Thursday, 26 October 2023

Setting the Mood For Chills

Light and shadow and effects open The Case of the Stuttering Pig, a 1937 Warners cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin.



Tashlin indulges himself with various camera angles looking up at the settings to create a mood of suspense.



Tashlin and writer Tubby Millar apparently did their jobs too well. A theatre manager in Ligonier, Indiana complained to the Motion Picture Herald that “this story is all too scary for the subject of a cartoon which is primarily made for children.” Leon Schlesinger admitted in a newspaper interview that one of his cartoons had a villain that was too frightening and that would be toned down in future cartoons.

Sorry, theatre manager, but Billy Bletcher is wonderfully menacing as the lawyer-turned-monster and the artwork fits the horror scenario (with a comic ending). Ya big softie!

Volney White is the credited animator.

2 comments:

  1. Eric O. Costello26 October 2023 at 14:20

    "The Case of the Stuttering Bishop," a Warner Bros. film adaptation of the Erle Stanley Gardner/Perry Mason mystery, came out four months before this cartoon was released, and was the likely source of the title.

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  2. Hans Christian Brando30 October 2023 at 17:45

    Maybe that's why in the 1968 colorized version they made the monster's outfit pink.

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