Hawaiian Birds

At first, this looked really dated and unfunny, but it perked up after a minute with a few sight gags like "Big City Orioles" flying by with briefcases, top hats and tuxedos. They land on a big tree branch and immediately the music changes to some good swing music.

They attract the attention of the story's focus: two Hawaiian birds who were flying around, why exactly it doesn't say but it could have been their honeymoon as the male stops and starts making a bird's nest. The other is his girlfriend - the usual female showed in classic cartoons and in many '30s movies, meaning Fickle (with a capital "F.") Boyfriend or not, the lure of that swing music has her attention. She sidles over and begins shaking' her thing in front of the band. The poor male, is busy finishing that nest. By the way, this is the coolest looking bird's nest you've ever seen.

After he completes it, he calls out for his "sweetie," but gets no answer. He flies around and finally finds a note from her: "Gone North: Goodbye." He's heart-broken but determined to get her back, so makes the long trek north to the cold and snow.

What happens after that interesting, even if the finale is predictable. It turns very serious with the subject of a possible suicide and how it would be done which, I find, questionable to portray in a cartoon for little kids.

For 1936, the artwork is outstanding; just beautiful in parts.

During the Depression, the Fleischers seemed to be fixed on making two kinds of cartoons: the strange, and the deeply moralist. Personally, I usually enjoy the strange ones better--they're less sappy and seem to age better. Hawaiian Birds is very much on the moralist side. An aspiring singer (bird) goes to the big city to be a star, but she is thrown out into the cold by her heartless employer and saved by the true blue country boy she left behind. The birds are very sweet, and my heart did warm up a bit at the end, but there's really nothing very exciting going on here.

Here's the kind of sordid depression-era story usually featured on the pre-code live-action screen. Good Girl & Good Boy separated by Bad Boy; Good Girl in trouble; Good Boy to the rescue! The plot: two nice little birds, who apparently live in Hawaii but don't look Hawaiian, are settling down together. They fly along through an idyllic Fleischer 3D landscape to the languid strains of an island tune, and pick out a nice spot on a branch. The Boy Bird sets to work building a nest and is busily engaged in his work when the Big City Orioles, a hot musical act, come jazzing in and perch on a nearby tree to rehearse.

Girl Bird's little hips start to twitch along with the animal rhythm, and before you know it she's flown over to the Orioles and is shaking a shoulder shimmy and putting on quite a show. The leader invites her to join the act, and she leaves a note for the still-oblivious Boy Bird and flies off north with those Bad-Boy Orioles, the little floozy! But she couldn't help it-- it was that wicked jazz. (Interesting that the Orioles don't actually have any musical instruments; the music just materializes, and the 'band' simply sways in time to it while the leader conducts. )

Boy Bird, having completed a beautiful love nest for his sweetie, now finds that she's flown the coop, but he refuses to be downhearted and follows to the frozen urban North. There, at the big-city Oriole Nite Club, the bandleader has had enough time to tire of his new plaything and brutally throws her out in the snow (traditional fate of unfaithful females) despite her piteous pleas for mercy. Then she decides to end it all, first pulling out a picture of Boy Bird, which she tenderly kisses...

Will Boy Bird find her in time to prevent her little birdie life being thrown away utterly? Well, it's on YouTube, so you can see for yourselves. Terrific Fleischer 3D sets in the big city, too. Great little piece, and don't expect any big laughs. Not really for the kiddies, except as a cautionary tale to warn little girls against being tempted from Virtue's path by Demon Jazz. Hot cha!

Note: This is one of those cartoons that seems to have ended up with just its working title-- "which one? Oh yeah, the Hawaiian birds thing", where these usually get pretty catchy names. Same goes for "The Baby Kittens"-- I mean, talk about dull titles! Maybe production had to speed up and no one got around to thinking up anything better. In some cases the title is better than the 'toon, but this time it's definitely the other way around.

Hawaiian Birds may get a bit overly-serious at the end, compared to everything else before it, and like a fair few Fleischer cartoons(especially the moralist ones, Small Fry however is a notable exception of a cartoon that has a great moral and story without being overly-sentimental) doesn't escape falling into sappiness. However, it is immensely charming stuff with typically outstanding animation, with the smooth backgrounds, easy movements and lush colours as well as the coolest-looking birds' nest you'll find in animation or anywhere.

It also has a music score that is both whimsical and lively, not to mention memorable, has a few amusing moments(though Hawaiian Birds admittedly doesn't have an awful lot of laughs) and the story is incredibly sweet and warm-hearted, even if it is sappy and rather slight it is difficult to resist the charm it has. The moral is not delivered too heavy-handedly and is easy to identify with while the bird characters are adorable and appropriately voiced.

Overall, Fleischer has done better but Hawaiian Birds has a lot of charm. 8/10 Bethany Cox