The Discontented Canary (1934)

The Discontented Canary (An MGM Color Cartoon, 1934) 
Dir: Rudolf Ising
Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9

I have had a coloration problem through most of my life. I've discussed previously my 1980s outrage at colorized films at great length on my other blog, The Cinema 4 Pylon, but that problem is not what I am talking about here. That's colorization. No, I've had a problem with my own color, or rather, my lack of ability to keep any color in my skin. Living in Alaska; being a blonde; having the natural skin tone of the fence in Tom Sawyer; being a night-owl -- all of these items do not lend one to being considered anything less than an albino freak by most people, except for the scattered and hesitant opinions of actual albino freaks.

What a difference a year makes. Now I've moved to California, and I have been exposed to more sun (except for the last two months) than I have ever been before. As a result, I possess considerably more color in my skin than I used to have, though when compared to others who have lived here much longer than I, there doesn't seem to be much change in tone. An arm-to-arm matchup against my nephew Rupert showed that I still have a long way to go in the coloration department. But even a casual glance in the mirror brings into my view a decidedly different shade in my features than I had been used to on the previous Alaskan incarnation of myself. (Not that the non-sun-seeking portions of my physique are any better off -- there I am the same ol' Rik -- and will remain so since skin cancer is simply not an option.) I am not a vain person -- I just like any help that I can get in the looks department, and being mistaken for Marilyn Manson's powderpuff is not the way to go anymore.

The Discontented Canary also has a coloration problem -- it is losing its color. The first MGM film produced by the historic animation team of Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising (also known by the delightfully melodic sounding sobriquet of Harman-Ising), and the first MGM cartoon short period, Canary is only seen in badly deteriorated prints, with the colors washed out in some scenes to where the titular bird is practically invisible in a couple of shots. This problem might be expected with public domain cartoons, where the original negative is not available for reprocessing, and the endless duping of a print results in wear and degradation. But even MGM does not seem to have a decent print of Canary; this situation was displayed most broadly on TCM's Cartoon Alley (whose print is the source of this review), where Ben Mankiewicz offered up an apology for the decrepit state of the film. This technological speed-bump, however, does not prevent one from watching the film from an artistic level.

The story concerns a very sad and lonely canary living his days trapped inside of a cage. While he does have other companions, including a parrot, living in the same room, he feels withdrawn from them and longs to see what the world outside of the living room window has to offer. As the film starts, a song introduces the canary's gloomy disposition (sung by other birds, including the parrot), and since the song is done to the tune of The Man on the Flying Trapeze, it is no surprise that the little canary shares a similar talent on his swinging perch. A chorus of voices sings:

"Once a canary his life did bemoan,
locked in an old cage to live all alone.
While out in the wild world he wanted to roam
and fly with the birds in the trees.

Now the bird that we sing of is lonesome;
he wanted to fly in the breeze.
All he could was to eat and to drink
and to swing on his flying trapeze!"

As the bird hops on his swing inside cage in time with the music, the parrot picks up the chorus of the song:

"He flies through the air
with the greatest of ease.
This daring young bird
on the flying trapeze.

His actions are graceful,
all birds he does please,
and my love,
he has stolen away!"

The old lady who cares for him comes in the room to feed him, but she notices his pallor and possibly corresponding sadness, and decides that some air would do him good. She opens the window, but she forgets to shut his birdcage after his feeding, and I will let the chorus tell the story:

"But this wide the door is left open;
now here is his chance to be free.
So out of his cage he so cautiously steals
and flies away on the breeze!

He flies through the air
so happy and free!
This daring young bird,
now the world he will see!

His actions are graceful,
he sails through the trees,
and he's glad
to be winging away!"

Unfortunately for the bird, the first time that he lands on a fencepost to check out his new surroundings, he attracts the attentions of a scrawny, hungry alley-cat. The cat pounces after the bird as he leaps from fencepost to fencepost, but is left behind when the canary is drawn towards a tree across the open field. There, the canary meets a wide variety of other birds, all of whom are chirping a happy rendition of Listen to the Mockingbird, including a strange cuckoo bird who gets all the best parts of the song. The cuckoo zips around a curious flamingo, which ends up tying itself in a knot trying to follow the cuckoo's maneuvering with his head. Then the cuckoo fashions a hat out of a leaf and poses as Napoleon Bonaparte. With his wing stuffed inside his feathers in the traditional impression of the French dictator, the cuckoo hops across the branch and chest-bumps the canary off, sending him spiraling downward.

