RAWHIDE - INCIDENT OF THE 100 AMULETS (1960)

"FUNNY KINDA WEATHER.  YOU GET A FEELIN' SOMETHIN'S GONNA HAPPEN."

   Yeah, you saw right.  This is an episode of the Western TV show RAWHIDE.  Funny thing, though.  The new issue of BARE BONES magazine points out somethin' this cowpoke never knew before; that is, that RAWHIDE has a disproportionate number of spooky, horror-adjacent episodes in it's 8 year run.  Of course, Clint Eastwood WAS the jet pilot who shot down the title monster in TARANTULA! but he continued to encounter spooks and witches on RAWHIDE too.  At least tangentially.

Episode starts with the chuckwagon out of salt and the herd acting restless.  Then the sun goes out.  It's one of them there EEEEE-clipses.  Looks like somethin's eatin' away at the sun!  Nah, it's just the moon comin' between the earth and the sun.  Or it could be the ending of the CREEEE-ated world.  The herd ain't gonna like it gettin' suddenly dark so they cowpokes better go calm them. 

"What are you jaspers waitin' for?", says Clint, "you afraid of the dark or somethin'?"  Cowhand Jesus gets . . . . Jesus Christ, did they really call this Mexican character "Hey Soos"?!?!?!? Holy crap!  Well, anyway, while attempted to calm the horses during the eeeeeee-clipse, "Hey Soos" is injured by a bucking horse named Blackie (it keeps getting better!) and gets the rest of the day off to go visit his mother in town.  Wishbone (who's in charge of the chuckwagon, I'm guessin') slips  - - OMG do I really have to keep writing "Hey Soos"?!?!?!  -- a fiver to pick up some salt.  Hey Soos rides into town and greets a townie (played by THRILLER alum Ed Nelson) and asks directions to his mother's place:  the Patines Ranch.  Ed Nelson whips out a charm he has around his neck (lookin' to me like a white feather which is apropos because he high-tails-it over to a small group of townies and says that's the guy who owns the Patines ranch. While in the general store, Hey Soos gets a cold reception.  He wonders if it's because he's Mexican but no, it's because he and his mother own the Patines ranch.  Why's that a problem, I wonder???

While Hey Soos is buying his bacon, dried beans and salt, a huge crowd of townies is gathering outside.  And they don't look like they're going to invite Hey Soos to a Tupperware party (Awwwwwwwwwww, Tupperware just went bankrupt!  :(  When Hey Soos asks the storekeeper and his daughter directions to the Patines ranch, daughter dramatically drops something and Dad gets googly-eyed skeerd!  Seriously, this is a bigger reaction than the villagers when asked directions to Castle Dracula!  And when Hey Soos carries his supplies outside, the villagers (among them Ed Nelson and the great R.G. Armstrong) actually starts hurling rocks and shouting get out of town.  Poor Hey Soos gets the kickshit outta him!  When Hey Soos doesn't come back with the salt the next morning, Pete Nolan & Rowdy Yates (Sheb Wooley & Clint Eastwood) ride into town to look for him.  HEY THAT'S SHEB WOOLEY!!!! The guy who sang PURPLE PEOPLE EATER and who originated 'The Wilhelm Scream'!!!!!  

They find his horse still tied up looking like it's been standing there all not.  Hey Soos wouldn't abandon his horsey like that.  All the businesses are shut and the town is deserted.  Rowdy Clint notices a doorway that has about 87 upturned horseshoes nailed above it.  Reading Ruth E. Kelley's THE BOOK OF HALLOWEEN, I know fer certain that's to ward off evil and them thar witches.  Ed Nelson pops outta that door and warns Pete & Rowdy to stay away from that horse.  That's the 'Witch Boy's horse"!  The good folk of Parkerton have Hey Soos, bashed to within an inch of his life, locked up over thar in the jailhouse.  With a fractured skull.  The guys aren't too happy to see Hey Soos in that condition; especially Clint who looks like he's rarin' to kick somebody's arse!  The Sheriff (Richard Reeves) says he'll let them into the cell to talk to Hey Soos but they'll have to wear these amulets.  Yep, the same white feather one Ed Nelson flashed.  For protection against the Witch Boy!  Rowdy & Pete are beyond confused. 

