Monday, March 16, 2009
The Wearing of the Grin (1951)
“The Wearing of the Grin” (1951) serves as our nod to St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow, and gives us not only a funny, and a bit scary, vehicle for Porky Pig, but treats us to a riotous parody of “The Red Shoes”, both the Hans Christian Andersen story and most especially the 1948 movie with Moira Shearer. I can’t help wondering if director Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese were aiming for Moira more than Hans Christian. I think they were going after Moira.
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8 comments:
I love the LSD feeling of these old cartoons!
The beginning seems a little Dracula like, does it not? The Leprechauns were simply adorable.
Hi, Lolita, thanks for stopping by. It's a fun cartoon. Chuck Jones was especially adept at parodies. I love his opera parodies. I don't think anybody but Jones and Maltese would think of combining a horror movie setting with "The Red Shoes" and throwing in Porky Pig.
Ditto Lolita. These cartoons have such a great free-floating logic, from Ireland to old horror movies to Kafkaesque trials to The Red Shoes to Salvador Dali...all in the space of 7 minutes (I always loved the free association of Yellow Submarine, but can you see the same effect, at a more manic pace, in the old Warners toons...)
Agreed, MovieMan. Thanks for your input. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when they were hashing out the storyboards.
MovieMan0283 is so right! But I guess that Yellow Submarine is a little slower so all the grass smoking viewers still can hang on to the story.
"Yellow Submarine is a little slower so all the grass smoking viewers still can hang on to the story." Too funny.
This was fantastic. I've watched a lot of old Loony Toons but don't remember this one. The Dali-esque forest of pipes was something else. Great St. Patrick's post (I know I'm behind times, but was away much of the week).
Hi, John. Glad you're back. Yes, this was an imaginative one. I'm not surprised you don't remember this one, I really don't think it's too well known. I can remember it being shown around St. Patrick's Day when I was child, but never at any other time. This cartoon must have spent a lot of time in the vault.
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