A laugh out loud scene for Something on a Stick Day (USA)

 

“Bonsoir. Je m'appelle Rosalie!”

Rosalie (the wonderful Sarah Duhamel) buys herself a phonograph and is delighted by the wonders it brings. Quick, the whole household should know!

 

Not only the obvious moments (no spoilers here), but the small, seemingly improvised bits is what makes Rosalie stand out above American productions of the time – with the exception of Roscoe Arbuckle's; his water bucket pun in His Wife's Mistakes (1916) still has me in stitches.

 

Duhamel makes great use of her physique, and doesn't shy away from looking inelegant, boorish even. Her hips are for pushing things and men out of her way, and her mighty paws easily toss any unwieldy piece of furniture out of the window.

 

Like Rosalie's irresistible gusto and her delightful ditties, the combination of Duhamel's physical comedy and (former #vaudeville-ian) Bosetti's Italian-flavoured slapstick, plus some of the best stop-motion trickery I've ever seen, is simply magical.

An invention for Benjamin Franklin's birthday. Inventor Charley (Charles R. Bowers) comes up with an ingenious method to make eggs break-proof for transport by rubberizing them.

“… as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.”

– Benjamin Franklin in his autobiography

Bowers was an almost-forgotten silent era comedian, filmmaker, and animator. In more recent years, his groundbreaking stop-motion comedy has found a new, well-deserved, interest.

Norman McLaren's low-budget pixelation (animation created with live action footage) was groundbreaking in many aspects; even the soundtrack was painted directly onto the film stock.

“Love your neighbour”

– title card

Read more about its fascinating backstory and watch the short animation over at the National Film Board of Canada's website.

Young Jill – played by the tragically doomed Lora Lee Michel – grows up on a ranch in an undisclosed African country (aka “Africa”) with her father. One day, two porters pass her house carrying an orphaned baby #gorilla. Smitten, she wants and gets the ape, names it Joe, and raises it until the simian reaches exceptional size. That's when a couple of showman collecting exotic menagerie for a Hollywood nightclub come across the odd couple. After long consideration and desperate for money, Jill decides to take Joe to the States where the two become an overnight cabaret sensation. But like Kong before him, Joe is not made for the concrete jungle.

“Am I dreamin', or did I just see a gorilla? And a beautiful dame!”

– Max O'Hara

One decade and a Hays Code later, the people who brought the world King Kong (1933) present Mighty Joe Young: more drama, more spectacle, and superior special effects by Marcel Delgado, Ray #Harryhausen and Willis O'Brien et al. A box-office dud ánd Academy Award for Special Effects winner, Mighty Joe Young is now recognised as an #animation classic. In particular the nightclub scenes (keep your eyes peeled for Phil “The Swedish Angel” Olafsson!) are a wonderful display of the magic of #StopMotion.