Thursday 3 November 2016

I'll Get By With a Twinkle in My Eye

Margie Hines voiced Betty Boop before signing an exclusive deal with Van Beuren to provide Boop-like voices for its cartoons. She appears as a tightrope walker singing “I’ll Get By With A Twinkle in My Eye,” written by J. Fred Coots and Roy Turk, and recorded by a number of artists in 1932.

The uncredited animator twirls her around the rope, has her do the splits and then brings on Tom and Jerry with their ubiquitous piano to help finish the vocals on the song. Here are some of the poses.



Most of the animation is on ones, though the cartoonist occasionally holds a drawing for a frame while the background drawing is moved, making it appear the girl is sliding on the rope.

This is from the 1933 cartoon Tight Rope Tricks. Gene Rodemich provides another great score, with “East Side, West Side” appearing on the soundtrack, along with a Circus Day song I can’t identify that’s sung over the opening credits. Some of the animation is re-used from Circus Capers (1930) and Animal Fair (1931).

Hear Margie here, along with more bars of the song during the next scenes where a lion roars and decides to take revenge on Tom and Jerry.

3 comments:

  1. Very good, Yowp....On J.F.Coots:
    Next month, you better watch out, THE perhaps most knopwn and suing of his tunes shows up.."Santa Claus is Coming to Town", which was written a few years later.(with Haven Gillespie.)

    Enjoyed the music and Hines singing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. According to the internet the singer listed above also did a variety of songs in the Van Beuren cartoons.

    ReplyDelete
  3. the song was actually titled "You'll Get By"...with lyrics slightly changed for this cartoon. Fred Waring did a great version of it on Victor Records..

    ReplyDelete