Behold a Surreal 1933 Animation of Snow White, Featuring Cab Calloway & Betty Boop: It’s Ranked as the 19th Greatest Cartoon of All Time

Of the three col­lab­o­ra­tions jazz singer Cab Cal­loway made with cute automobile­toon leg­finish Guess­ty Boop, this 1933 Dave Fleis­ch­er-direct­ed “Snow White” is prob­a­bly probably the most suc­cess­ful. It cer­tain­ly is probably the most unusual—extra hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry than the primary within the sequence “Min­nie the Moocher”, and fewer slap­stick-dri­ven than “The Outdated Man of the Moun­tain.” It’s a sin­gu­lar mar­vel and proper­ly deserves being deemed “cul­tur­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant” by the Unit­ed States Library of Con­gress and choose­ed for preser­va­tion within the Nation­al Movie Reg­istry in 1994. It was additionally vot­ed #19 of the 50 Nice­est Automotive­toons of all time in a ballot of lead­ing ani­ma­tors.

When she made her debut in 1930, Guess­ty Boop would have been rec­og­niz­in a position to audi­ences because the embod­i­ment of the flap­per and the intercourse­u­al free­dom of the Jazz Age that was cur­lease­ly in free-fall after the Wall Avenue crash of 1929. Just a few years earlier than her pre­miere, Boop would have been the mas­cot of the age; now she was a bit­ter­candy reminder of a time that had already handed. With a cham­pagne bub­ble of a voice, kiss curls, dar­ing hem­line, plung­ing neck­line, and the ever current garter belt, she was a automobile­toon char­ac­ter def­i­nite­ly not designed for youths. That her finest movies are col­lab­o­ra­tions with Cab Cal­loway attest to that. Cal­loway would make certain his Guess­ty Boop automobile­toons would display screen in a metropolis per week or two earlier than he would play a gig. His “advance girl” as he referred to as her helped promote extra tick­ets.

Accom­pa­ny­ing her on this movie are the Fleischer’s orig­i­nal char­ac­ter Koko the Clown and Bim­bo the Pup, which for this movie are form of emp­ty ves­sels: they professional­tect Guess­ty, they get knocked out, and Koko will get inhab­it­ed by the spir­it of Cab Cal­loway, who then turns right into a ghost, all legs and head, no tor­so. (The ghost is ani­mat­ed by means of roto­scop­ing over Cal­loway’s personal movie footage.) The Queen, whose discuss­ing mir­ror adjustments his thoughts over “the fairest within the land” as soon as see­ing Guess­ty Boop, sen­tences her to dying, after which chas­es her by means of the below­world earlier than flip­ing right into a drag­on. On the finish, Boop and her gang flip the drag­on inside out like a sock, a gross gag not seen once more (I’m going to guess) till one of many Simp­sons’ Hal­loween Spe­cials.

Within the mid­dle of all this boun­cy, sur­re­al could­hem is Calloway’s ghost singing “St. James Infir­mary Blues,” a mourn­ful story of a lifeless woman­good friend and the singers plans for the funer­al. The ori­gin of the track is shroud­ed in mys­tery, pos­si­bly a people bal­lad by means of New Orleans jazz. What­ev­er the supply, Koko/Cab sings it to the now frozen and entombed Guess­ty Boop, with the sev­en dwarves as pall­bear­ers. Koko/Cab turns right into a num­ber of objects dur­ing his dance, includ­ing a bot­tle of booze and a coin on a series.

This Snow White does actually happen dur­ing win­ter and author Anne Blake­ley makes the case that the flap­per, the snow, the ice, the pas­sage by means of the below­world, and Calloway’s track allude to a fall from grace, inno­cence to expe­ri­ence, by means of drug abuse—in par­tic­u­lar the very snowy cocaine. (I imply, might be! However the movie is so odd as to refute any defin­i­tive learn­ing.)

The ani­ma­tion was designed and com­plet­ed by one man: Roland Cran­dall, pos­si­bly as a reward from Fleis­ch­er for not leav­ing for the solar­ny west coast and the extra prof­itable Dis­ney. Cran­dall labored half a 12 months on the challenge and that’s actual­ly what provides it its considered one of a sort nature. Each ele­ment, whether or not ani­mat­ed or within the again­floor, has been lov­ing­ly ren­dered. Fore­floor and again­floor combat in your atten­tion, and when the movie fin­ish­es, you wish to begin yet again to see what you missed.

Final­ly, let’s reward the vibe of this movie, which locations its “star” on ice for half the movie, and appears none the more severe for it. “Snow White”—4 years earlier than Disney’s fea­ture model—is a hypno­gog­ic imaginative and prescient, a half-remem­bered day­dream that takes place whereas the radio is turned down imper­cep­ti­bly low.

The ani­ma­tion might be added to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Motion pictures On-line: Nice Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­males­taries & Extra.

Observe: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this submit appeared on our website in 2020.

Ted Mills is a free­lance author on the humanities who cur­lease­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­solid and is the professional­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You may as well fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his movies right here.