Friday 18 June 2021

Boogie Woogie Man

You can tell Shamus Culhane’s directing things in Boogie Woogie Man (1943). He’s got characters poking heads and other things toward the camera in sudden movement.

Here are some frames from one scene.



The character designs are all over the place. You have modernistic streamlined ghosts. You have a grandpappy ghost that looks like it’s out of a ‘30s cartoon and then you have huge-lipped Blacks (there’s even a lip joke) that wouldn’t have won any awards from the NAACP. (And this wasn’t the Lantz cartoon it objected to. Dancing stereotypes were apparently okay. Lazy ones like in Scrub Me Mama With a Boogie Beat were not).

La Verne Harding and Les Kline are the credited animators.
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous18 June 2021 at 15:00

    Les Kline animates this scene. It's probably the best animation he ever did.

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  2. Hans Christian Brando18 June 2021 at 17:53

    At least the Black ghosts aren't depicted in any way of lesser status than the other ghosts; on the contrary, from the time they saunter in wearing their zoot suits they take over the situation.

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