A nonchalant little trifle which begins with the hero supposedly scribbling pictures of himself on a drawing board (displaying improbable facility with a pen if the drawings really were his) which come comically to life. Then comes the song, staged among a patch of trees with Louise Massey flanked by the Westerners wearing an expensive looking cowgirl outfit that rather undercuts the song's stress on the simplicity of the outdoor life and unimportance of money. At just 8 minutes the whole caboodle doesn't have time to outstay its welcome.
3 Reviews
They can't all be gems-and this one definitely isn't!
llltdesq5 November 2015
Warning: Spoilers
This is a cartoon in the Screen Song series produced by Fleischer. There will be mild spoilers ahead (though this one really can't be spoiled much):
I love the Screen Song series and hadn't found one I considered to be almost a total waste of celluloid-until now. The animation, what relatively little of it there is here, is reasonably good, but the rest of it is incredibly tedious. Which is too bad, because it starts from an interesting concept.
The premise has one of the vocalists from the musical guests (Louise Massey and the Westerners) stands in front of an easel with a stack of still drawings and pretends to draw images which become animation illustrating the tall tales he's spinning. Nice idea, but it doesn't really come together, in part because the guy doing the talking is boring and in part because his tall tales mostly are about as interesting as he is. The one or two which work are good and the animation is good, but the dullness of the lead is too hard to overcome.
The live action portions and the song are forgettable and dull. The group is largely a family act, with two brothers and a sister making up three of the five members. I've never heard of them before and I suspect there's a good reason for that.
For completists only.
I love the Screen Song series and hadn't found one I considered to be almost a total waste of celluloid-until now. The animation, what relatively little of it there is here, is reasonably good, but the rest of it is incredibly tedious. Which is too bad, because it starts from an interesting concept.
The premise has one of the vocalists from the musical guests (Louise Massey and the Westerners) stands in front of an easel with a stack of still drawings and pretends to draw images which become animation illustrating the tall tales he's spinning. Nice idea, but it doesn't really come together, in part because the guy doing the talking is boring and in part because his tall tales mostly are about as interesting as he is. The one or two which work are good and the animation is good, but the dullness of the lead is too hard to overcome.
The live action portions and the song are forgettable and dull. The group is largely a family act, with two brothers and a sister making up three of the five members. I've never heard of them before and I suspect there's a good reason for that.
For completists only.
Twilight on the Trail (1937)
Michael_Elliott29 September 2017
Twilight on the Trail (1937)
** (out of 4)
The Fleischer Studio produced a number of these animated short films where the "bouncing ball" would have audience members singing together. Louise Massey and The Westeners are the musical guests and the cowboy also opens up this short talking about his cowboy ways. We then see the animated version of some of his stories including his working with a lasso as well as another story dealing with him fighting a bear. From here we get to the title song and the bouncing ball. It seems 1937 brought a new format to the Screen Songs series but it's rather a miss. The idea of someone talking about their adventures as we see the animation was okay but there really wasn't much to the stories and even the animation wasn't as good as you'd come to expect from the series. The song was your typical cowboy song and it wasn't too special either.
** (out of 4)
The Fleischer Studio produced a number of these animated short films where the "bouncing ball" would have audience members singing together. Louise Massey and The Westeners are the musical guests and the cowboy also opens up this short talking about his cowboy ways. We then see the animated version of some of his stories including his working with a lasso as well as another story dealing with him fighting a bear. From here we get to the title song and the bouncing ball. It seems 1937 brought a new format to the Screen Songs series but it's rather a miss. The idea of someone talking about their adventures as we see the animation was okay but there really wasn't much to the stories and even the animation wasn't as good as you'd come to expect from the series. The song was your typical cowboy song and it wasn't too special either.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
