genekim

Watching this 1941 MGM cartoon is pretty pointless unless you're familiar with the Percy French-Frank Crumit song, "Abdul Abulbul Amir." And if you know the song, then what's the point of seeing this cartoon? I suppose the intent was to provide a comical illustration of what's described in the lyrics, but we only get fragments of the original text. Perhaps the animators would have done better to have done a more faithful visual accompaniment, one that stuck more closely to the song.

Said to have been a favorite of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's, the French-Crumit song "Abdul Abulbul Amir" is a very humorous if (by today's standards) politically incorrect ballad that tells the tale of two mighty warriors: Ivan from Russia, and Abdul, who is either an Arab, a Persian or a Turk. They get into the fight of their lives, and don't know when to quit (or how). My introduction to it was a tuneful rendition by country singer Hank Thompson. It made me chuckle a few times, and I actually laughed aloud the first time I heard the closing line, which provided a perfect ending.

Nothing about this cartoon (titled "Abdul the Bulbul-Ameer") made me chuckle; not the way the main characters are portrayed, not the standard animated slapstick, and certainly not the three-man American newsreel crew thrown in for added comic relief (one of them, a Groucho Marx lookalike, keeps pointlessly shouting, "What a fight!"). The whole thing makes for a Technicolorful, pointless mess. You'd do better to listen to the Thompson recording, which actually tells you a story.

(I saw an excellent quality copy of this cartoon uploaded onto YouTube - who knows how long it will remain there.)

The first "talking" movie version of "Alice in Wonderland," produced in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1931, two years before Paramount's all-star production. Ruth Gilbert stars as Lewis Carroll's heroine in this black and white featurette (running under an hour) directed by Bud Pollard.

I'd been casually searching for a copy for years, and finally managed to get ahold of a DVD copy of a pretty battered 16mm print.

Well. It's about what you'd expect for a 1931 talkie -- a creaky curiosity of a film with overly broad acting, awkward pauses, rudimentary costumes and sets and a primitive-sounding soundtrack.

I have a hard time imagining that anyone enjoyed watching this, even in 1931; it comes across as little more than a filmed community theater production of "Alice" without any real sense of Carroll's wit or whimsy. (Then again, that's how I also feel about the 1933 movie starring Charlotte Henry, despite its higher production values.) The climactic trial of the Knave of Hearts does boast a decidedly shocking twist not found in the book that probably had Lewis Carroll turning in his grave.

A heavily made-up Ruth Gilbert was about 18 when she played Alice; a little of her "little girl" routine goes a long way. Now and then she tries to affect what may have been a trans-Atlantic accent, but most of the time she carries on like a Broadway chorine. (When confronted by the other characters toward the end, this all-too-American Alice yells at them, "Come on, all of you! Who's afraid of a paltry pack of cards!")

Still, despite its shortcomings, this film remains interesting from a historical perspective, not only as the first sound "Alice," but also as a reminder of Fort Lee's prominent place in early film history.