"Swing You Sinners" at ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog

[Kowalski]

Has anybody checked the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog today? They put a real treat for all Fleischer fans... several superb looking screenshots from "Swing You Sinners" and the entire cartoon in Quicktime format. It looks amazing! I've never seen such a good print of this rare cartoon. Take a look at:

http://www.animationarchive.org/2005/11/filmography-swing-you-sinners.html

The .mov file requires Quicktime 7. Earlier Quicktime players are unable to show it.

[Duck Dodgers]

Happy to see ya here around , Kowalski ! It's a looong time ...and i did not hear about you even of that other forum which includes the two of us as members ( Do I have to mention it ? It's a Spumco related forum...)

About the print , it's simply superb !

My copy of it was a very bad looking one and I'm very happy to have updated it with such a gorgeous version .

[Cartman]

Those are some superb shots of the cartoon. I've never seen it, but being produced by the Fleischers in their golden age, it's gotta be good.

[frizfrelengfan]

The animationarchive web site seems to have gone down last night. I can't watch the cartoon. Anyone else have trouble?

[Pietro]

I'm having some trouble viewing this file. My player says that it is "experiencing problems playing the video track because the required compressor cannot be found." So, I can only get the audio.

Where can I find a MPEG-4 video compressor for QuickTime for Windows XP?

-Pietro:daffy:

[Duck Dodgers]

I'm having some trouble viewing this file. My player says that it is "experiencing problems playing the video track because the required compressor cannot be found." So, I can only get the audio.

Where can I find a MPEG-4 video compressor for QuickTime for Windows XP?

-Pietro:daffy:The .mov file requires Quicktime 7. Download it and everything will work fine. I know this because I have Windows XP too!

[Pietro]

The .mov file requires Quicktime 7. Download it and everything will work fine. I know this because I have Windows XP too!Thanks!

I've got it working now. Here (http://felix.goldenagecartoons.com/sinners-compare/) are some stills comparing the dark print circulating in trade rotation to the new restored print.

...Now if could only we could see "Swing You Sinners" on DVD...

-Pietro:daffy:

[wundermild]

...Now if could only we could see "Swing You Sinners" on DVD...
Wouldn't it be great if ASIFA itself obtained a distribution licence? At least they could provide the best prints available ...

[Lee Glover]

The animationarchive web site seems to have gone down last night. I can't watch the cartoon. Anyone else have trouble?

I've been trying to download this cartoon since yesterday morning, and it always gives up after 30% download time, which means I can only get 1m30s worth! :(

I'll keep on trying. I REALLY want to see this cartoon!

[frizfrelengfan]

The site seems to be back and fully functioning. I just downloaded the cartoon in less than three minutes using a broadband connection, while at the same time listening to my favorite webcast. I'll watch the cartoon as soon as the webcast is over.

I did need to get the latest version of Quicktime from the Apple website. For some strange reason, it took a long time (about 1/2 hour) to download and install. It comes with iTunes, which I don't need since I don't own an iPod.

[Dan Porceddu]

You don't need to download iTunes with QuickTime (although I think iTunes is great). There is a standalone installer:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone.html

[Nelson]

Damn, that is a much better print that the one that I've got......

[Lee Glover]

Hooray! I managed to download it completely! :D

The picture quality looks amazing, and the cartoon itself is wonderfully surreal. :betty:

I think "Swing You Sinners" was released as one of the bonus cartoons on the French Betty Boop DVD set.

[frizfrelengfan]

First time I've seen it. Delightfully spooky early sound Fleischer. I like the Jewish ghost who asks Bimbo, "Ya needed it?"

[David Gerstein]

Being Jewish myself, I ALWAYS love those Chabadnik-like characters who pop up now and then...

[Kowalski]

I think "Swing You Sinners" was released as one of the bonus cartoons on the French Betty Boop DVD set.
Yes, it is listed as one of the bonus cartoons. I wonder if they used such a good print like this. It's an absolutely incredible cartoon, one of the Fleischer's best.

[AndrewGilmore]

I downloaded it less than 48 hours ago and I've already watched it about 10 or 12 times. Absolutely incredible. This cartoon just epitomizes for me what the early Fleischer Talkartoons are all about: surreal, random gags and hot jazz. I love how the cartoon just builds and builds- it starts out fairly typical until the graveyard scene, and by the time Bimbo(?) enters the barnyard, things get completely surreal and the animation gets more and more grotesque and rubbery (one could even say Cubist) until by the end we're just seeing a series of abstract, nonsensical images which simply form out of nowhere.
I find it hard to believe that this was just a typical, run-of-the-mill product for Fleischer at the time- they probably just churned it out and went right on to the next cartoon. The fact that something this mind-bending was not considered anything special or unusual at the time says a lot about the way the Fleischers worked. It's effected me so much I'm starting to overanalyze it, thinking of questions like what they were trying to accomplish and what in the hell could have been the origin of such bizarre images- were they just trying to be as weird as possible? It boggles me that a group of rational human beings conjured up a thing like this and didn't give it another thought. To sum up, it's just an insanely brilliant film!

