a…” spot gag tales, this one set in a travel agency after hours, where all the illustrations upon the various travel folders come to life at night. Sadly, this film fell victim to wartime censorship upon Blue Ribbon reissue, cutting out references to various countries who were on the wrong side during WWII, leaving some portions of the narrative an awkward mess of cuts and faked fade-outs/ins – and so far, no intact original print has been located.

The Arabian angle doesn’t appear until the final act of this musicale. The Thief of Bagdad appears from a travel folder for the location, and shushes the audience to let everyone know he is on a secret caper. Grabbing a ladder off the cover of a folder for the Pueblos Indian reservation in New Mexico, he uses it to climb down to another shelf, on which rests a folder for the Kimberly Diamond Mines. Opening the locked mine door with one of the Florida Keys borrowed from another folder, he enters the mine and re-emerges, carrying a large gem. While creeping away, he steps upon an infant’s squeaking toy left lying on the shelf below a folder illustrating a baby in a cradle. The noise awakens the baby, who cries out loudly, as the camera pulls back to reveal that the travel folder is for the country of Wales. A telephone operator in “Central America” contacts the police broadcast center in Radio City for an all-points bulletin. More alerts are broadcast by the call of South Sea Sirens, and a bugle call from Cape Horn. All manner of law enforcement respond, from British regimental troops to Canadian Mounties, to legionnaires from Morocco to Indian bands and African native tribes. Sherlock Holmes is called in on the case from a folder on Scotland Yard. He spots the thief having the jewel appraised, at a folder for the reservation of the Pawnee Indians. Both the thief and Sherlock leap into vehicles, the thief finding a car at the folder of “Austin” Texas, while Sherlock settles for a mere “Sudan” (sounds like Sedan – get it?) The leaning Tower of Pisa topples in front of the thief’s car, blocking the vehicle and tossing the thief out onto the shelf, where a pair of cadets, identified as “West Pointers”, take turns poking him in the eyes with their pointing fingers. The thief hides in a London fog, but Sherlock disperses the fog by activating the blades of a windmill in a Holland folder. A cowboy on a dude ranch folder lassos the thief, and drags him through folders of the Red Sea, Black Sea, and Yellow Sea for some quick color changes. He receives kicks in the pants from the boot of Italy and from a Missouri mule, then lands atop the great horse Silver behind the Lone Stranger on a folder advertising the West. The thief asks who the masked rider is, and when told by the rider that he is the Lone Stranger, the thief replies, “Well, you’re not alone now, big boy.” With a shout of “Hi Yo, (something that sounds like Silver, but is unintelligible)”, the riders disappear into the West, the thief’s turban falling through the closing iris and left behind on the theater stage.

• “You’re an Education” is at dailymotion.com

Porky in Egypt (Warner, Looney Tunes (Porky Pig), 11/5/38 – Robert Clampett, dir.) – A vacation brings Porky to the land of the ancients. Atmospheric scenes establish the setting, with an old bearded man in a turban seeming to call to the skies in the manner of the prayer calls from the minarets – but it is only for the purpose of influencing his dice in a backstreet crap game. A veiled, shapely beauty sashays through the streets, drawing wolf whistles – but as usual is an old hag beneath the veil when she treats us to a peek. A fake fakir rests on a bed of nails, with additional pins inserted everywhere else on his skin like an acupuncturist’s nightmare, and a sword seemingly inserted into his belly with its point protruding out of his back. But when he adds to these feats an exhibition of eating fire, he is left with a severe case of heartburn, and frantically pouring pitchers of water down his throat.