"It don't seem possible," says the Sheriff.  "You've been ridin' trail with him and you don't know the blood of the devil is in his veins?!?!?!"  The town of Parkerton thinks Hey Soos' mother is a witch who put a curse upon the whole valley.  In comes old Doc Taggert (the wonderful Whit Bissell) and says "Well, perhaps you didn't know the boy signed a pact with the devil".  Doc patches up Hey Soos.  A stone-throwing, gun-totin' mob sheepishly enters the jailhouse . . . but still carrying amulets . . . led by the apron-wearing R.G. Armstrong.  Rowdy tells Hey Soos he's got to get well or else he'll be riding a jackass all the way to Sedalia.  Hey Soos' mother is not allowed in town and is starving our there on her ranch.  Doc Taggert doesn't believe in witchcraft and doesn't wear an amulet, Rowdy notices.  Why hasn't Doc taken food out to that starving woman.  Doc might not believe in witchcraft but he dies believe in bullets.  Nope, he ain't gonna do it.  Hey Soos is too hurt to move so Rowdy grabs the groceries Hey Soos bought and defiantly rides out to the Patines ranch with the food.  Meanwhile, the hysteria of the townsfolk keeps ramping up to a fever pitch.  Oh yes, also in the cast is Virginia Christine as a mother who thinks her little girl has been bewitched.  Those of a certain age will remember her as Mrs. Olsen in the Folger's coffee commercials but Universal horror fans will remember her from THE MUMMY'S CURSE (1944); especially from the best scene in that film when she comes back to life and slowly frees herself from her tomb of mud.

This episode has a surprising amount of shadowy indoor scenes for a western as well as nighttime outdoors scenes which give a nice spooky atmosphere to this basic "angry mob on a witchhunt" story.  The people of Parkerton are the 'salt of the earth' -- in the exact same sense as Gene Wilder used the term in BLAZING SADDLES -- in that they are small-minded, superstitious morons who blames a lack of rainfall or cows ceasing to give milk on some poor old woman a mile outside of town.  This 27th episode of the second season aired on May 6, 1960 and seems to be a hangover response to the age of McCarthyism which only recently eased up.  Our heroes (the regular cast of the show) are firmly on the side of the wronged old woman and Hey Soos in standing up to the mob mentality of the town so we're sure where the showrunners stand on this situation.  The chiaroscuro lighting and cinematography is comparable to B&W TV shows of the same period which would include THE TWILIGHT ZONE and BORIS KARLOFF'S THRILLER; in fact, this could very easily be one of the "western" episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE.  This episode was quite a good watch for me and I'll be seeking out some more of those horror-adjacent RAWHIDEs.           

 

CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (1961)

 "NOW THE FIRST THING WE'VE GOT TO THINK ABOUT IS TO ESCAPE THIS FINKY MONSTER!": ROGER CORMAN'S "TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT".

  With a little Castro Cuba thrown in.  Filmgroup strikes again with this rewatch of Corman's horror-comedy.  Yes, it IS a horror-comedy.  Anyone who doesn't see this quite plainly (from the animated funny monster titles to the name-dropped counter-revolutionary characters such as 'General Tostada' and  'General Cabeza Grande' {Big Head in Spanish}), I question as to whether the lights are on but nobody's home.  I have seen this many, many times over the years as this is a public domain film.  I have always really enjoyed it because, well, it's genuinely funny and that ping pong ball-eyed monster is to die for!  Well I remember my doddy Cheeks and I playing the DOORWAYS TO HORROR VHS board game in the mid-1980s

and at least a scene or two from this movie were featured.  I say again.  It's a public domain film.  DOORWAYS TO HORROR used public domain film clips almost exclusively and that made it even more lovable! 