[Sogturtle]

I downloaded it less than 48 hours ago and I've already watched it about 10 or 12 times. Absolutely incredible. This cartoon just epitomizes for me what the early Fleischer Talkartoons are all about: surreal, random gags and hot jazz. I love how the cartoon just builds and builds- it starts out fairly typical until the graveyard scene, and by the time Bimbo(?) enters the barnyard, things get completely surreal and the animation gets more and more grotesque and rubbery (one could even say Cubist) until by the end we're just seeing a series of abstract, nonsensical images which simply form out of nowhere.
I find it hard to believe that this was just a typical, run-of-the-mill product for Fleischer at the time- they probably just churned it out and went right on to the next cartoon. The fact that something this mind-bending was not considered anything special or unusual at the time says a lot about the way the Fleischers worked. It's effected me so much I'm starting to overanalyze it, thinking of questions like what they were trying to accomplish and what in the hell could have been the origin of such bizarre images- were they just trying to be as weird as possible? It boggles me that a group of rational human beings conjured up a thing like this and didn't give it another thought. To sum up, it's just an insanely brilliant film!

I've been watching this thread with a keen interest... Why?? Because I can't get this cartoon to download (so what else is new, Turtle?;)), and it's one that I've always lacked...

Having said that, maybe I should add a couple things... I greatly value everyones analysis and praise of "Swing You Sinners" [like Andrew's up above:) ] but maybe I can add an historical point or three that you might find interesting... Despite how great this toon apparently is, according to Shamus Culhane, this was THE ULTIMATE CRISIS film of all time made at Fleischer's... You say "WHAT?!?!":eek: :confused: Okay, what had happened was that on one particular day in May 1930 everyone arrived for work only to find that the horror of horrors, suddenly and unannounced, four of the principal "animators" (animator-directors, Dick Huemer, Sid Marcus, George Stallings, and George Rufle) had quit Fleischer... This left only Ted Sears and the great Grim Natwick and a large group of assistant animators/inbetweeners at the studio [*note* I'm still not sure where Doc Crandall was at that point:o]. At least a couple of cartoons were left unfinished by the departed men...

Facing a near collapse of the studio Max and Dave took a desparate gamble and tentatively appointed these VERY young assistants instantly to be full animators!!! With all of them (save Rudy Zamora who finished Huemer's last film) to work UNDER the guiding hand of Grim Natwick and Ted Sears on an all new cartoon Sears had just written... Sears went around fixing "clumsy layout drawings", and Grim not only designed all the characters but (according to Shamus) ended up not just coaching and overseeing everyone's animation, but actually REDRAWING fully half of it!!! For the record the young neophyte-animators of it were Shamus Culhane, Al Eugster, Willard Bowsky, Seymour Kneitel, George Cannata, William Henning (and probably Berny Wolf, though Culhane forgot to name him). Shamus added that they were "coaxed, wheedled and flattered into turning out the picture" but "that it was a very gentle introduction to a new and enormously taxing job". When after weeks of immense labour it was finished they were utterly thrilled to read a review proclaimng it "a jewel of a cartoon", so THEY didn't see it as just run-of-the mill. :)

Sooooo the next time you think of the title "Swing You Sinners" think of a big group of throughly frightened twenty or twenty one years frantically running pencils back and forth on paper as they try to learn timing... While two somewhat older men scurry about from light-table to light table gently fixing drawings and timing and encouraging like a father teaching his son baseball. :cool:

[Anybody want to send me a copy?:D ]

[Duck Dodgers]

I've been watching this thread with a keen interest... Why?? Because I can't get this cartoon to download (so what else is new, Turtle?;)), and it's one that I've always lacked...

Having said that, maybe I should add a couple things... I greatly value everyones analysis and praise of "Swing You Sinners" [like Andrew's up above:) ] but maybe I can add an historical point or three that you might find interesting... Despite how great this toon apparently is, according to Shamus Culhane, this was THE ULTIMATE CRISIS film of all time made at Fleischer's... You say "WHAT?!?!":eek: :confused: Okay, what had happened was that on one particular day in May 1930 everyone arrived for work only to find that the horror of horrors, suddenly and unannounced, four of the principal "animators" (animator-directors, Dick Huemer, Sid Marcus, George Stallings, and George Rufle) had quit Fleischer... This left only Ted Sears and the great Grim Natwick and a large group of assistant animators/inbetweeners at the studio [*note* I'm still not sure where Doc Crandall was at that point:o]. At least a couple of cartoons were left unfinished by the departed men...