The canary lands inside of a flower, but his timing is very bad, for there is a bee inside of it, and he gets lightly stung as a warning. The bee cusses the bird out in his buzzing language and gets back to work inside the flower. It is then that the cat appears to take another shot at catching the canary. But the little hero bird has already moved on to the next intriguing sight: a group of flitting hummingbirds who are hard at work on a group of flowers. The canary decides to try and duplicate their actions, but as he dips into a flower, one of the hummingbirds stabs him with its beak and pushes him through the entire flower, and the canary gets unceremoniously dumped out at the root.

He flies to a branch to collect himself, but a fierce wind kicks up, blowing the canary's feathers up his body like a lady's skirt. A flash of lightning then lights the tree on fire, burning it down around the bird, but when he starts to escape, a torrent of rain crashes down from the clouds. He flies for the shelter of a nearby birdhouse. When he arrives, the house is already full up with other avian refugees. The cat sees the canary's dilemma and decides to disguise himself as another birdhouse. He crawls inside the opening and sits waiting with his face appearing just inside the doorway of the now dangerous sanctuary. Crammed inside the house, the cat hops on his tail to the end of a branch and then whistles to get the bird's attention. But as the bird graciously wings it for the false birdhouse, nearing his certain doom, another gust of wind whips up and changes his direction mid-air, keeping him from being eaten.

But, the cat is impatient, and leaps at the canary, giving swift chase to the little bird through and around the trees of the forest. At one point, he actually gets close enough so that the canary is actually inside his mouth, but the little bird gathers his strength and pushes his way out. The bird flies through a hole in a tree and then comes out on top of the roof of his home, but the cat is fast on his tail. The bird leaps out onto the weathervane, and the cat struggles to reach him, but has to hang onto a lightning rod for support and safety. (Boy, he hasn't been paying a close eye to the weather, has he?)

Lightning fries the cat to a crisp, his insides appearing red and lit up through his fur and skin, and he howls as he scampers away in shame and pain. Then a second bolt hits the weathervane. The canary jumps off in time, but the vane has been transformed by the lightning into the word "SCRAM!" The Discontented Canary has learned his lesson, and he flies back through the window of the house, and hurriedly shuts his cage. He eyes a needlepoint picture on the wall displaying the words "HOME, SWEET HOME". Happy to be safe, the canary whistles the line to that song that famously goes "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

All series have to start somewhere, and though this cartoon isn't titled as a Happy Harmonies short (the series would officially start with the next Harman-Ising film, The Old Pioneer), it really is part of that series in spirit. You could also argue that, artistically, the series actually started years before as Disney's immensely successful Silly Symphonies series. For the Happy Harmonies series was essentially a copy of Disney's success, and who can blame MGM or Harman-Ising? If you are going to swipe an idea or a style, you don't do it from things that have failed; you do it from what works or from what sells. The Silly Symphonies did both, and it is no surprise that nearly every cartoon studio took a shot at their own similar series, both in title and concept. As it turns out, the Happy Harmonies were probably the shorts that emulated the Silly Symphonies the closest artistically, possibly due to having higher budgets than the other studios.

This film, and the rest that followed until midway through 1935, were filmed in only two-color Technicolor, so part of the lessened depth of color is to be derived from that slighter process. Because of this, the canary is not actually yellow as one would think he would be. But, for a studio like MGM, where film preservation seems to have always been more important and prevalent than at other studios, what happened to the print for their very first cartoon short? Why has The Discontented Canary become so washed out and pale?

Easy... that little pale blonde bird flew to Alaska...

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it...

[This article was updated with new photos on 1/2/16. The copy from which I screengrabbed these shots may or may not be the same print that was shown on TCM (alluded to in the article). In most of the scenes featuring the cat with the bird, there is definitely a deterioration of image, though some other scenes look rather nice.]

The Cuckoo (1948)

The Cuckoo (David Hand's Animaland/Gaumont, 1948) 
Dir: Bert Felstead
Cel Bloc Rating: 7/9

Cuckoos creep me out. I know they are just birds, and not particularly horrid looking birds at that. There is nothing in their appearance to bring this mood out in me. No, it is the parasitic behavior of their kind that brings this feeling to my chilled bones. The way they lay their eggs in the nest of a different host species, and then, when the egg hatches, the way that the invading hatchling will then push the other eggs out of the nest, or if they have already hatched, the way it will terrorize and push the other offspring out and down to their doom below just gives me the willies.

It doesn't help that this mood is escalated by the horror film music that often accompanies the cuckoo's portrayal in any number of nature documentaries, as the bird insidiously kicks one of the host birds' eggs out of the nest to make way for one of its own, often colored quite similar to the egg that is being bombed to the forest floor.

