The Tender Game

The Tender Game is one of two animated shorts scored by the recently departed Oscar Peterson that Amid at Cartoon Brew showcased as linked from YouTube. John Hubley directed with wife Faith Elliott as editor and Robert Cannon and Emery Hawkins as animators. It's basically a boy-meet-girl story as abstractedly depicted to the strains of the song "Tenderly" as sung by Ella Fitzgerald in the beginning with Peterson and his Trio providing the rest of the instrumental bridge. What wonderful feelings are played on screen as advanced by both the music and the way the characters move to the rhythm! Hubley gives a romantic dream-like vibe throughout with compelling aid from Ms. Fitzgerald and Peterson. Highly recommended for both jazz and animation buffs.

...and yet it is one of the most overlooked films of its kind. Partly this is because most of John and Faith Hubley's early self-produced films are overshadowed by "Moonbird" (which won an Oscar for "best cartoon", the first "indie" film to do so) and by their later didactic films.

Instead of purveying a message, "The Tender Game" reflects the couple's interest in exploring new kinds of animation, while perhaps reflecting their own bonds in a story of new love set to the tune of the ballad "Tenderly". Rather than paralleling the action, the music (played by the Oscar Peterson Trio, with Ella Fitzgerald singing during the film's first minute or so) sets the mood, wistful during that first minute, somewhat more upbeat afterward, punctuated by moments of humor and drama.

The characters themselves are fascinating creations, abstracted constructions of colored lines and shapes that have just enough individuality to fix them as characters. They wouldn't have the same impact as still drawings, however; their style of motion completes the viewer's impression of them as human beings. Note that even though their movements--the woman's even, step-over-step walk early on, the man's jaunty wielding of his rake--don't literally resemble those of human beings, they do reveal things about the characters than more "realistic" movements wouldn't. In the same way, the filmmakers put their own spin on the old cartoon device of using "impossible" bodily distortions to reveal a character's state of mind. (Animators Robert Cannon and Emery Hawkins, both Warner Bros. veterans, would have known this device well.)

Other unusual techniques put to work here include optical printing to give the impression of three dimensions, splattered lines of white paint contained (more or less) within a single area to suggest a body of water, and "soft cuts"--a series of quick dissolves--at emotional high points. (This last device has become more common in American animation lately, thanks to its use in Japanese anime to suggest slow motion.)

Though I've stuck to describing the technical underpinnings of the movie, "The Tender Game" wouldn't be so affecting--wouldn't be one of my favorite cartoons--if it were only a study in technique. I recommend it to animation fans, jazz fans, and anyone who never gets tired of love stories.