Good As 'Presarved' Turnips
Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a brick across my head. Ha! That’s how the brain of a friend of mine always forces him to recite those The Beatles lyrics.
Anyway, I woke up and watched “Li’l Abner” on Channel 31. What a coincidence, in light of my recent post on the Shmoo and Al Capp, to discover yesterday that this 1940 movie adaptation of Al’s strip was due to be screening on television this morning at 10AM – and here in Australia, no less! Yet, Channel 31 can certainly be relied on to screen some groovy, lesser-Australian-known shows and movies from the U.S. of A.
This film was an interesting experience, although I don’t imagine that anyone not already familiar with the world of Dogpatch would find it very entertaining. One’s knowledge of the strip and its characters tends to fill in the gaps and breathe form onto the somewhat bland basic skeleton propped up on the screen here. This was a B-production from RKO studios and the cheapness shows. I mean, the sets look quite lovely but they are too small and restricting – this is supposed to be North American mountain land but it seems more like a leafy quarry. The direction is lacklustre, the editing atrociously ill timed for a comedy, and many of the actors seem to be thoroughly disinterested. Plus, unlike the strip, it's not very funny.
On the other hand, the casting is amazingly precise in many places and with a bit of help from prosthetic make-up characters such as Li’l Abner’s diminutive folks, Pansy and Lucifer, and the extremely hairy-headed Hairless Joe look exactly like they had jumped off the funnies pages and into real life. The actors portray human characters who look half real and half cartoon, and I cannot off-hand think of any other cartoon adaptation that has adopted this approach; if there are such examples, I doubt they predate this bizarre production of 1940.
Another feature of this film is the appearance of several comedians from the silent days, such as Bud Jamison, Edgar Kennedy, Chester Conklin, Billy Bevan, Al St. John and the great Buster Keaton, who is far from his glorious days as an independent artist in the 1920s but he acquits himself well here in what is a limited appearance.
Overall, not anywhere near as bad a movie as some people say. In fact, I’d say it compares favourably with Dogpatch’s famous gastronomic delicacy, 'presarved' turnips!
Anyway, I woke up and watched “Li’l Abner” on Channel 31. What a coincidence, in light of my recent post on the Shmoo and Al Capp, to discover yesterday that this 1940 movie adaptation of Al’s strip was due to be screening on television this morning at 10AM – and here in Australia, no less! Yet, Channel 31 can certainly be relied on to screen some groovy, lesser-Australian-known shows and movies from the U.S. of A.
This film was an interesting experience, although I don’t imagine that anyone not already familiar with the world of Dogpatch would find it very entertaining. One’s knowledge of the strip and its characters tends to fill in the gaps and breathe form onto the somewhat bland basic skeleton propped up on the screen here. This was a B-production from RKO studios and the cheapness shows. I mean, the sets look quite lovely but they are too small and restricting – this is supposed to be North American mountain land but it seems more like a leafy quarry. The direction is lacklustre, the editing atrociously ill timed for a comedy, and many of the actors seem to be thoroughly disinterested. Plus, unlike the strip, it's not very funny.
On the other hand, the casting is amazingly precise in many places and with a bit of help from prosthetic make-up characters such as Li’l Abner’s diminutive folks, Pansy and Lucifer, and the extremely hairy-headed Hairless Joe look exactly like they had jumped off the funnies pages and into real life. The actors portray human characters who look half real and half cartoon, and I cannot off-hand think of any other cartoon adaptation that has adopted this approach; if there are such examples, I doubt they predate this bizarre production of 1940.
Another feature of this film is the appearance of several comedians from the silent days, such as Bud Jamison, Edgar Kennedy, Chester Conklin, Billy Bevan, Al St. John and the great Buster Keaton, who is far from his glorious days as an independent artist in the 1920s but he acquits himself well here in what is a limited appearance.
Overall, not anywhere near as bad a movie as some people say. In fact, I’d say it compares favourably with Dogpatch’s famous gastronomic delicacy, 'presarved' turnips!
posted by S. Gregory | 7:44 pm
1 Comments:
N1F: I can always rely on you to jerk-off my shameless ego. Thanks once again!
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