The Lost Dream

After watching this for the first minutes I was thinking, "Boy, if this was a 'restored' cartoon, it would fantastic." That's because the artwork is excellent at times and must have awed audiences back in 1949.

This is a "Little Audrey" cartoon. The story is so-so, a typical story in which a kid does what adults tell him not to do, and then pays for it. Here, Little Audrey is warned about a couple of things but, of course, does them. One leads to a bad dream and the other leads to a specific event inside the dream.

Overall, it has the feel of a little kid's cartoon but adults can get something out of it, too. We get a tour of dreams from "cat naps" to "pipe dreams" to the ideal dreams of boys and girls. (The ideal dream for the latter was walking out of school and having all the boys look at you and go "Hubba, hubba!")

Mae Questel, famous for being Betty Boop and Olive Oyl, also voices "Audrey" in here. Mae was a busy woman for a lot of years!

The second solo Little Audrey cartoon (though her fourth overall appearance, after a small appearance in 'Santa's Surprise' and a cameo in 'Olive Oyl for President'), 'The Lost Dream' is not quite as good as the previous cartoon 'Butterscotch and Soda' but is still a good cartoon.

As well as being very slight, the story is very obvious, in idea and what happens, so predicting what happens next throughout is easy (this said, this is hardly new for Famous Studios cartoons and there were far worse cases in a lot of their cartoons from later years, the worst of Herman and Katnip and Casper the Friendly Ghost especially). For me, however, this was the only thing that detracted from a cartoon where everything else works pretty splendidly.

Much of Famous Studios' output boasts very good animation, more so their early efforts all the way through to the mid-50s before their cartoons started suffering from lower budgets and tighter deadlines. As to be expected, the animation is rich and colourful, with very meticulous and beautifully drawn backgrounds and well-rendered character designs that don't look too stiff. Winston Sharples provides yet another outstanding music score, even in mediocre or worse cartoons Sharples' music was never among the flaws (if anything always one of the strengths or the best asset).

Love the lusciousness of the orchestration here and how characterful and whimsical the music was without going overboard in either, even better was how well it fitted in the cartoon and how it merged with the action. The main song is very infectious too.

Plenty of amusement here, as well as great visual imagination. There were some very imaginative ideas that will delight children and also hold interest for adults as long as not too much is demanded. Everything here has the right amount of sweetness without being too sugary or making one queasy with sickness, and in some places it's even quite touching.

Little Audrey herself is an adorable and charming character that remains on the right side of sweet thankfully. The voice acting is dependably good.

Overall, the Little Audrey cartoons are somewhat under-appreciated but are on the very most part well worth watching. While not quite one of the best of them, like the previous cartoon 'Butterscotch and Soda' was, 'The Lost Dream' is a very pleasant diversion. 8/10 Bethany Cox