User Reviews

The screen song has a long history. Take a look at photos of the earliest purpose-built movie theaters and you see that they are advertising sing-alongs inside. The earliest regular series of talkie cartoons were the Fleischer follow-the-bouncing-ball sing-alongs from 1924 -- four years before Disney supposedly invented the sound cartoon with STEAMBOAT WILLIE. And the studio -- which became FAMOUS in the 1940s -- continued to chunk them out.

This is a fairly typical one: a series of blackout gags, followed by an exhortation to sing along with the bouncing ball -- the song being "I'm an Old Cow Hand". The song is sung straight, then they begin to ornament the words with further animation.

A clear reminder of the days when movie going was a group experience and you were part of an audience.

Love animation, always have done from an early age and don't see signs of that stopping any time soon or ever, and really like to love many of the Noveltoons cartoons from Famous Studios. If more the better made/animated with fresher material 40s ones than those from the 50s, which was true for Famous Studios' overall output (which was seldom less than watchable and never really irredeemably bad, the worst of their 60s work was weak though) in general too.

'The Mild West' is watchable enough, primarily down to the animation and music (both of which were consistent strengths in the 40s for Famous Studios), but it is not an awful lot more than that and is more mild than wild. For a cartoon made in Famous Studios' best decade by far (it ran from 1942 to 1967, this is from 1947 which was not a bad period at all for the studio), 'The Mild West' disappoints somewhat and tends to be on the bland side, among the middling Famous Studios' screen-songs which agreed were a mixed bag.

It's the animation and music that save 'The Mild West'. Especially the music, which was consistently of a high standard throughout the studio's run even in lesser efforts. The orchestration has a lot of energy and there are some truly luscious sounds throughout. The song is very catchy and doesn't get annoying. The animation was not as consistent for the studio overall, with the quality declining when the studio did but throughout the 40s to mid-50s it was a strength. As one can tell, to me it was one of the compensations here, gorgeous colours and the attention to detail in the backgrounds is worthy of admiration (also fitting the gags and the song arrangements beautifully).

Also felt that 'The Mild West' started off very promisingly, setting things up in a visually striking and amusing way. The ending is the best part though, one of the very few parts in the whole cartoon that is halfway amusing or inspired. The voice acting is competent though all involved did much better in other cartoons previous and after.

Most of 'The Mild West's' material is however neither of those things. For a cartoon that is essentially a series of blackout gags, it is very worrying when most of them do not work and come over as badly fatigued and very corny. Some like the transition into the sing-along being downright odd. The story is best forgotten as it is non-existent, it's just a series of gags with a sing-along cobbled together (which sums up the cartoon well too).

Would have perhaps forgiven 'The Mild West' for having such a weak story if there was any energy. Like the tepid material, the momentum just isn't there and it all feels very dull. The same can be said for the lack of any interesting let alone endearing characters. This is all what is meant by me saying that the cartoon felt bland, which was present throughout and brought things down significantly with little making impact.

Concluding, alright and well made visually but dull with little to it, at best mild. 5/10