So, we've got the counter-revolutionary storyline to overthrow the new communist government in Cuba.  We have Antony Carbone doing his best Bogart-in-To-Have-And-Have-Not impression.  We have said crooked Captain Carbone telling his tale of some cock-and-bull sea monster legend so he can bump off his crewmates and keep the loot.  And then we have the sea monster actually existing in all his googly-eyed glory!  I have to say that there's not much here NOT to love!  That's why I've rewatched it over and over again since the 1980s crap videotape I first owned.  Besides all this, there's the very fun screenplay by Charles B. Griffith (who had already penned LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, A BUCKET OF BLOOD and ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS before this).  I mean, listen to this dialogue spoken by U.S. secret agent Sparks Moran

(played by Robert Towne -- YES, THAT Robert Towne -- the one who wrote CHINATOWN is in this movie playing a secret agent who makes an undetectable radio set out of simulated hot dogs and tubes inside of dill pickles):  "The Cuban treasury was now in the gentle hands of Renzo Capetto:  the most trustworthy man ever to be deported from Sicily.  They thought they were smart but little did they know that I, Sparks Moran, was an American agent.  Luckily, I had been able to work my way into the crew by posing as a notorious gum machine burglar from Chicago.  My real name is XK150."  Immediately after this speech, Robert Towne jumps down from the boat to help Antony Carbone with some cargo.  Only he doesn't just 'jump down from the boat'; he apparently loses his balance and grabs for a support pole which is right next to actress Betsy Jones-Moreland.  In doing this, he accidentally snags a hunk of her hair against the pole and the grimace made by the actress is real and deliberately left in the film.  No take twos, folks!  Right after this awesome blooper, Betsy says the line:  "You'll think of a way to remove them (the crew) and grab that loot because you're my big, strong, swinging brain!"  I mean, priceless.  What does that even mean???  Betsy as Carbone's moll Marybelle is wonderfully trashy; constantly calling him 'Boopsy'.  Marybelle's little brother Happy Jack Monahan (Robert Bean) has a mouth twitch from watching too many Bogart movies (Humphrey reference #2) and there's also a crew member names Pete Peterson Jr. (Beach Dickerson) who only speaks in animal noises.  Antony Carbone's performance here is spot on and much more relaxed than his rather stiff performance in Corman's Poe film THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM.  Carbone's Captain Renzo Capetto decides to tell the Cuban crew escorting the loot about the legendary sea monster in the area; the monster was hooked by a 'Cuban fisherman named Hemingway' and dragged for miles.  Ernest Hemingway wrote TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT.  Far from being some slapdash, quickie B-movie, CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA knows exactly what it's doing and is a great watch because of it. 

Bless his googly-eyed heart!

Naturally, the only way now to watch the film is the newly-restored ( as of early this year) blu ray double feature Film Masters put out; pairing this film with DEVIL'S PARTNER.  The newly-discovered 35mm print looks unbelievably good and I never in a million years thought I'd ever see this traditionally muddy, faded film look almost pristine!!!  Best movie ever made?  I dunno, maybe.  I mean, something this durn entertaining is nothing to sneeze at!

  

First Winter Song by Alfred Perceval Graves

 AS WE MOVE INTO AUTUMN . . . HERE'S A FALL POEM FOR YE.  I first read this in Ruth E. Kelley's 1919 THE BOOK OF HALLOWE'EN and I'll betcha they'll be more selections coming this October. . .

Take my tidings!

Stags contend;

Snows descend—

Summer’s end!

A chill wind raging;

The sun low keeping,

Swift to set

O’er seas high sweeping.

Dull red the fern;

Shapes are shadows:

Wild geese mourn

O’er misty meadows.

Keen cold limes each weaker wing.

Icy times—

Such I sing!

Take my tidings!

Alfred Perceval Graves (1846-1931)

DEVIL'S PARTNER (1961)

 "FAT AND SKINNY HAD A RACE.  FAT FELL DOWN AND BROKE HER FACE!" 

So sayeth the wonderful Byron Foulger as the bum Papers as he tries to insult the decidedly NOT overweight diner runner Ida (Claire Carleton).  This Filmgroup opus begins with an old man named Pete Jensen (played by Ed Nelson in old age makeup) moiders a goat and uses it's blood to sell his soul to the Devil.  Shortly thereafter, the old man's nephew Nick Richards (also Ed Nelson without the old age makeup) shows up in town and is informed his uncle is dead by Sheriff Tom Fuller (Spencer Carlisle in his only screen appearance) and ole Doc Lucas (Edgar Buchanan -- who's a-movin' kinda slow at the Junction). 