Facing a near collapse of the studio Max and Dave took a desparate gamble and tentatively appointed these VERY young assistants instantly to be full animators!!! With all of them (save Rudy Zamora who finished Huemer's last film) to work UNDER the guiding hand of Grim Natwick and Ted Sears on an all new cartoon Sears had just written... Sears went around fixing "clumsy layout drawings", and Grim not only designed all the characters but (according to Shamus) ended up not just coaching and overseeing everyone's animation, but actually REDRAWING fully half of it!!! For the record the young neophyte-animators of it were Shamus Culhane, Al Eugster, Willard Bowsky, Seymour Kneitel, George Cannata, William Henning (and probably Berny Wolf, though Culhane forgot to name him). Shamus added that they were "coaxed, wheedled and flattered into turning out the picture" but "that it was a very gentle introduction to a new and enormously taxing job". When after weeks of immense labour it was finished they were utterly thrilled to read a review proclaimng it "a jewel of a cartoon", so THEY didn't see it as just run-of-the mill. :)

Sooooo the next time you think of the title "Swing You Sinners" think of a big group of throughly frightened twenty or twenty one years frantically running pencils back and forth on paper as they try to learn timing... While two somewhat older men scurry about from light-table to light table gently fixing drawings and timing and encouraging like a father teaching his son baseball. :cool:

[Anybody want to send me a copy?:D ]


Download Quicktime 7 , then you'll be able to watch the cartoon !

[AndrewGilmore]

[QUOTE=Sogturtle] When after weeks of immense labour it was finished they were utterly thrilled to read a review proclaimng it "a jewel of a cartoon", so THEY didn't see it as just run-of-the mill. :)

I was aware that "Swing You Sinners" was unusual in marking the transition in animators, but I meant it was run-of-the-mill in terms of content (though it could be argued that its particular heights of surrealism aren't quite matched by anything else the studio made)- I doubt that Eugster, Kenitel, et. al. wanted to start their accidental careers as full-time animators with something so challengingly surreal; they probably didn't think "Hey, we barely know how to animate well enough to replace those guys who left, so why don't we start with a picture that's completely insane?" It's a landmark in the history of the Fleischer studios because of who animated it, but not what they were animating.
Anyway, now I'm just nitpicking. I'm glad you appreciated my comments, Soggy.

[Duck Dodgers]

I watch the cartoon with ACDSEE 6.0 or Windows Media Player...but anyway I think you need Quicktime 7.....

[cpdavison]

Oh, youse guys with your fancy high-speed internet connections and DVD burners and what-not!

If there's anyone who can shoot me a DVD-R or DVD+R, I'd appreciate it. PM me and maybe I can reciprocate with something of interest.

Thanks

Craig D.

[Duck Dodgers]

Do not know why but i cannot do screenshots of this cartoons !


Can someone help me ? I'm particularly looking for pics of the sequence when Bimbo is chased by hundreds of ghosts at the minute 7 : 11 of the cartoon . I'd love to post these pics on my recently created blog ! Hope someone can help !

[Larry T]

I like the Jewish ghost who asks Bimbo, "Ya needed it?"

I found that quite typical with the Fleischer's subtle inside-humour on many of their cartoons.

Anyone want to enlighten me as to what the significance is of that particular gag, or is it just an amusing caricature?

[Dan Porceddu]

Do not know why but i cannot do screenshots of this cartoons !


Can someone help me ? I'm particularly looking for pics of the sequence when Bimbo is chased by hundreds of ghosts at the minute 7 : 11 of the cartoon . I'd love to post these pics on my recently created blog ! Hope someone can help !

http://store.goldenagecartoons.com/danstuff/Swingers711.png

http://store.goldenagecartoons.com/danstuff/Swingers713.png

http://store.goldenagecartoons.com/danstuff/Swingers715.png

[Duck Dodgers]

http://store.goldenagecartoons.com/danstuff/Swingers711.png

http://store.goldenagecartoons.com/danstuff/Swingers713.png

http://store.goldenagecartoons.com/danstuff/Swingers715.png

Thanks a lot , Mr. Porceddu ! As I 've written before I'd love to post these pics on my blog ! Just want to remind you ! If you got something against this please do let me know and I'll soon remove them from my blog !

If you want to take a look at the blog I would be proud to have you posting there a comment about the cartoon . Again , thanks !

[Nelson]

Can anyone record this short onto dvd by chance, if that's possible?

[Sogturtle]

Can anyone record this short onto dvd by chance, if that's possible?

I'm sure that's do-able by someone...

But in a kind-of-related thought... Is anybody able to view this toon full-screen??? :confused: I sure can't...

