Humpty Dumpty (1935) Online

Superb cartoon from early animation pioneer, and 'the man who brought life to Mickey Mouse', Ub Iwerks, that makes up in invention, wit and draughtsmanship what it lacks in 'modern' fluency (although it has a wonderful, faded pace of its own). Unlike later Disney features, which quickly standardised plot and character, Iwerks' films are characterised by play, irony, metamorphosis and self-reflexivity. They are also, contrary to THE SIMPSONS' back-handed homages, still very funny.

HUMPTY DUMPTY is a hugely enjoyable case in point. It starts with Iwerks' trademark credits on a book cover which opens onto a prosceniumed parade of the cast, headed, of course, by the titular hero, and also the gnashing aristocrat, Bad Egg. The film than daringly splits this first frame to impose another, featuring a picture with 'Humpty Dumpty' written on. We discover that our hero is already dead, before the narrative has even started, a brilliant coup. His widow and son live on the kitchen counter, and this and its implements are so marvellously and accurately rendered that they provide a realistic background against which the nonsense (it is a film about talking eggs remember) takes place, offering an astonishing surrealist spectacle.

The main action concerns Humpty's son, and his love for a young egg threatened by the rapacious villainy of Bad Egg. Their love song contrives to be both hilariously ludicrous (they croon in a spoon; behind them a sextet of dancing eggs join them) and strangely moving. Bad Egg intrudes and a sublime series of melodramatic/slapstick antics proceed, influenced by silent comedy, but with an inventive violence of its own.

Bad Egg grabs young Dumpty's lady, and she tries to escape, utilising kitchen elements that come to hand, making strange what we take for granted. Her lover is next to useless, and when she falls into boiling water she emerges a tarty hussy who manages to defeat Bad Egg with commendable frankness. Bad Egg's demise is beautifully gruesome. Happily, Dumpty's lover doesn't revert to her old timid self, and he seems very pleased with his new, fearsome missus, but then he needed his aged mother to rescue him earlier from precipatory death with her aprons. The mid-30s faded colours are exquisitely, yearningly beautiful.

This is a very cute cartoon that allows Iwerks to make full use of his color system. Charming, if by now overly familiar, sight gags and beautiful detail work make this an entertaining effort from the studio. The colors hold up very well almost 70 years later and match up with Disney for the most part rather favorably. Good to have in print and available. Well worth watching. Recommended.

While not one of my favourites, Ub Iwerks was responsible for a lot of interesting work. Especially when working with Walt Disney, his oldest friend and one of his best, and co-creating one of animation's most famous characters in Mickey Mouse. His career since opening his own studio had interest value but the quality was variable, often being successful in the animation and music but wanting in the story and variable in gags, lead characters and tone.

1933 to 1936 saw twenty five cartoons, mostly based on famous fairytales and familiar stories, as part of Iwerks's "ComiColor" series. The "ComiColor" series is very much worth watching and interesting, as is the case with many series some cartoons are better than others but there are no real animation nadirs. 1935's 'Humpty Dumpty' is a pretty good pleasant watch, with a few issues but a lot of big strengths.

Admittedly, 'Humpty Dumpty' is slight and is at times a little too cutesy and the ending can be smelt from miles away in a fairly standard good versus evil tale.

However, 'Humpty Dumpty' has enough freshness to stop it from being stale. It avoids the over sentimental factor generally and is never dull.

There are amusing gags, that aren't too corny and never repetitive, it's very charming, endearingly wild at times and there is a genuine likeability. charm and cuteness. The characters drive 'Humpty Dumpty' well (apart from the fairly bland love interest), with a very likeable titular character whose antics can be surprisingly inventive and a fun villain.

Furthermore, the animation is great. Meticulously detailed, fluid in drawing, vibrant in colour and often rich in imagination and visual wit. The music is cleverly and lushly orchestrated, is infectiously catchy and adds a lot to the cartoon.

In conclusion, pretty good. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Director: UB IWERKS. Music: Carl W. Stalling. Color by Cinecolor. Producers: Ub Iwerks, Pat Powers. A P.A. Powers' ComiColor Cartoon.

Not copyrighted by Celebrity Productions, Inc. U.S. release: 1935. COMMENT: It's not the real Humpty Dumpty, but Humpty Dumpty junior, who graces this witty little romance in which Junior falls in love with an Easter Egg, who is then carried off by a really villainous Bad Egg.

Fortunately, Easter Egg falls into a pan of boiling water which causes him to emerge as a hard-boiled egg.

I love the production number, "Spooning in a Spoon", which happily is reprized at the finale.

Despite this cartoon's rather slow start, this is an entry you can put on your premium "Must See and Highly Recommended" list.

This cartoon consists of a Snidely Whiplash/Simon Legree type of evil egg (called 'The Bad Egg') stealing the nice lady Easter Egg. So Humpty Dumpty Jr. comes to her rescue.

While the animation quality of Ub Iwerks color films of the mid- 1930s is very nice, I am definitely NOT a fan. Instead of humor his cartoons consistently went for overly cute...with lots of singing and they were about as edgy as bowling balls. "Humpty Dumpty" is clearly an example of this sort of cartoon--with lovely animation but also a story and singing that make it second-rate. Now I cannot just attack Iwerks...many 1930s cartoons were sappy like this and the wonderful cartoons from MGM (Iwerks' parent company) and Warner Brothers weren't to come until the 1940s. This is why when they show old cartoons on TV today, they almost never show shorts from the 1930s. With the exception of Disney and the Fleischer Brothers, the rest were a sorry lot by later standards.

Humpty Dumpty (1935)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent short from Ub Iwerks has Humpty Dumpty, Jr. talking about his father and soon afterwards falling in love with a female egg. Before long a bad egg shows up and the three do a battle. HUMPTY DUMPTY probably should have been named something else since I'm sure people are going to turn it on and expect the classic tale and not something with his son. With that said, for the most part this is a fun short that gives us plenty of action and I must admit that it was somewhat charming seeing the three eggs battling one another. There's no doubt that the film would have benefited from more laughs but this was still an entertaining short.

This was a weak effort, to be honest. It started out promising, with Humpty Dumpty Jr., yes, the famous egg's kid.

Dumpty falls from the ledge, gets caught by mother and gets a lecture on not being dumb like his father who wound up falling "and getting cracked." What we wind up with in this story is "Junior" falling for a female egg and having to fight off "the bad egg" to get her.

It drags on a bit too much with a predictable ending. In the middle and at the end we get a song about "spooning." Overall, this wasn't one of the better efforts in the collection of a DVD called "Cartoons That Time Forget: The UB Iwerks Collection Vol. 1."