Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.
Chuck Jones deserved, and still does deserve, his status as one of animation's most legendary, greatest and most important directors/animators. He may have lacked the outrageousness and wild wackiness of Bob Clampett and Tex Avery, but the visual imagination, wit and what he did with some of the best-known and most iconic characters ever were just as special and he was responsible for some of the best cartoons ever made.
'The Squawkin Hawk' is not a particularly good representation of him sadly, would even say it's one of his weaker cartoons from an on the most part solid period in his long career. It's watchable enough certainly, there's just little exceptional to it other than the animation, music and some of the voice acting.
Starting with the positives, the animation is bright and colourful with fluid movement and beautifully detailed backgrounds. The music from the master Carl Stalling is even better, it's lushly and cleverly orchestrated, lively in energy and not only adds hugely to the action it even enhances it. They raise the cartoon's rating by more than one star each because they are so good.
Found the supporting characters to be fun and Sara Berner and especially Tedd Pierce deliver terrific voice acting. There are amusing moments and some energy, and the conflict has a little tension in places.
However, do have to agree completely with a lot of the criticisms mentioned already and there is not much to add actually. Jones' usual wit and imagination are mostly lacking with too much of the cartoon being rather tame. 'The Squawkin Hawk' is a case of the supporting characters being far more interesting than the lead, Henery in his debut is pretty bland here and Kent Rodgers brings nowhere near the amount of energy that Mel Blanc (who would have been an infinitely superior choice) brought to the character later.
Story-wise, 'The Squawkin Hawk' is paper thin and tries too hard to be cute that it becomes saccharine, and that there is not a lot of sharpness or energy makes that more noticeable and less forgivable. There are not enough laughs here, and very little wit, what there is is amusing at best but there is never anything hilarious and it does agreed suffer from by Jones and Henery Hawk standards being rather subdued.
Overall, nothing special but far from a must avoid. Other Jones cartoons represent him much better though and it is not a particularly good debut for Henery. 5/10 Bethany Cox