A tour group sets out on a sightseeing jaunt to the homes of the Mummy Stars, aboard a camel with a seemingly endless line of humps between which to seat passengers, and a trailer in tow for skunks. Porky Pig is a late riser, and misses the tour. Determined to see the sights, he hires a private camel – one Humpty Bumpty. Porky finds his new steed is a bit on the slow side, and urges him on: “C-c-can’t ya go any fa-f-f-fa-f-f- – -SWING IT!” But the desert sun burns without mercy, roaring fire, and focusing its beam like a spotlight on Porky, then on the only convenient oasis to burn up its palm trees like matchsticks and set its water hole boiling. The sunbeam reforms into the shape of a fist of light, socking Humpty Bumpty in the jaw. Backgrounds start to spiral, as the camel hears his name called by a variety of different voices from nowhere. “The voices…..IT’S THE DESERT MADNESS!!”, the camel shouts. He randomly breaks into lines from “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, then falls at Porky’s feet, declaring them as lost, destined to become “white chalky bones”. Suddenly he envisions an endless caravan on the horizon. “We’re saved! The camels are coming!” He instantly converts this into the Scottish standard, “The Campbells are Coming”, donning a kilt and playing a bagpipe while dancing a highland fling. He disappears over a hill, leaving Porky to think he’s been abandoned – but Porky finds the camel appearing to bathe in a swimming pool in an oasis marked “Palm Springs”. Of course, when Porky dives in too, he finds them both to be merely submerged in dry sand. The camel breaks into random impressions of Lew Lehr (“Camels is de Kraziest people”) and the Lone Ranger, until he crashes into a tree, knocking himself out of the daze. Temporarily sober, he tells Porky he’s all right now. But then, the voices are distantly heard again. “They’re coming back. Quick, let’s get outta here!” The camel races at top speed through the dunes, eventually winding his way back to the city. He takes Porky inside one of the structures as the voices appear nearly upon him, and locks four doors, shutting the voices out. “Safe at last”, Bumpty declares. “Y-y-yeah, now we’re safe”, Porky answers – then dons a Napoleon hat and breaks into his own fit, for the iris out.

• “Porky in Egypt” is on Facebook.

Hamateur Night (Warner, Merrie Melodies, 1/28/38 – Fred (Tex) Avery, dir.) – Amateur night at the local Warmer Bros. Theater (playing a main bill of “Four Daughters with selected shorts”) is the big attraction, and the vehicle for the latest spot-gag fest from Avery, featuring talent acts of every variety – and the ever-popular running gag of periodic intrusions by Egghead, singing “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain” so badly, he repeatedly gets the hook. Amateur performances were becoming a rage at this time, thanks to radio’s “Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour”, which lasted all the way into the television era under his successor, Ted Mack. Several studios lampooned the genre, ranging from the lowly Farmer Al Falfa at Terrytoons to the upper-echelon Mickey Mouse (a year before this film, in “Mickey’s Amateurs”). Avery himself had already touched upon the subject at Warners’ with the Jack Bunny amateur show featured in “I Love To Singa”. But here, the parade of talent (or lack thereof) carries the full cartoon, rather than only the last half of it.

Among the performers is an Arabic mystic, Swami River, who prepares to perform his basket trick. He asks for a volunteer from the audience, and of course gets Egghead. Egghead is instructed to climb into the Swami’s large wicker basket, then the lid of the basket is closed over him. The Swami produces a long sword, and jabs it through the basket about seven times in all directions. Removing the blade, he calls for Egghead to rise up from inside – but there is no response. The Swami lifts the basket lid, and peers inside (a view the camera does not share). The Swami’s face changes from sternly stoic to mildly pitying, as he utters “Tsk tsk tsk”, then replaces the lid on the basket. Lifting the whole basket by the handles, he calls for an usher, hands the basket to him, and instructs him in utter deadpan, “Give this gentleman his money back.” The curtains close on the Swami’s performance. (Needless to say, he does not win the prize cup.)

The remainder of the film has no other Arabic overtones, but features such memorabe bits as a piano solo played by dropping a coin into a player-piano, a tomato-dodging Shakespearian thespian, a talking dog (“Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking…”), the world’s smallest entertainer (a nursery rhyme-reciting flea), and a performance of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet (broken up by the break-ups with laughter of a fat hippopotamus – voiced by the booming laugh of Avery himself). The award of the loving cup is left to determination by audience response – and who should get all the cheers and applause but Egghead, by stacking the entire audience with duplicate look-alikes of himself!

NEXT WEEK: Lots of studios contribute their grains of sand to the hourglass of history. Come back and see.