Monday 10 June 2019

Mickey and the Stars

Movie caricatures abound in Mickey’s Gala Premier (1933), where they all come to see the mouse’s newest cartoon make its cinematic debut at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

Sid Grauman is even caricatured (along with Mae West).



There are so many celebrities in this cartoon, it’d take forever to list and show them all.



You can see Mickey’s cartoon has the stars rolling in the aisles. Groucho Marx, Marie Dressler, Joe E. Brown (the large mouthed one), Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and Oliver Hardy are here; I suspect that’s supposed to be Jimmy Durante with the big nose in the background.

Cinema Quarterly praised the use of Hollywood caricatures, while one theatre owner called the picture “The best to date” in the Motion Picture Herald. Film Daily of September 30, 1933 revealed comedian Jerry Lester, later of Broadway Open House fame, imitated seven voices in the short, including Maurice Chevalier, Jimmy Durante, Ed Wynn and Eddie Cantor.
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1 comment:

  1. Paul Penna10 June 2019 at 22:44

    When I catalogued it I hedged by saying "includes," but here's what I came up with:

    Caricatures include: Keytone Kops (Ben Turpin, Ford Sterling, Mack Swain, Harry Langdon, Chester Conklin), Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Will hays, Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Laurel & Hardy, Marx Brothers, Maurice Chevalier, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Constance Bennett, Harold Lloyd, Edward G. Robinson, Clark Gable, Adolph Menjou, George Arliss, Richard Dix, Sid Grauman, Joe E. Brown, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Mae West, Will Rogers, Ed Wynn, Wheeler & Woolsey, Dracula, Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein Monster, Douglas Fairbanks, William Powell, Greta Garbo.

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