Swing You Sinners -- My Thoughts

[tristar]

Lately, I've been viewing many Fleischer 'toons, but Swing You Sinners really jumped out at me. IMO this is a cartoon you would only watch to see the last 3 minutes (the crazy song), but it had some WILDanimation!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WckAlBpQHao
At 0:25, this has some of the WILDEST animation EVER!!!!
Your thoughts?

[Ray Pointer]

The whole thing is worth watching, not just the last few seconds.

[lonesome-lenny]

Good heavens, yes, Ray! SWING YOU SINNERS is one of the most important cartoons in American animation history. It is, IMO, the first "real" Fleischer cartoon. Made during a studio upheaval, and mostly animated by inexperienced apprentices, it breaks every rule that had been established in animation (by 1930) and reinvents the possibilities for talkie cartoons.

The elements of this single cartoon would be mined by the Fleischer staff for the next decade--at least, until their move to Miami. SYS is a primal wellspring of dark, hallucinatory, inscrutable imagery. At the same time, it is a sharply timed, very funny, compelling cartoon.

I find the first section--the attempted henhouse theft by proto-Bimbo--as interesting as the conclusion. The gags and timing are spot-on. The clamor between Bimbo and the chicken--in which they swap heads and bodies--always brings a smile to my face. Bimbo's strutting walk, with the hen counter-strutting, entangled in Bimbo's clothes, is a wonderful piece of animation. I also find fascinating the extra-scratchy and overly loud tuba music that comes out of the policeman's mouth: I presume they got that passage off a phonograph record.

The moment we reach the graveyard, we enter a new cartoon dimension. This a nightmare world weirder, vaster, and richer than had ever been seen in animation. It seems that Bimbo has crossed over into another universe, never to return. It makes the graveyard scenes of THE SKELETON DANCE pale in comparison. This is a dangerous, threatening plane of existence. Everything has teeth and claws and malice.

There is more imagination, improvisation and wild abandon in the last half of this cartoon than there is in the entire works of the Disney studio. We see unexplainable visions, things that cannot even be named--mainlined stuff out of the dark backwaters of the subconscious.

How did these young, panicked animators get this material out of their heads and onto paper? Read Shamus Culhane's account of his work on SYS (pp. 36-43 in his autobiography), and you will see that even he fails to understand the beauty and innovation in what he, and the other animators, had wrought.

As I said earlier, this cartoon was revisited over and over by the Fleischer staff in the 1930s. I believe that 21st century animators can continue to dip their buckets into this endless well of subconscious frenzy, and draw new inspiration from its inexplicable and wondrous images and actions.

I am glad that this cartoon is finally getting the recognition it deserves. It was overlooked for years--possibly because it is pre-Betty Boop, and, like other non-BB Talkartoons, has not been reissued on video or otherwise brought back into the public eye in recent years.

If/when a definitive Fleischer DVD project happens, SYS MUST be a part of it. A viewer's understanding of what made the Fleischer studio so special cannot be fully formed without exposure to this tremendous work.

[Jack G.]

Swing You Sinners is a great Fleischer piece.
I would love to have a better version than the one I currently have.

As I've said in the past there should be a Betty Boop and Friends DVD set
with the rest of the Talk Cartoons with and maybe a few of the better Color Classics
like The Fresh Vegtable Mystery and Cobweb Motel.

[dandu]

I have never seen anything as innovative and surreal as Swing Your Sinners, every possibility is explored, I myself am planning to model a lot of Average Jone's talkies this way, having Jones basically being made of rubber as well as putting him in impossible situations now and again, like flying an aeroplane to the moon, etc.

[Eugene the Jeep]

A tremendously enjoyable cartoon, and possibly the best introduction to Fleischer cartoons of that era.

[AndrewGilmore]

I would love to comment on this cartoon because it's one of my favorites, but I don't think I could say anything about it that lonesome-lenny didn't say better!

[Ray Pointer]

The piece speaks for itself, and is worth seeing, as I said before.

[Lynn]

I just watched a copy with a UM&M TV Corp copyright. It ran for slightly more than eight minutes. I really enjoyed watching the crazy going ons. Unfortunately the sound is muffled so I was unable to fully appreciate the music.

[Jack G.]

Unfortunately the sound is muffled so I was unable to fully appreciate the music.Sounds like you got the same copy I have.

[cpdavison]

I just watched a copy with a UM&M TV Corp copyright. It ran for slightly more than eight minutes. I really enjoyed watching the crazy going ons. Unfortunately the sound is muffled so I was unable to fully appreciate the music.

CHECK IT OUT (http://www.animationarchive.org/2005/11/filmography-swing-you-sinners.html)! ;)

(Courtesy of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive)

Craig D.

[jazzman78]

For those who care. The music and vocal was provided by Irving Mills (a well know booking agent and sometimes band director / singer at the time 1930) - the Band is made up of a hot studio group that included Glenn Miller on trombone, Jimmy Mc Partland on cornet. It is hard to fingue who takes the clarinet solos a rare possibility may be Benny Goodman - but I can't be sure.

Mills provides all of the music for the sound track minus most of the spoken voices which I guess are unknown or maybe some of the Fleischer staff.

The sound on the copy (which came from one of Jerry Beck's private issued dvd is very low and the hiss is almost as low as the music) This is the only one of the cartoons that Jerry has issued with a bad sound track.

[Nelson]

"SWING YOU SINNERS" is truly a cult classic and you haven't seen a Talkartoon, until you've seen this short.

[Lynn]

CHECK IT OUT (http://www.animationarchive.org/2005/11/filmography-swing-you-sinners.html)! ;)

(Courtesy of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive)

Craig D. Thanks Craig.

[Jack G.]

For those who care. The music and vocal was provided by Irving Mills (a well know booking agent and sometimes band director / singer at the time 1930) - the Band is made up of a hot studio group that included Glenn Miller on trombone, Jimmy Mc Partland on cornet. It is hard to fingue who takes the clarinet solos a rare possibility may be Benny Goodman - but I can't be sure.Wow. Wasn't aware of that.

[AndrewGilmore]

For those who care. The music and vocal was provided by Irving Mills (a well know booking agent and sometimes band director / singer at the time 1930) - the Band is made up of a hot studio group that included Glenn Miller on trombone, Jimmy Mc Partland on cornet. It is hard to fingue who takes the clarinet solos a rare possibility may be Benny Goodman - but I can't be sure.
As an enthusiast of popular music from the '20s and '30s, I've been trying to delve a little deeper into the Fleischers' use of such music. Where did you get this information?

[Ray Pointer]

Benny Goodman, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Glen Miller, and many others all performed as Studio Musicians on the tracks recorded at the Paramount News lab in the early sound Fleischer cartoons before forming their own bands and gaining fame. This information was given to me by Lou Fleischer and confirmed by his son, Bernie, who incidentlly was President of the Los Angeles Chapter of The Musician's Union.