Ole Pete's up to no good

Nick's a nice, clean-cut young man in that 1961 way and soon ingratiates himself to Doc's daughter Nell (Jean Allison) who is a-fianced to local grease monkey David Simpson (Richard Crane).  It's not too much of a spoiler to say that, before long, we suspect Nick isn't all he appears to be.  After he and Nell bring a can of goat's milk to a guy, said guy drinks it and dies.  David Simpson's cute ole German Shepherd Prince suddenly goes berserk and gnaws on David's face.  During this scene, we cut back and forth to Nick crouching down on the floor (by old Pete Jensen's Satanic chalk design) as he apparently is controlling the dog.  We are treated to another of those scenes where a sweet ole dog is trying to be made to look like he's viciously attacking.  Richard Crane does his best to hold the dog's face to his own neck while it merely looks like the cute pooch is hugging him.  Crane and the dog fall behind a big ole armchair so the actor can mime clubbing the dog to death in self-defense.  In case you're keeping score, that's two moidered animals in about 20 minutes of screen time.  Is the Devil loose in the little town of Wairdaphuqarwii???  Oh OK OK!  I know the name of the town; it's Furnace Flats.  Well, Nick Richards doesn't seem to sweat in the 100+ degree heat; this point is mentioned a few times as to clue the viewer in.  Also, when the Sheriff says "I don't know how you do it, son.", Nick quips "Well, I'm really the Devil.  Got kinda hot down there so I came up here to cool off.  Sort of a summer vacation."  Tee hee, ain't he a minx!

Richard Crane, Byron Foulger, Edgar Buchanan

DEVIL'S PARTNER (no 'the' on the title card) is typical of these B&W B-movice put out by Filmgroup, Roger Corman at AIP, etc. in that most of it's 73 minutes of screen time is taken up by actors talking to each other.  Not a lot in the way of action occurs; although there is some.  Ed Nelson gets an "introducing" screen credit; wow, is this really his first film.  Not by a long chalk.  I make it something like his 19th film.  Around the same time, he became ubiquitous on television with appearances on BORIS KARLOFF'S THRILLER, ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and a TWILIGHT ZONE.  The aforementioned Byron Foulger is an old favourite from the 40's in everything from THE BLACK RAVEN and THE WHISTLER to bit parts in respectable A-pictures like MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, A DAY AT THE RACES and THE LOST WEEKEND.  Veteran actor Edgar Buchanan is best known to me for his appearances as Uncle Joe in TV's PETTICOAT JUNCTION as well as such films as BENJI, DONOVAN'S REEF and a passel of Westerns.  Richard Crane appeared in THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE as well as starring as the title role on TV's ROCKY JONES, SPACE RANGER. 

Byron Foulger & Claire Carleton

Claire Carleton was knocking around Hollywood since 1933 and appeared in tons of movies -- among them, for our purposes of interest -- MILDRED PIERCE, the Three Stooges' FRIGHT NIGHT, THE SON OF DR. JEKYLL and THE BLACK SLEEP.  By the time she appeared in DEVIL'S PARTNER as Ida the Diner owner, she was into the hard-nosed, brassy dame blonde persona which enlivens the film.  In fact, the presence of all these veteran character actors (I'm including Ed Nelson even though he's a tyro here) helps lift DEVIL'S PARTNER up into watchability.  As I said, not a whole lot happens during it's relatively-short running time so the fact that we have likeable, delightful character actors makes it all go down like a spoonful of sugar.  There's also some nice theremin going on here; as this is still the era when theremins would happily populate most horror and science fiction movies.  The score here is courtesy of the great Ronald Stein; who would go on to gives us many great movie scores including SPIDER BABY, the wonderfully atmospheric DEMENTIA 13 and his masterwork THE HAUNTED PALACE score.  

