Les vagues sauvages

I have been watching my Mickey Mouse DVDs we got for Christmas and noticed that most of the cartoons before this one in the Disney Treasures DVD (Mickey in Black & White volume 2) consisted of lots of song and dance numbers with little plot. However, this one appeared quite different--with Mickey and Minnie enjoying a day at the beach. Minnie is soon pulled out to sea and Mickey becomes the hero. HOWEVER, after about 4 minutes, the cartoon abruptly turned to what seemed like filler--lots of the same old song and dance as in the other cartoons of the era. Still, it is quite charming and worth seeing--at least for the first portion. Not a great cartoon, but compared to what else was being made at the time, quite good.

This early Mickey Mouse cartoon is aptly titled. It's set at the seashore, and in shot after shot the wild surf crashes against the rocks, ebbs, rolls back, then hits the shore again with redoubled force. The waves are beautiful but dangerous, as we find in due course when they overpower our star performers and fling them every which way. The ocean itself has personality in this short, and that's impressive for a cartoon of this vintage. You've got to give the Disney animators credit for not playing it safe; recreating the violent motion of the sea was challenging in the era of black & white cel animation, but nevertheless they chose to give the customers their money's worth with a show of difficult water effects. They make it look easy, and still manage to maintain a light and amusing tone.

The credit for the generally high quality of the early Mickeys belongs primarily to one man, legendary animator Ub Iwerks, who drew most of the studio's initial talkie output practically solo. The opening title card for these seminal works reads "A Walt Disney Comic by Ub Iwerks," a singular credit Disney would never grant any other employee. Iwerks was a key figure in putting the Disney Studio on the map and making the mouse world famous, but he chafed under Walt's dominance and left the studio not long after Wild Waves was released in the summer of 1929.

But that's real world stuff. Back in Cartoon Land, this particular entry begins with a terrific shot of Lifeguard Mickey sitting atop his tall chair, strumming his guitar and singing for an audience of two seals, a pelican, and other assorted water fowl. The waves crash as Mickey's listeners all sway to the music in perfect synchronized style, while even his chair bobs to the rhythm on alarmingly rubbery legs. Minnie is introduced in the mildly risqué fashion still permissible at this time, with the kind of gag that would soon become verboten: she's changing into her bathing suit in one of those old-fashioned "bathing machines" that looks like an outhouse on wheels. We hear her singing but she's not visible. Then, on a clothesline leading out the window, we watch as her slip, her bra, and her panties appear on the line, one by one, to flap in the breeze. Minnie appears in the doorway in her swimsuit with a "Ta-daaaa!" gesture, skips into the surf, and is promptly swallowed by a wave and carried screaming out to sea. Mickey, of course, tosses his guitar aside and comes to the rescue. He is hindered by more of those diabolical waves, but eventually manages to haul Minnie ashore. When she begins to weep he attempts to amuse her by dancing a hornpipe, and this sets off a general beach musicale, complete with dancing penguins, barking seals, a harp solo played on a fish-net, and a walrus who sings in a basso voice.

Wild Waves is a sweet little cartoon that doesn't appear on anyone's list of Disney "classics." It's just another routine Mickey Mouse short, but in a sense that makes it all the more impressive. The Disney cartoons from this period are primitive compared to what would follow in the '30s, but they're highly entertaining, often surprising, and miles ahead of what anyone else was making at the time.

As in other films of this series (the Gorilla Mystery comes to mind), Minnie is a very dumb damsel who dives into danger, and Mickey diverts her from dying. Mickey has a singing voice here which I find awfully unappealing! That's definitely the worst part of this. Apparently it was most likely provided by a random studio employee. The animation is wonderful overall, especially notable are the waves themselves, which are not realistic, but quite comically animated. A number of funny and clever gags throughout with some innuendo. Drawings are quite inconsistent, reminding me of the lookalike mice from Van Beuren cartoons, Milton and Rita. Some shots look like the perfect Ub Iwerks drawings, and others look like weird (though interesting) knockoffs. It is known that at this time, other animators Walt hired really struggled to live up to the standards and consistency of Ub's superb artwork! Some animation errors are apparent (such as elements like Minnie disappearing for a frame). The musical sound effects are pretty interesting and well done, especially using timpani (a.k.a. Kettledrums) for the waves coming in and out, with cymbal crashes for their break. I have to wonder when this language of sound was established for certain effects like this. 1929 was still quite early in the era of sound films, though I know that many of these effects were established in the silent era.

Some of the dancing animal animation was reused in a Silly Symphony I also saw for the first time just earlier today, Arctic Antics, which I would say is not as interesting due to the lack of plot, though I think musically it is better (not that that's a high bar!)

I enjoyed it, though I doubt it's one I'd rewatch often.

Wild Waves is not among Disney or Mickey's best. It is rather routine, and I did find it odd that the first half of the short had a story and then for the second half more of a series of song and dance numbers(I do think it would have been better as one or the other). However, the animation is quite nice, a little primitive at times, but at least the backgrounds have crispness and the character designs don't look awkward. The animation of the waves is very good also. The music is very upbeat and catchy, and the dancing aspect is just as energised and animated convincingly. There are some nice gags like with Minnie's clothesline, and I really did get the sense that Mickey and Minnie genuinely cared for one another. Both characters are very likable, and the animals that join in the second half of Wild Waves are colourful characters as well. Overall, really sweet and is easy to like, but at the same time Wild Waves is not one of my favourites. 7/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

Lifeguard Mickey saves Minnie from the ocean's WILD WAVES. Such bravery surely deserves a musical celebration and a little romance.

This enjoyable early black & white film has a plot propelled entirely by its lively soundtrack. Walt Disney supplies Mickey with his squeaky speaking voice.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.