Special Delivery

Just discovered on Thad's Animation Blog this weirdly funny Oscar-winning short directed by Eunice Macaulay and John Weldon. It seems Alice is going out and tells husband Ralph to shovel the walk before he goes to work. He doesn't and when he returns home, he finds the mailman lying dead on the icy pathway. What Ralph does afterwards and the consequences that result changes all three lives (well, two of them anyway) forever...With the exception of the organ music and the narrator who delivers his lines in the same monotone style throughout, this animated short is silent. Despite the brief running time, Special Delivery has so much going on that every twist the narrator tells and the animators show us earns more laughs than the one before. The only other thing I have to say is I'm so glad I live in a place where it doesn't snow. (though occasionally there have been exceptions...)

This short, which won a well deserved Academy Award, has got to be one of the most delightfully twisted cartoons I have seen in my life! Through a series of twists and turns so odd that it seems like a combination of Kafka and Hitchcock, we follow three people-a husband, his wife and the mailman-through a most eventful day for them all. It changes their lives most completely. Black humor runs throughout this absolute gem and it is delightfully funny! Though I wonder if the Canadian Postal union feels the same about this one! Most recommended!

Despite a darkly-humorous story and some moderately stylish (if unpolished) animation, 'Special Delivery' has yet to leave much of an impression on me. The main reason is something that's been praised in other comments on this site, the narration: it's so flat and descriptive that it undercuts, rather than enhances, the animation, and yet it's really unnecessary, supplying almost no information that isn't obvious in the animation itself. The character design, staging, and action are all competent, but add nothing to the story. The result is a cartoon which could just as easily have been a live-action short film, or even a short story, without losing anything.

Poor Ralph fails to clear his snow obstructed porch. He leaves the house, comes back and finds the mailman dead at his door. The poor fellow fell on the ice. What to do with the body? But his wife has a secret of her own. This short film may be just 7 minutes long, but there's a lot happening! If Hitchcock had ventured into cartoons, he might have made one like this. Oh! and there's actually nudity in this one! Can't go wrong with this short film. Another great product from the National Film Board of Canada.

Seen at home, in Toronto, on January 1st, 2005.

82/100 (***)

"Alice" heads off to her judo class leaving husband "Ralph" with one instruction - clear the snow from the path! He forgot! When he returns home he finds an uniformed corpse at his front door. It's the mailman - and he's clearly slipped on the ice and will post no more. Bundled into the house by a panic-stricken "Ralph", he must now think of a plan to get shot of the body before he ends up on the wrong end of a costly lawsuit. Firstly, though, he decides to finish of the man's delivery round so suspicion wouldn't fall on his home, but he leaves his keys in the wrong trousers, gets apprehended by the police trying to break into his own house and that leaves the unsuspecting "Alice" to come home to a forced window, a naked postie and an half drunk bottle of Scotch. Turns out she had romantic history with the postman - so now it is her who must find a way of disposing of the body! It's only then she realises that he's not just passed out, but deceased. Did "Ralph" do it? She flees and when he returns from his trip to the cop shop, he sees there's no longer a body (or a wife) so decides it's best to just forget all about it and sit by the fire... I did quite enjoy the black humour here and the daftness of the last two minutes with police and coroner deciding that convenience was the better part of valour. The simple, snowy, animation is effective and Sandy Sanderson's narration keeps his tongue well in his cheek.