BoxOffice, October 28, 1939

BoxOffice, October 28, 1939

p34
"Roy Disney has been in town for a few days in connection with "Pinocchio""

p34D:
"Disney, Technicolor, Alter Suit Dismissal
New York Walt Disney Productions, Technicolor, Technicolor M. P. Corp., and Radio Pictures will seek a dismissal on November 10 of the triple damage suit of Walt I. Whitman against them. Whitman claims the "wilful infringement" of his patent on third dimension photography in "Snow White" and "Pinocchio." The dismissal will be sought on grounds of failure to state a cause of action."

H 35 36?
"Other labor developments:

Society of Motion Picture Film Editors has submitted demands to "Walt Disney for a 100 per cent Guild shop and substantial wage increases Pact does not affect for cutters and librarians. animators, designers or other employes now memScreen Cartoonists. bers of Disney's Federated Board of directors of the SMPFE scheduled a meeting for October 25 to discuss progress of negotiations and to study the effect of the new 42-hour weekly minimum work week on present"

p41 (very mangled, may be the wrong name to associate)
"GEORGE GIBSON,

art director, given

new

con-

tract.

—Producers

to

length

cartoon,

Max Fleischer's first "Gulliver's Travels."

and

feature-"

p84?
"Oswald DeCaillet, man, well-known

33,
artist-cartoonist, and recently connected with a local hotel staff, died here October 13. from an attack of kidney trouble. His mother, Mrs. Katherine DeCaillet, survives. He was a native of Geneva, Switzerland."

p97
"Naughty Neighbors

7 Mins. (Looney Tunes) Vitaphone The entertainment content of this cartoon does not measure up very strongly. Porky Pig signs a pact with Petunia Pig to end the ancient family feud. But hostilities break out again until Porky arrives on the scene with some laughing"

"Fresh Fish

Vitaphone

(Merrie Melody)

Technicolor cartoon which spoofs the adventures of the deep sea fishermen. The animation is gay and colorful and the cartoonists prove that not all the queer All this tranfish walk around on land. spires as the professor seeks out the "Whim Wham Whistling Shark.""

135 The Blue Danube

Title: The Blue Danube
Studio: MGM
Date: 10/28/39
Credits: "A Hugh Harman Production"
Series: -
Running time (of viewed version): 6:52

Synopsis: Wait, I need to watch it again, as, having just watched it, I have no idea what happened in it. OK, I'm back. Tiny naked human babies and animals collect blue things and make the Danube blue. There's even a title about it.

























Comments: Stop motion animated sheet music at the beginning (I think), making the title incorporated into the flow of the cartoon's visuals (until it becomes markedly discontinuous after the petal swirl). Followed by a water effect lens, with notes animated as moving with the ripple. Moving water as an inbetween layer of a multiplane shot. Fog and rippling water. It's like the effects are the point. It doesn't look normal until a minute and a half in to the cartoon, when the waterwheel looks more like a normal normal visual for the time. I think the swirling pod is stop motion as well (tho that might be normal time footage). There's a population of what look like naked babies. I suppose they're supposed to be a specific elf or goblin or something, but they just look like humans. No horns, no goat legs, no little blue tail, not even pointed ears, just on a scale that makes them very small. Unleashing the reservoir looks good. One of the natural predecessors to Fantasia, with classical music, non-human fairy tupe things, a silhouetted conductor, etc. This seems like a natural to nominate for the Oscar, but it was not one of the voting on nominees. Perhaps it was too syrupy, ad then there's that nothing happens in it. Tho that's why I think it was a natural to nominate (not that I like that). Lots of naked rears in this; from the translucent fairy to the many naked baby hordes. The flood is somewhat reminiscent of Snuffy Skunk's Party.

134 The Good Egg

Title: The Good Egg
Studio: Warner Bros.
Date: 10/21/39
Credits: -
Series: Merrie Melodies (on Blue Ribbon print)
Running time (of viewed version): 7:30

Synopsis: Hen, suicidal over lack of eggs, adopts turtle egg, turtle eventually integrates into chicken society.



















Comments: Opens with an establishing shot of a barn, with a downward pan. So very many barnyard and countryside cartoons. I wonder if most of the artists grew up on farms, or if it was just aping Disney. The tragedy of childlessness. Attempted suicide cartoon. It's a turtle; I was hoping for a croc. Again lots of shading in some shots. The ultimate plotline is very much the same as in Terry's The Orphan Duck from earlier this month: aquatic foundling integrates into chicken society by saving drowning chick(s). Silhouette shot.

133 The Watch Dog

Title: The Watchdog (The Watch Dog on the retitle; BoxOffice lists original as one word)
Studio: Terry
Date: 10/20/39
Credits: -
Series: -
Running time (of viewed version): 6:13

Synopsis: Homeless dog gets job guarding garden; fails; ends up a happy traitor.


















Comments: Only three other cartoons intervene between The Orphan Duck and this. Unusually few for Terry, but then this October is an extraordinarily light month. That rubber bone reminds me of a King Missile song... The dog is not attractive. The rabbits also lack something; I think it's funniness. Yet a another pistol in a cartoon; of the 6 cartoons so far this month, this is the third with a handgun. This is very similar to Columbia's Crop Chasers, released less than a month earlier, wherein the things the guard is supposed to be guarding the food from are spared by the guard, who gives up the job, and the pests take pity on the guard. That's some pretty quick stealing; I wonder who they stole it in common from (or who switched studios). The doghouse has spanish tile and bones stacked like cordwood next to it. Classy. There's something about the rabbits in this that make me wonder if Preston Blair swiped his famous images in the first place...