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Author
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Topic: COBWEB HOTEL! MAX FLEISCHER! 1936
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted August 08, 2009 07:03 PM
Max Fleischer is rightly remembered as the creator/producer of the Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons and the later Superman cartoons, not to mention the two features, "Gulliver's Travels" and "Hoppity Goes to Town", (originally titled, "Mr. Bug Goes to Town").
But Fleischer and his studio also did a nice little series called "Color Classics", starting in 1934 with "Poor Cinderella" and continuing on from there. While many of them were not all that memorable, there still were a number of fondly remembered titles that many of us cartoon lovers cherish. One of them is the wonderful "Fresh Vegetable Mystery."
In 1936 however, one of the best was done. It's title?
COBWEB HOTEL.
The story is quite simple. A spider runs a horrific hotel. Horrific to flies, of course. The spider starts the cartoons, (after beginning with a live action background) with a rousing
song ...
"Spend at the Cobweb Hotel
You'll find that the service is swell
You needn't be shy,
I won't harm a fly,
Spend a night at the Cobweb Hotel!"
... to the sight of flies suffering horribly!
After singing his song, two honeymooning flies enter and sign in.
They go to they're room but find in the next room, a guest being tortured. The spider attempts to capture them. He ties up in his web the wife and takes on the husband who is the "Flyweight Champion" (get it? Flyweight?). He does this by pinning the flies wings back ect. Meanwhile, the wife escapes, takes a razor blade and frees the other flies.
Now they all attack en-masse against the spider, eventually defeating him. The honeymoon couple, along with the other flies escape the Cobweb Hotel, with a very nice 3D background behind them.
THE END (with a pink NTA credit.)
This is one of those films that is more charming than anything else. It was a one shot cartoon, (as most of the Color Classics were), just an idea that the Fleischer's thought was fun, and fun it is. It's the kind of slightly bizarre idea that the Fleischer studio relished and nobody did this kind of cartoon better.
Now, onto the print ...
The copy I have is in color. This was released both in it's original color version as well as B/W. It's sad to say, but the Color Classics have not tended to age well. To this day, I have never seen a perfect color copy of this cartoon, and that includes VHS DVD and Laserdisc.
This copy is no exception. However, I noted that the color on this print is actually slightly better than the copies I have seen in other formats. This may partly be because this L.P.P. print has a slightly bluish cast to it, and blue is one of the colors that is largely missing on the original prints of this.
The negative for this print has some wear, but that is pretty much what you'll find in most cases with this print.
CONTRAST/FOCUS
The contrast on this is quite good, ever so slightly on the dark side, which is good as, (is the case with many 30/s cartoons), there is a slight flutter from slight over exposure to under. The grain is very good. The focus is better than average on this print. Nearly as good as a decent 16MM.
SOUND
This has a very good booming mono. This print was lovingly re-recorded by a fellow collector and the recording is quite sharp, with very good bottom. He took off the original leader and the soundtrack actually starts a good five seconds before
the image begins.
As with all prints of this cartoons, the Paramount logo was blocked out, (with a black bar across the bottom portion of the first title card).
Unfortunately, I don't have the name of the Super 8 company that released this. Derann (whom I bought this from, ThanX!), only stated that is was a U.S. print. I'd be willing to bet it was a Red Fox print, but that is only a guess.
A very fun cartoon and worth putting in your collection. Especially this L.P.P. print.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted August 09, 2009 08:55 AM
ThanX Kevin ...
One of the strange things with Red Fox is that while they did go with L.P.P. in their waning days, they were using faded negatives, so no matter what film stocks they used, the cartoon still wouldn't age well. I have a print of "A Tale of Two Kitties", one of my favorite Bob Clampett cartoons, (I did a review of it in this review section) which Red Fox released on good L.P.P. stock, but since the negative was badly faded, it looks barely passable, but nothing more. Still, glad to have it.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted August 11, 2009 02:08 PM
ThanX James ...
I wonder if the original version of this film had the classic Paramount logo as, apparantly the Paramount Logo must have been on that first title for Cobweb Hotel. Your right, it does look rather unprofessional.
If you in the search for this title, it was released on L.P.P. and the colors, (as stated in the review) are actually helped a little but that slightly bluish cast to the L.P.P., so it's possible to find a nice copy. Hey, mine cost, including shipping from Derann, 21.00 U.S. dollars, and I was not expecting L.P.P. so it was a nice surprise. This edition of the cartoon does look a little better than the prints on those budget DVD's.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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