Castelos Imaginários

A rather annoying cuckoo clock summons us all to the town crier who rather monotonically introduces us to figures from fictional history. Amongst them are "Fu Manchu", "Frankenstein" and "Dr. Jekyll" - but they are not so menacing after all as they indulge in something akin to the dance of the "Sugar Plum Fairy". That's the start of our ensuing jolly and quite innovative trawl through a library of books that gives the animators an excuse to use the titles as some creative inspiration for the drawings and for the musicians to imaginatively score along to, too. I especially liked "Whistler's Mother", "Bulldog Drummin" and that has to be Charles Laughton on the front of "Mutiny on the Bounty"... Do we get to castles? Well not really - but that doesn't seem to matter as the snake charmers and even Henry VIII get in on the act. Who knew little boy actually blew!!?

Have You Got Any Castles? (1938)

*** (out of 4)

Extremely entertaining Merrie Melodies short has a familiar plot but it's taken to the limit here. The animated film pretty much takes place on a book shelf as various forms of literature comes to life. We get various stories including Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, The House of Seven "Gables", So Big, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Little Women, The Thin Man, The Good Earth and countless others. The animation is quite good throughout this short with a lot of great attention to various details. There are a few Hollywood celebs who make appearances here including W.C. Fields and a funny spoof with Clark Gable. Mel Blanc does fine work in the form of several of the characters but we'd come to expect nothing less. What really makes this film stand apart from countless others that tried the same story is the actual music, which is incredibly entertaining. Carl W. Stalling and Milt Franklyn hit all the right notes and really keep the action moving. Everything mixed together makes this one of the better ways to tell this familiar stories so fans of animation or any of the books mentioned should have a grand time.

Before this short begins, there is a little written prologue about the racist nature of some of the humor in the film--as a sort of warning. I appreciate this instead of just censoring or hiding the film, as it IS a part of our history (for good or bad).

The color in this film is quite nice--vivid and better than the average 30s cartoon. What follows are a long series of mostly lame jokes where books come to life--with characters coming off the pages. The Asian and Black characters are a bit overdone (especially with the large-lipped Black cartoon characters), though compared to a lot of the images of Blacks in films of the time, this is relatively benign. I am not excusing it--but it could have been and often was a lot worse! Unfortunately, despite a clever idea and nice animation, I must also admit that most of the jokes weren't that funny and there was too much singing. On the plus side, however, there were lots of references to famous Hollywood films and actors, so lovers of classic Hollywood will probably enjoy this more than the average viewer. Not great but compared to the average cartoon of the 1930s, this is actually a bit better than average. Cartoons of the 40s would evolve for the better--with far less singing, better laughs and an edge--all which are problems with "Have You Got Any Castles?".

Just rewatched this Merrie Melodies cartoon on the Varsity Show DVD. It has the characters on the book covers in a big shelf full of them coming to life, often in the caricatures of the film actors that portrayed them. It also had some black characters portrayed with big lips which is considered offensive today so kudos to Warner Bros. for including a disclaimer to that effect. Quite musically pleasing and a bit funny in some scenes concerning the film stars being drawn. Frank Tashlin was one of the most creative animation directors at the time and he's done well with something like this. So on that note, I recommend Have You Got Any Castles?

The idea of using the books in a library to infuse characters into a plot is full of possibilities. I was a bit disappointed in the result, although there are some decent moments. Most of the books that are featured are based on well-known movies, using the actors that played those parts as caricatures. For instance, William Powell is the thin man (and he is really thin). Where it bogs down is when the musical numbers have nothing to do with the books.