[MF TOON]

Argh, I have the latest update of QT and I've got a new window open with the player which seems to be working but for some reason the screen is just blank - I only hear the audio track!

I'm not sure if this is browser related (Firefox) or my disk drive memory is low or what...

I really wanted to see this!!!

[MF TOON]

Can anyone plese explain how I could transfer this file into a format compativle with WMP playback?

Could I just right click-save as on the file link location and than play with the format to associate it with WMP or something else?

Also, how would I reformat for DVD playback?


Thanks!!!

[MF TOON]

I keep getting this pop-up that indicates something like:

"Quicktime is missing software to perform this operation. Unfortunately it is not available on the server - (I think? maybe it was 'website' or something)"


But I can only get audio playback in the player window. WHY?!?!

My player screen is just blank.

:mad:

[Duck Dodgers]

I keep getting this pop-up that indicates something like:

"Quicktime is missing software to perform this operation. Unfortunately it is not available on the server - (I think? maybe it was 'website' or something)"


But I can only get audio playback in the player window. WHY?!?!

My player screen is just blank.

:mad:

Actually I own Quicktime player version 7 but I easily watch the short with ACDSEE or Windows Media Player . Try to do the same !

[MF TOON]

Thanks, do I need to download it in order to do this?

[Duck Dodgers]

Thanks, do I need to download it in order to do this?

you would have to download the Quicktime player version 7 then ACDSEE if you do not have it , then the cartoon ! Of course , that's only one man's opinion .

[cpdavison]

There's a Quicktime to DVD (http://www.animationnation.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=001475)thread currently open at animationnation.com. Don't know if any of it would help here...

Craig D.

[MF TOON]

Guys, I was having a ton of trouble with this so I had a friend upload it to his ftp in WMV, MPG & QT. The MPG is 320x240 and the other two are upres'd tpo 720x480. Since I was unable to view the original file, can somebody please let me know if the pq has suffered at all in reformatting of the fullscreen transfers?

Here's a link: www.pixelfarm.com (http://www.pixelfarm.com/)

Just click the "FTP for Client" and enter the following username and password:


Username = chris
Password = chris

:bosko:

[MF TOON]

Why am I seeing an odd DNR like flickering pencil line effect in viewing this?

Is it just my file, my computer playback or the actual restored film?

[Duck Dodgers]

The WMV file is terrible !The quality of the MPG file is a bit inferior to the one of the original file !

I have not seen the ACDSEE one !...anyway, you got the cartoon and you can see it...it's a start !

[MF TOON]

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

What about the full res 720x480 file... my computer is running incredibly slow for some reason these past few days (high speed my arse!) - Is it DVD worthy quality?

I'd like to get a fullscreen transfer to disc without losing any resolution.

[Larry T]

Well, I managed to pull it out to MPEG-2 full screen demuxed compression, and this is what I've found:

1. Enlarging it to 720 x 480 is going to result in some quality effect, no matter what software you use. Plain and simple- if there's not enough detail in the image files to stretch to that size, the software has to make do somehow.

I did it and the image doesn't look too bad- there's a little blockiness in certain scenes, as to be expected with digital resizing from a limited visual data file. But it's still tons clearer than Nelson's original print (sorry Nelson :o we appreciated the print very much that you provided) and very watchable.

2. The audio is mono... left-speaker only. When you watch it through Quicktime it plays from both speakers, due to Quicktime's configuration. But when I captured the audio channel internally, I only got sound on one side- which makes sense. So a little work is necessary to double the sound channel for playing on both speakers.

I'll continue 'fixing it up' later this weekend to see what else I can come up with.

[Nelson]

Well, I managed to pull it out to MPEG-2 full screen demuxed compression, and this is what I've found:


I did it and the image doesn't look too bad- there's a little blockiness in certain scenes, as to be expected with digital resizing from a limited visual data file. But it's still tons clearer than Nelson's original print (sorry Nelson :o we appreciated the print very much that you provided) and very watchable.


No problem Larry my friend, for about my print and I never have a problem with a film print(until a better verison pops up)quality.Now if anyone that is a computer wiz, can someone possibly can make a dvd copy of this cartoon? then please PM me.I could use an excellent print of this classic cartoon.

[frizfrelengfan]

I found that quite typical with the Fleischer's subtle inside-humour on many of their cartoons.

Anyone want to enlighten me as to what the significance is of that particular gag, or is it just an amusing caricature?
It's a manner of speaking influenced by the Yiddish language. Yiddish was the language of the Jewish communities in central Europe up to the middle of the 20th century. It's a variant of German but with many words borrowed from Hebrew, Russian, and other languages. Sadly much of the Yiddish-speaking population was wiped out by the Nazis in WWII. There are still communities (such as in Brooklyn NY) where Yiddish is spoken as a first language, though.