Ed Nelson controlling pooches

DEVIL'S PARTNER is one of those low budget B&W horror flicks I'm surprised I didn't see back in the 1970's on TV; either on DR. SHOCK or CREATURE DOUBLE FEATURE.  I dunno, maybe I DID but I sure don't remember it.  Seems like a movie they would've shown, though.  But as I say, it's a pleasant enough little time waster but nothing that memorable.  Oh yes, and in case you haven't figured it out by now, the movie poster bears absolutely NO relation to an event appearing in the actual film.  Gotta love it!  There is, however, a nice little 'transformation' scene a la THE WOLFMAN in slow, lap-dissolves.  And the new (as of earlier this year) Film Masters blu ray restoration is the way to see it.

SCOOBY-DOO AND THE LEGEND OF THE VAMPIRE (2003)

 I THINK I'M GONNA INSTITUTE A RULE THAT EVERY HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN MUST HAVE A SCOOBY MOVIE IN IT.

  And I'm proceeding as I mean to go on. Somebody, I forget who, got me to watch this Scooby movie by talking it up a lot.  I can't remember who because it's been a good while since then and I'm just watching it now.  Mystery Incorporated travel to Australia to see a rock festival and a landmark called Vampire Rock.  As Velma reads from a book:  "It says the locals call it Vampire Rock because they believe the Yowie Yahoo lives in the rock's caves."  Now, to take the Yowie Yahoo first; he is a legendary ancient Australian vampire.  OK, so far so good.  Now, to take the "locals" -- I have seldom heard worse Australian accents in my life!  I mean, sheesh!  The American voice actors, well-known and accomplished as most of them may be, can't do an Australian accent to save their lives and it's a little distracting while watching the film.  The first 15 minutes or so take place in much to much sunshine and feature nothing spooky so you'll have to be patient.  Finally, when night falls we finally get to the Scooby-Dooishness. 

Shaggy & Scooby have a brief encounter with the Yowie Yahoo who appears at the top of Vampire Rock in a visual swiped wholesale from FANTASIA's "Night On Bald Mountain".  Next we meet the rock group The Hex Girls who somehow already know Mystery Inc.  We learn from the terribly-accented Australian festival promoters that the previous year, finalist rock group

Wildwind disappeared and they think the Yowie Yahoo got them and turned them into vampires.  This year, finalists are starting to disappear again.  So, a word about the 'rock music' that features rather heavily in the film; particularly at the beginning.  It's 2003 ska-punk lite which means it's terrible.  However, when we first meet the Hex Girls, they are performing on stage and their song is actually pretty good.  It must be noted that one of the Hex Girls -- Dusk -- is voiced by the Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin.  Our mystery gang decide to go undercover as a rock group in order to solve the mystery.  Wow, what un-rock 'n' roll costumes they sport, I'll tell ya!  And Freddie STILL manages to keep his ascot.  Jinkies!  While filling their tummies at the concession stands, Shaggy & Scooby are attacked by the vampiric Wildwind bandmembers:  Dark Skull, Lightning Strikes & Stormy Weathers.    In patented Scooby-Doo 'getting-chased-by-monsters-while-rock-song-is-playing, we get a TREMENDOUSLY Veruca Salt/Volcano Girls soundalike song which, by 2003 was already a decade out of date.  And it's REALLY close to the song Volcano Girls, I'm just sayin'.  So far, there's been a lot of 'borrowing' going on in this movie. At this point, the Yowie Yahoo materializes and band-naps another rock group 'The Bad Omens' from the stage with the help of the Wildwind vamps and a tremendous maelstrom/whirlwind.  Velma notices the smoky whirlwind smells like cotton candy.  Eventually, the Hex Girls get swooped up in the Yowie Yahoo's whirlwind and taken to Vampire Rock so the Mystery Inc. gang has to go there and solve the mystery.