Then, when I was a teenager, a reading of The Day of the Triffids (after I saw the movie, naturally) led me to another novel by that book's author, John Wyndham, called The Midwich Cuckoos, a story about aliens who knock out an entire town, and after the town wakes up from their forced slumber, every woman in the village is pregnant, unknowingly, with an alien child. These children have terrible and deadly mind powers (much like in Scanners). They look odd with their cold, staring eyes, and they try to control everyone that crosses their path. Whatever the faults of the book overall, it was made into a terrifically suspenseful and eerie film called Village of the Damned (1960, and remade in 1995), and once I saw that film a little while later, the cuckoo was completely evil in my head, even if the story has nothing to do with the creatures, and is nothing more than a metaphor. Regardless, damage done.

Some fought in the cuckoo's defense, but despite the combined efforts over the years of Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, Nurse Ratched and the beloved family cuckoo clock that we grew up with in our home, I still have this negative picture of the cuckoo in my head, and no damn crazy bird was going to get my Cocoa Puffs. And all of this without ever seeing, while in my adolescence, the David Hand Animaland cartoon, The Cuckoo, from 1948. If I had, it certainly would not have changed my impression to the positive at all, but would have instead firmed up my resolve in the cuckoo department for all times.

The beginning plays much like the documentaries that I have mentioned, though the music is a bit less menacing as a lurking and shadowy cuckoo sneaks across the screen from branch to branch as it she were an avian Big Bad Wolf. Perhaps, she is, for all intents. She leaves her egg as described, and not surprising from the supervisor of Bambi, the film does not pull back on her action in sending the sparrow's egg falling to the ground below. We do not see the impact, nor is there the saving grace of seeing a little baby pop out of it at the last second. The egg is gone for good. To that point, the narrator mentions that the cuckoo wastes no time in "destroying the egg". The mother housesparrow sits on both the alien egg and her own for a good long while, but eventually she feels a kicking beneath, and soon enough, her actual offspring kicks his way out of the shell. He is a round-headed little cutie pie, who proclaims, "Hello, Mummy!" when he emerges.

Mr. Housesparrow arrives to check out the new family member, but after he joyously meets his real son, the other egg starts jumping, smacking the father repeatedly under the chin. The egg bounces high into the air, and Father Housesparrow, believing it to be his other real egg, has to run to catch the egg before it smashes to pieces. He catches it successfully, but soon he will wish that he hadn't done such a thing. The alien egg cracks open and the cuckoo baby, nearly four times as big as the sparrow chick, dumps into the straining arms of the much smaller father.

The cuckoo is extremely dopey looking, with a huge schnoz substituted for a useful beak, a goofy smile, and a never-ending appetite. This is evident in the next scene, where the pair of mismatched brothers rock back and forth in the nest as the cuckoo baby grabs food left and right from the parents, leaving not even a morsel for the real sparrow chick. That night, the pair of chicks are abed in the nest, but the snoring cuckoo kicks the sparrow child out of the nest, perhaps not so accidentally, given the cuckoo's track record. The sparrow kid uses the cuckoo's foot for a pillow, as the narrator tells of the mournful condition of the doomed bird. "Poor baby sparrow," he intones. "Nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat. His world becomes a nightmare..."

Suddenly, the air around the chick goes dark as the film enters the nightmare within his head. The stomach and two legs of the cuckoo expand and puff up around the baby. He pushes them apart, and they turn into three mushrooms, which then roll over, turn into sundae cups, and then are filled with delicious ice cream and toppings. A spoon lies by the sparrow's seat on the black floor of the nightmare chamber, but before he can gather even one bite of the dreamland desserts, the first sundae turns into a cuckoo and begins singing a song called The Cuckoo Ain't So Cuckoo After All. Each of other sundaes turn into two more cuckoos, and all three of the malicious fiends torment the baby sparrow with their song, teasing him with food, but then keeping it from him throughout the course of the dream.

"Oh, a cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!
Oh, a cuckoo ain't as cuckoo when he's full!
Hunger makes you crazy
Takes wings to make you lazy
A cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!

When you're blue, go cuckoo like the cuckoo in the spring.
Realize he's really wise and not a silly thing!

Oh, the cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!
Oh, the cuckoo ain't as cuckoo as his call! (Cuckoo, cuckoo)
He never toils or labors
He borrows from his neighbors
The cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!

Oh, a cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!
Oh, the cuckoo ain't as cuckoo as his call!
Sail the whole world over
He's the clown who's found the clover
No, a cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!

