The Old Man of the Mountain

The Old Man of the Mountain (1933)

*** (out of 4)

The title character is someone everyone is afraid of. Of course, Betty Boop isn't afraid of him so she decides to climb up the mountain to confront the old man. Story wise there's certainly nothing great or even good with this short but it's another one of the Paramount films where the animators brought in a musician to really jazz things up. Cab Calloway is on hand here and provides the music score, which is excellent and a lot of the action in the film is played against the music. The music alone is reason enough to watch this short as Calloway was one of the greatest from this period and there's no question that the fast score really adds a lot of fun to the action. Betty is her typical cute self and for the most part this is an entertaining entry in the series.

From the word Go, this cartoon will rock you: it's got a hot score by Cab Calloway's band that kicks in the second the credits are over and never lets up, and sounds better each time you hear it. Many of these Betty Boop cartoons from the early '30s featured top jazz artists, but this one has the absolute best music --the horn solo heard when the vulture's eggs are hatching is fantastic-- along with some bizarre, naughty gags that flash past before you can get a handle on them.

Our stylishly-attired heroine finds herself in an Alpine village that is being terrorized by the titular character, a fearsome ogre who has apparently been plundering the town and having his way with the local women. The supporting characters are humanoid animals (an owl, a bear, a pair of fish, etc.) but nonetheless it's startling when we're given to understand that The Old Man actually despoiled a lady hippo. Clearly, he is one baaaaaaad dude. But Betty is nothing if not spunky, and she charges up the mountain with a determined stride to confront the villain and challenge him in a musical duel.

The Old Man's Hi-De-Ho singing voice was supplied by Cab Calloway, whose dancing was "Rotoscoped" (filmed live and then traced, basically) by the Fleischer Studio animators, which pretty much gives Cab a co-starring role. Betty, meanwhile, is at her sexiest and sauciest here, not at all fazed at the raunchy goings-on in the Old Man's cave. Dig that eerie Food of the Gods ending, too, when the woodland creatures rise up against human corruption and restore order. Cartoons don't get any better than this!

Like the previous year's MINNIE THE MOOCHER (a viewing of which preceded this one), this "Talkartoon" has its genesis in the current Cab Calloway hit; however, it also seems to take a leaf out of Dr. Seuss' Grinch stories as here we have the titular character whose coming terrorizes a rural town. In fact, his advance is made public by the lion town crier – who, hilariously, jumps atop two white rabbits, straps their ears around his feet and uses them to roller-skate down the mountain into town. This level of inventiveness is kept at a steady pace throughout its standard 7-minute running time.

Almost needless to say is the fact that, like its predecessor, it features Betty Boop and her faithful dog companion Bimbo and they are the ones who finally confront the notorious ancient bully but they get more than they bargained for – Betty ends up in her underwear and has to hide herself behind a tree (a scene which caused controversy at the time with the short's distributors Paramount being asked to tone these cartoons down)! Eventually, it is the angered animal population of the town who give the dirty old man his long-in-coming comeuppance.

'The Old Man of the Mountain' is a pretty nice Betty Boop cartoon. The cartoon starts with a small live action part. We see Cab Calloway and his orchestra as they are introduced on the screen. The old man of the mountain is voiced by Calloway. From that moment the cartoon is one musical number about the old man. We see people coming down the mountain as Betty Boop, with the voice of Mae Questel, goes up to confront the old man. Of course every one she meets falls for her charms and helps her getting higher and higher.

With the usual surrealistic way of animation this is another nice Betty Boop cartoon. Although there are no real hard laughs the animation can be admired the entire time. The music adds a lot to the animation and these two things make 'The Old Man of the Mountain' worth watching.

In the early 1930s, the Betty Boop cartoons were among the most surrealistic and racy you could find. If pre-code animation had a picture next to it in the encyclopedia, then the most appropriate one would be of Betty herself. Though not the greatest Betty Boop cartoon, The Old Man of the Mountain (1933) is one of the greats, with fluid animation, trippy gags, and Cab Calloway scat-singing over the whole thing.

The cartoon is full of adult subject matter. The song Calloway sings over the action references drug use and the Old Man's plans for Betty are explicitly sexual, with him coming close to tearing off her clothes at one point. There's even a bit of implied rape when Betty meets one of the Old Man's former victims going down the mountain, a female hippo with three babies with whiskers in tow! It just goes to show, animation was not always stuck in the infamous "age ghetto." This stuff was for unashamedly adult viewing and unlike stuff like Family Guy, it didn't need to be infantile to entertain.