SCOOBY-DOO AND THE LEGEND OF THE VAMPIRE is not bad.  It's serviceable for your Scooby fix but, in comparison to the Scooby moovies I've watched in the last few Halloween Countdowns, this has to be the lesser of them.  The (mostly) awful songs and shoddy Australian accents made for some tedium but the Scooby gang mostly rises above it.  These are the days when Casem Kasem was still around voicing Shaggy and, of course, Frank Welker is still doing Freddie & Scooby's voices as always.  Not much is made of the presence of Jane Wiedlin in the cast; she's merely voicing one of the Hex Girls and that's about it.  A lot of the traditional Scooby score is used but re-orchestrated (on synthesizer, it sounds like to me.  The Yowie Yahoo, as stated, is too much of a FANTASIA rip-off but the look of the three Wildwind vampires is pretty cool.  It's only 72 minutes and holds your interest (once it gets started) so it's an inoffensive time-waster.  

Good Movies for Halloween

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2024

 THE EARTH HAS TURNED ONCE AGAIN TO THE SPOOKY SEASON! 

Beautiful Chad Savage art; I hope you don't mind me using it here.  Everyone please go buy stuff at The Dark Art of Chad Savage -

And the Countdown to Halloween is here.  You know, when I was growing up in the 1970's, the horror boom was going strong.  It was a time when gothic horror was king (owing a lot to DARK SHADOWS), horror comics were published by every company, horror movies (from the classic Hammer Horrors and Amicus flicks to the new breed sparked by THE EXORCIST) were everywhere,

Bobby "Boris" Pickett's old single "MONSTER MASH" once again became a hit single, horror hosts were on TV's all over the country playing old horror flicks, horror paperbacks (including the soon-to-be ubiquitous Stephen King) ruled the shelves, horror LP's came out all the time, Bigfoot and UFO's (amongst other cryptids and strange phenomena) filled TV shows and magazines (including the classic IN SEARCH OF... with Leonard Nimoy) and everyone was holding parlour seances, wearing mood rings, playing with Ouija boards, reading Tarot cards, reading mass market paperbacks of THE NECRONOMICON and some even turning more to the "old religion". My mother loved all things spooky and horror and she encouraged that Halloween spirit in my all my life.  Her favourite holiday was, of course, Halloween.  She even chose as the place for her honeymoon -- Salem, Massachusetts!  When we lost her this past October 9th, I dedicated the 2023 Countdown to Halloween to her and her love of everything spooky.  And this year, I do the same -- and every year I do the Countdown from now on.  I mean, who else could I dedicate it to?  The love of the horror genre and the season of Halloween is not nasty and evil as some idiots would try to convince you.  Halloween and all things spooky are to me like a cozy blanket to wrap myself inside.  It brings back those wonderful bygone days of childhood when horror and Halloween evoked not a sense of fear but a sense of wonder. 

from Kelsi Slime & Slashers Halloween-a-thon

A full moon peeking from behind the clouds, framed in bare tree branches with perhaps a slight mist rolling in over the jack o'lantern perched grinning on somebody's porch. And the sound of skittering leaves gently wafted down the street by a cool, Autumn breeze.  All this and more is what Halloween means to me and my mother and I loved it so much.  Of course, I still do.  I can't believe it's been 18 years since I first glimpsed John Rozum's OG Countdown to Halloween and decided to participate in it.  I think I only missed a year since that time.  And if it's at all possible, I hope to continue doing the Countdown to Halloween because Halloween and all the spooky scary stuff of which it's made is some of the most important stuff to this cobwebby old heart.  So drop by every day here in October and I hope you like what you see.  I'll be watching the spooky movies once again and talking about them so I hope you'll join me and even maybe participate in the 2024 Countdown to Halloween.  As Dr. Shock once said:  "Let there be fright . . . in the night!".  Spook along with me, ghoulies and ghosties.

September 2024 Top Ten List

HERE ARE MY FAVOURITE FILMS I WATCHED FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IN SEPTEMBER: 

 

1. CARNIVAL IN FLANDERS  (1935)
2. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON  (2023)
3. WATCHMEN:  CHAPTER 1  (2024)
4. SAGAN OM SKROTNISSE OCH HANS VANNER  (1985)
5. MAX STEINER:  MAESTRO OF MOVIE MUSIC  (2019)
6. INSIGNIFICANCE  (1985)
7. CRAZE  (1974)
8. THE MUMMY AND THE CURSE OF THE JACKALS  (1969)
9. 41  (2012)
10. ORPHAN:  FIRST KILL  (2022)

And here is everything that I watched during the month: 

Why Are Pencils Painted Yellow?

