Here’s a scene after Bimbo’s feet have turned to ice in fear. The tombstones grow faces and sing mournfully to him “This is your finish, brother.” Bimbo looks through his hat and then buries his head, only to have it pop up from one of the graves. The bone his head has displaced is gently picked up and lowered to the ground by his ears.
This cartoon is so imaginative and bizarre. The music is first-rate. I never tire of watching it.
Ted Sears and Willard Bowsky receive screen animation credits but, as Mark Kausler has pointed out, Grim Natwick animated parts of this, too.
The aforementioned song is Rube Bloom’s “Song of the Bayou.” You can hear a 1929 version below.
Shamus Culhane's bio noted that "Sinners" may have been worked on by more individual animators than any other Fliescher cartoon until their full-length features, because of the 1920s stalwarts who suddenly left for California and the younger animators, including Willard Bowsky and Seymour Kneitel, who'd be the studio's mainstays throughout the mid-to-late 1930s. It's pretty amazing they came up with something that works this well in what was an emergency training situation at the studio.
ReplyDeleteGrim Natwick animates the opening scene until an abrupt transition to another animator who does Bimbo being chased with the chicken. Natwick also animates the spirit-infested barn chasing Bimbo.
ReplyDeleteAnd confidentially, I share your opinion that this is one of the greatest cartoons ever made. :D
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