Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle

If you can put up with the modest racism, you can enjoy the Polynesian Bette. We start with some Samoans doing their thing and then move to Bette and her Buddy falling into their usual surrealist shtick. It does involve some blackface and stereotypical "natives," but the creativity is there for the viewing.

Fleischer were responsible for some brilliant cartoons, some of them still among my favourites. Their visual style often stunning and some of the most imaginative and ahead of its time in animation.

The character of Betty Boop, one of their most famous and prolific characters, may not be for all tastes and sadly not as popular now, but her sex appeal was quite daring for the time and to me there is an adorable sensual charm about her. The charm, sensuality and adorability factors can be seen throughout 'Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle', as is a daring risqué factor when she dances the hula that makes one literally marvel at what the cartoon is getting away with. She is a joy to watch, as is an amusing Bimbo, though there is a scene where he paints his face and puts a bone in his hair that may seem tasteless to some.

Furthermore, the black and white animation is very good, smooth, meticulously detailed and well drawn with the black and white not looking too primitive. A lot of it is actually very imaginative. Even better is the music, which is rousing, catchy and unquestionably accessible to anybody who loves or is familiar with the compositional style.

'Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle' has a lot of charm and fun, with nothing dull about it. It is very strange, but in a richly inventive and quite wonderful way.

Not much to quibble about here. It is thin on plot and that aforementioned scene with Bimbo is very likely to touch some sensitive nerves.

Otherwise, a fun Betty Boop cartoon with the animation and music being particularly good. 8/10 Bethany Cox

A cartoon for today. Live action of the Royal Samoans (whoever THEY are) and sexy politically incorrect Betty Boop sashaying her way across the Pacific.

She sports a dark hue in this one and is topless! We learn that her head is 50 times bigger than her bust. And some how a dog falls in love with her while the natives are restless.

The animation is great -- just a notch below Disney, but then Disney had the dough. And wan't so edgy.

This is a great cartoon featuring Betty in all her glory. There is a phrase, "Anything can happen in a cartoon" and that describes the early Fleischers in general and the Betty Boop series in particular. These cartoons are animated insanity in some cases and are quite engaging for the viewer, because anything (well, almost anything) is likely to happen and the charm is trying to catch lots of little things. In print and available. Well worth watching. Recommended.

The Betty Boop cartoons -- or "Talkartoons" were always superior musically to the competition but Disney usually was better in terms of animation. The Fleischer Brothers, however, were always ahead technically, both with sound (in 1924) and here, were the dance numbers are clear animated using rotoscope.