Swing Shift Cinderella

Another Tex Avery howling wolf cartoon. It's clever and hyped to the hilt. In this one, the wolf is the object of affection and it is played well. There is the usual eye popping. Since it's wartime, Cinderella is worker for the effort. Well done bits, especially with the Fairy Godmother.

Tex Avery was always looking for ways to exaggerate his toons into sight gags of outrageous hilarity, and in this one he spares nothing: from the opening montage in which a feral Wolf chases Little Red Riding Hood across the titles only to realize they're in the wrong story, to later introducing the main story -- that of a much different, sexier Cinderella, one who sings in Castle Manana while still having to be back by midnight or else. Insanity ensues of course when she calls on her Fairy Godmother to come to her aid and dress her up; in pure Avery fashion we see numerous chases in which the Godmother goes ape over the Wolf and bends over backwards to literally chain him to her: the final twist is revealed in the end when Cinderella zooms back to her house at the stroke of 12:00 AM, swiftly changes to an industrial outfit, and realizes she's surrounded by wolves on her way to work. Hysterical animation, always a treat to watch on TCM's Cartoon Alley.

Let's face it. Tex Avery was a one of a kind director of animated shorts. The best thing that could happen to his career was being fired by Leon Schlesenger at Warner Brothers. This allowed Avery to migrate over to M-G-M to direct a series of frantic, fast paced animated shorts for Fred Quimby. Swing Shift Cinderella was probably the best of the batch (or at least among the best, at any rate). The plot has the wolf tiring of chasing Little Red Riding Hood,only to want to pursue Cinderella (a lounge singer/assembly line worker). As in any Avery short,there is no lack of visual gags (which can run from the truly silly to outright surreal). The short manages to get some good use of mish mashing the whole Cinderella/Little Red Riding Hood plot line (with Hood's grandmother tossed in for good measure). Thankfully, Avery's animated shorts exist on a series of DVD's, for future generations to enjoy (about the only thing will be the countless WWII references and in jokes that will go sailing right over their heads).

A lascivious wolf stops chasing Red Riding Hood long enough to take part in a Cinderella story--with the heroine a dead-ringer for Bette Davis! This Cinderella, with mascara-circled eyes and a voice dripping with disdain, wants to go to the ball all right, but only because she's the sultry stage chanteuse; her Fairy Godmother has eyes for the wolf herself--but even dolled up in Old Lady Chic, she can't get his attention. Using a particularly expressive style of animation here, Tex Avery gives us a grown-up Cinderella with more curves than the Hollywood Freeway! Jessica Rabbit would envy this bombshell, which makes the tag at the finish line even funnier as Cindy returns to her duty as an aircraft riveter on-board a bus full of wolves. She may have gone back to her working girl roots, but the guys love her anyway.

The second of Tex Avery's three Red Hot Cinderella cartoons keeps up the pace, as voice artist Sara Bermer seems to voice everyone but the Wolf. The story is that the audience stopped the show for the first one, insisting the theater show the cartoon again. This one certainly keeps up the pace!

There are a lot of contemporary gags that will not have aged well for a modern audience, but with Heck Allen doing the script, there are enough gags to keep you smiling.