Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: The Flying House

Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: The Flying House (1921)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The third "Rarebit" film that Winsor McCay would make in 1921, this one here has a wife eating rarebit and of course having a bad dream that night. In the dream her husband gets tired of their high mortgage and land taxes so he decides to make their house fly so that they can save money. For the rest of the film we see the two flying around in their house trying to find a cheap and safe place to live. I think the idea behind this film was much better than the actual execution. There's no doubt that the animation is top-notch as McCay never had a problem getting interesting visuals on the screen. There are many great ones here including the entire bit where the house takes off and begins to fly over various locations so that the husband can find one he likes. There's also some very good stuff in outer space that looks terrific. With that said, the majority of what we see just doesn't have any sort of emotion behind it. There's really no laughs, no drama or anything else. Everything is pretty much flat in regards to any type of entertainment coming from the actual story. McCay fans will probably still want to watch it but there's no question that it doesn't rank among his best films.