Hugh Harman's last films for MGM are his best work. While no longer an independent producer, he succeeded in competing with Disney in the visual sense, but not with story and characters.
The Little Mole is a perfect example of a visually impressive film with haphazard story. A child mole, who cannot see very well in the sunlight, mistakes a trash dump for a castle. A traveling skunk salesman, Primrose Skunk, reveals this to him after selling him a pair of glasses and encourages him to see the world. Primrose Skunk is supposedly a con man, based on his smooth talking demeanor and theme song, despite that he doesn't really do anything deceiving.
The glasses break after a fall and the mole falls into a rushing river. We then see various flashbacks to his mother warning him to be careful and Primrose Skunk's advice. These don't make a whole lot of sense.
The mole is somehow washed back on the bank near his burrow and is home safe. The short ends with him and his mother admiring "his castle."
I'm guessing that Harman's intended moral was home is where you're safe, but the ending shot of the trash dump from the perspective of the mole comes across as "ignorance is bliss."
A beautifully crafted film with top notch personality animation, but a troubling narrative.
The Little Mole is a perfect example of a visually impressive film with haphazard story. A child mole, who cannot see very well in the sunlight, mistakes a trash dump for a castle. A traveling skunk salesman, Primrose Skunk, reveals this to him after selling him a pair of glasses and encourages him to see the world. Primrose Skunk is supposedly a con man, based on his smooth talking demeanor and theme song, despite that he doesn't really do anything deceiving.
The glasses break after a fall and the mole falls into a rushing river. We then see various flashbacks to his mother warning him to be careful and Primrose Skunk's advice. These don't make a whole lot of sense.
The mole is somehow washed back on the bank near his burrow and is home safe. The short ends with him and his mother admiring "his castle."
I'm guessing that Harman's intended moral was home is where you're safe, but the ending shot of the trash dump from the perspective of the mole comes across as "ignorance is bliss."
A beautifully crafted film with top notch personality animation, but a troubling narrative.