Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted March 16, 2012 01:29 PM
It isn't too often these days that I find a long sought after print, (ever searching for "Grizzly"), but I just got this yesterday and I'm so happy. It is the Cineavision scope print of the MGM classic Droopy Cartoon, "One Droopy Knight".
The history ...
When Tex Avery left MGM, his second in command, Micheal Lah, took over Tex's role as director, with Hanna and Barbera, (directors of MGM's Tom and Jerry series) as the producers. While Micheal Lah is no Tex Avery, Tex's output for the last few years was slowing down in creativity and actually, Micheal Lah's Droopy's were pretty good. Besides this, he had the "Avery feel", which blended with his own sensibilities. It could well be possible, that "One Droopy Knight" was scripted by Avery, as, like Disney, MGM could spend as much as a full year, from beginning story sessions, to the end product cartoon for the theaters, and this "Knight" cartoon was within that first year's output after Avery.
These cartoons also benefited in a way that the Tom and Jerry's suffered from later in the scope series ...
The principal animator for the Tom and Jerry series, Irv Spencer, shifted from Tom and Jerry, (which he had animated nearly from the start in 1942), to the Droopy series, which must have been a pleasure to do something different. Also, long time animator, Ken Southaird also worked on this film.
Actually, upon close inspection, the Droopy series held up better than the Tom and Jerry series during this time.
Micheal Lah would end up directing six Droopy's before the MGM studio chose to close they're animation studio.
The cartoon ...
The countryside is being terrorized by a naughty green dragon, (nice design on the dragon), and it is the job for "Sir Butch-a-Lot" and "Sir Droop-a-lot" to take on the dragon. In return for vanquishing the naughty beast; they win the princess's hand.
What then follows, (after a very funny early gag with the princess!) a series of "Butch" getting the worst and Droopy basically getting ignored by the dragon. Droopy, finally realizing he's ineffectual in vanquishing the beast, pulls out his photo of the princess to weep over it. The dragon, just to be a jerk, writes a "moustache" on the picture, and laughs hysterically. Droopy is pissed! He walks right up to the dragon ...
"You know what? That makes me mad!"
... in his deadpan delivery and proceeds to beat the hell out of the dragon. This dissolves to Droopy stating that this whole story is true. We then see that, sure enough, the princess is his prize; and the dragon is reduced to lighting Droopy's cigar!
THE END
Now, this cartoon was released in two formats on super 8. Derann released they're print on low fade stock, but it was the flat version. There were versions of this cartoon, and this is because in the early scope days, MGM animation would release the preferred (by MGM) scope version of they're cartoons, but they would also release a flat version for those theaters that couldn't run scope films, for lack of the proper screens or financial reasons.
However, these scope cartoons were made for the scope format in the first place, as background information in the paintings would be designed to be seen in the widescreen, so, to see a flat version of this film, you would be far closer into the image, as well as only getting a fraction of what the artists intended.
Cineavision Films, however, released "One Droopy Knight" in they're "Cineavision" format, (which meant actually window boxing the image to the proper original aspect ratio, which appears as a perfect square on the super 8, with black bars on the left and right hand side).
I have always preferred this "Cineavision" process as, you do get all the original film information in each frame, where the common scope super 8, cuts off a good deal from the top and bottom.
Where the Derann print was low fade, "Knight" was released on Kodak SP. However, I can report that the SP on this print I have (and no doubt on other existing prints of this) is fadeless, a good Kodak SP indeed.
The image quality is just sparkling. It's a very sharp print and the original source print is an MGM Technicolor print, and all the colors very vibrant.
An extra plus is that you have much of the original MGM countdown and such from the original print, which I always like.
The sound is mono, as was the original release, but a very sharp clean mono. The source negative also did not have any wear.
This print is a hard one to find. While "Cineavision" also released "Millionaire Droopy" (a remake of the earlier cartoon with gags left out and modern backgrounds), it appears that there were far more prints of "Millionaire Droopy" made and far fewer copies of "One Droopy Knight".
However, this cartoon is well worth hunting down and I can highly reccommend it to any lover of Droopy. One last note, this cartoon was also an Academy award nominee for best short subject of that year, no small feat.
As always ... LONG LIVE SUPER 8!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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