Oh, a cuckoo ain't so [indeterminate at this point; sung drunkenly]
He knows which are lemonades and which'll fizz
He's a hearty smarty
His life is one long party
Oh, the cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!
Ain't so cuckoo (cuckoo, cuckoo)
Ain't so cuckoo (cuckoo, cuckoo)"

The cuckoos adopt a variety of disguises throughout the sequence, including that of Napoleon (when the word "crazy" is mentioned) and a trio of sailors. When the nightmare is over, the baby wakes up to morning, and the fat, lazy cuckoo kicks the baby off the branch. The seemingly doomed sparrow plummets to the ground below. No sooner does he hit the turf than he is met by a weasel, and he has nothing but bad designs on the kid's future. However, he talks himself into the bird's confidence, and tricks him into his cave. The hungry bird is more than willing to learn what it takes to make the menu item called "inside soup" with which the weasel tempts the starving little runt. He convinces the bird that to make "inside soup,” you first crawl inside the pot. Then you stir it inside the pot as you sit there. And then, finally, he slams the lid on the pot, trapping the baby bird inside.

But the smell of the soup drifts out through the opening of the cave, and inevitably, it reaches the nostrils of the always ravenous cuckoo. He waddles into the cave, and then comes back out with the entire pot. The weasel steals it back and carries it into his home. But the cuckoo intercepts him, and when the weasel thinks he is gnawing on a bird, he ends up chewing his own tail up instead. 

So obsessed with taking everything in the world from the baby sparrow is the cuckoo, that he doesn't understand that the baby is the main ingredient in the soup, and roughly shoves him out of the pot as if he were trying to steal it. He then drinks a ladleful of the soup, but the weasel distracts him, and then starts punching, kicking and throttling the cuckoo. The lazy bird calls out for help, and the baby sparrow tries to rescue him by picking up a club and bashing the weasel's tail with it. All it does is turn the weasel's attention to the smaller and weaker baby. He chases the sparrow throughout every inch of the cave at lightning speed, while the cuckoo, who has seemingly already forgotten about his distress, returns to devouring the "inside soup". 

The sparrow runs to the cuckoo for protection, but the schmuck kicks the sparrow away and then returns to his gluttony. The sparrow, however, has discovered the fire upon which the pot was cooking, and lights the tail of the weasel on fire. The weasel runs off and out of the picture for good.

The sparrow, feeling his oats from vanquishing one villain, now sets in on lambasting his larger "brother" for his behavior. The cuckoo actually begins to feel ashamed, ducking behind the pot as the tiny bird berates him, and a final verse of the Cuckoo song plays over the action:

"Oh, the cuckoo ain't so cuckoo, he's just mad
Oh, the cuckoo ain't so cuckoo, he's a cad
One way or another
He will rob his little brother
Oh, the cuckoo's just a cuckoo, not a friend!
Oh, the cuckoo's just a cuckoo!
Just a cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!
Oh, the cuckoo's just a cuckoo, not a friend!"

While the song finishes, the cuckoo takes off after the angry, strutting sparrow to explain himself, but then remembers the remainder of the soup, and returns to drink it all down. Then, he picks up the empty pot, opens his enormous maw as wide as it can go, and swallows the entire cast iron pot. It plops to the bottom of his stomach, and he drags it with him as he runs out of the cave.

Serious shades of Pink Elephants on Parade on display here, but that's fine. Disney has swiped from that Dumbo sequence numerous times themselves over the years, and probably will continue to forever. Some great atmosphere throughout the entire cartoon, excellent characterizations, and the chase in the cave yields several fun camera angles. There may also be, inside the cave, a morbid Disney reference when the weasel is leading the little tyke deeper into his lair. There is a skull on the ground, that the weasel rests his foot atop momentarily, which is probably just a generic duck, but it looks remarkably like that of Disney's beloved Donald Duck. As Hand left Disney for not necessarily greener pastures, is this a hidden cheeky swipe at Walt and Co.? Or is it mere coincidence? A weaker second half keeps the film from being a true lost classic, and instead, leaves it being a still nearly excellent piece of animation. 

Regardless, this film renders fully that ol' cuckoo creepiness into my being. Now, I know that not all cuckoos behave this way. Most of the North American varieties do not take on host species like the European ones do (you can read whatever you want about Old World imperialism into that statement. I am too tired during this writing to pursue it any further.) Of course, some would say that there is an abundance of pro-cuckoo propaganda out there, too. Roadrunners, after all, are members of the cuckoo family, and there is a plentitude of Warner Brothers' cartoons demonstrating the remarkably versatile capabilities of their Road Runner. Of course, this presumes that I am not on Wile E. Coyote's side in this dispute.

But I am on his side. The Coyote is the true and much put-upon hero of those cartoons. Cuckoos... you suck.

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it:

[This article was updated with new photos on 12/19/15.]