Title: The Peace Conference
Studio: Columbia
Date: 04/26/35
Credits:
Story
Ben Harrison
Music
Joe De Nat
Animation
Manny Gould
Allen Rose
Harry Love
Series: Krazy Kat
Running time (of viewed version): 6:27
Commercial DVD Availability: -
Synopsis: Krazy brings a gun to a peace conference that unleashes famous musicians and singers on diplomats.
Comments: "Yankees Win!" in the establishing mewspaper; I suppose this would have been just about opening day. I wonder if the Yankees were a bad team at the time and it was as unlikely as peace, the equivalent of saying hell froze over. (Probably not; the '34 Yankees finished second in the AL, behind the Tigers, who lost the World Series to St. Louis, like in 2006; in '68, the Tigers won the World Series against the Cardinals tho. Slicing up the world leaves it in pieces. There's a fasces (an axe in rods, a symbol of power in ancient Rome and taken on by Mussolini; thus, "fascism") on the pediment of the Peace building. Krazy is inexplicably a diplomat, bringing a gun for world peace. Somehow I don't think the establishment types in the world diplomatic corps would care much for a slice of American popular music. I also don't think a bunch of American pop singers would get along. Bing Crosby shows up. One of the World Powers is Uncle Sam. One might be Stalin. One looks like the bad guy from melodramas with a tall pilgrim hat and a devil mustache and goatee (sounds French). One red nosed guy looks like Mr Hyde and seems to be wearing a Union Jack. There's a generic Russian looking guy, and what I think is an Italian looking guy (but he might be a gypsy). A Chinese guy. Gandhi. Why these seem to be a mix of personifications of countries and real people, I don't know. There's a clarinetist who looks a little like Harpo and says "hey hey". Peace does not make Mars, god of war, happy. I like the use of classical imagery in the cartoon tho. I also like how Mars is depicted with freckles. A singer with a megaphone and Groucho style pointed hair sings softly to Mars. He gets smacked. Another singer in a bowtie and a double breasted suit also tries (looks like the earlier Bing, but doesn't sing very Bing). There's a band with a fat conductor. Interesting if not entirely well done movement down a hall. This cartoon does a disservice to the complexity of diplomacy.
I haven't seen the cartoon but "fat conductor" usually means Paul Whiteman.
ReplyDeleteRudy Vallee has the megaphone and Ted Lewis is the guy with the battered hat.
The world powers in the table scene are Uncle Sam, a German (resembles Paul von Hindenburg who died the year before and the stereotypical Prussian aristocrat), a Frenchman (the key points are the beard and moustache), John Bull (the British equivalent of Uncle Sam) and a Russian (call him a Cossack without a horse). The guy in the hat with the earrings is probably intended to be a really old stereotype for an Italian, though you're right he also looks like the stereotype of a Gypsy.
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