Back in the 1980's, I worked at the legendary Rustler Steak House and wrote the weekly newsletter for the place for a few years.  Those of you who remember -- actually only one Cheeky Cheeks will remember -- one issue of the Rustler newsletter featured an entire article on the pencil.  Well, 100 years later, here I go again with the history of the pencil on this here blog.

MOTHER GOOSE GOES HOLLYWOOD (1938)

 IT'S BEEN ALMOST A YEAR SINCE I'VE DONE ONE OF THESE "WHO'S THAT OLD CELEBRITY IN THAT CARTOON" POSTS. 

Almost a year, in fact, when I did the Columbia cartoon "MOTHER GOOSE IN SWINGTIME" from 1939.  This Disney Silly Symphony cartoon arises from outta the previous year but is much in the same vein.  I see my pal Cheekies gave this 4 stars when he watched it a while ago.  And that's without me even explaining it to him.  Well, here I am explaining it in case he wants to watch it again! And at the end, I'll post 4 pages about the cartoon that appeared in a 1939 issue of PHOTOPLAY magazine which I borrowed from "Andreas Deja View" blog (and I hope they don't mind). 

So, the cartoon opens with Mother Goose mimicking the MGM lion (with Ars Gratia Artis replaced by Ertznay to Ouyay!).  Next we go to Little Bo Peep who has lost her sheep.  Bo Peep is, of course, Katharine Hepburn. 

Next we have Old King Cole calling for his fiddlers three.  Old King Cole is another familiar face from these types of cartoons:  Hugh Herbert. 

And his fiddlers are, of course, the Marx Brothers.  And another familiar face from these cartoons is grumpy Ned Sparks as the Jester.  The Marx Brothers tune up on their violins, stomp out the time with their feet and smash the fiddles over their knees.  King Cole calls for his bowl which is delivered by 1930's comedian Joe Penner; whose catchphrase was "You wanna buy a duck?" 

And this being a Disney cartoon, up pops Donald Duck out of the bowl!  Next we have "Rub a dub dub three men in a tub" and they are Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh from MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY and Spencer Tracy & Freddie Bartholomew from CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS. 

Interestingly, Katharine Hepburn putt-putts by still looking for her sheep.  This is a few years before she and Spencer would meet on screen in WOMAN OF THE YEAR!  Humpty Dumpty is next and he is, predictably, W.C. Fields who disturbs a nest looking for his "little chickadee" and out pops Edgar Bergen's ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy. 

Fields & McCarthy had a long time "feud" on THE EDGAR BERGEN & CHARLIE MCCARTHY SHOW at the time.  Next Simple Simon met a pieman -- or rather Stan Laurel met Oliver Hardy. 

"See Saw Margery Daw" find Edward G. Robinson and Greta Garbo on the see saw. 

Little Jack Horner is Eddie Cantor.  Unfortunately, what comes out of his pie is Cab Calloway & His Orchestra in a simply racist stereotype no matter how you look at it.  Joining them are jazz great Fats Waller and Stepin Fetchit (unfortunately).

Then Little Boy Blue blows his horn:  actor Wallace Beery. 

The we go to "The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" with all of the cast milling around like maniacs.  Edna Mae Oliver, Mae West and (I think) Claudette Colbert appear as a trio

and then we see Clark Gable and George Arliss (famous for playing Disraeli)

followed by Laurel & Hardy again.  Fats Waller is tormented by the Marx Brothers while trying to play his piano. 

Fred Astaire appears to give us a little dance

and (sadly) Stepin Fetchit appears again.  Damn.  Cab Calloway & His Orchestra come back, as well as W.C. Fields & Charlie McCarthy on the stand-up bass. The two "big mouths" of Hollywood - that's how they were known then -- comic actor Joe E. Brown ("Well . . . nobody's perfect") and Martha Raye make an appearance skatting. 

And to wrap everything up, Katharine Hepburn is still looking for her lost sheep.

           

Here's a link to the blog post on Deja View which talks about this same cartoon.