I am a huge fan of Hollywood films from the 1930s. I simply adore the movies and shorts and can't get enough of them. There is, however, an exception--most cartoons of the 30s were pretty insipid. Sure, there are some notable exceptions (such as SNOW WHITE), but Disney, Warner Brothers and MGM (among others) insisted on cranking out a huge number of terrible musical films that were just awful. Please understand I am NOT knocking Mickey Mouse or Donald--but the musicals referred to as "Silly Symphonies" (Disney), "Merry Melodies" (Warner) or "Happy Harmonies" (MGM). These cutesy films were pure drivel with practically no humor and no edge--just lots of awful singing and characters so treacly sweet that they are just about unwatchable. The edgy Bugs Bunny or Tex Avery cartoons we know and love today were produced in the following decades. You know it was a bad decade for toons when Popeye and Betty Boop were among the BETTER toons of the age!!! Despite these films being so bad, I recently forced myself to watch a trio of Happy Harmonies shorts. Part of this must be because I am a masochist, but part of it is because I love reviewing the more obscure films--as there is a real scarcity of reviews for older and seldom-seen movies and shorts.
The second cartoon shown on TCM was THE LOST CHICK. While not as rotten as WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY, it was a horrible cartoon if compared to those produced by MGM or Warner Brothers in the 1940s or 50s. There is absolutely no humor or edginess to it--just a lot of "so cute they make you puke" animals running around and singing. The main moral of this tale is "Love Thy Neighbor"--and you see it prominently displayed on the wall of the mother hen's home. Gag me! After seeing it, I felt a very strong need for some Tex Avery to wipe this experience from my mind!
The animation quality, though not great, isn't horrid, so the film manages to barely squeek by with a score of 3.
