Bacall to Arms is a 1946 Merrie Melodies short planned by Bob Clampett and finished by Arthur Davis (though most sources have Clampett down as a director, albeit uncredited).
Title[]
The title refers both to the phrase, "call to arms," and the late actress Lauren Bacall.
Plot[]
In a movie theater, various random gags occur before the film, such as one patron moving to another seat another patron taking the vacated seat, and so on, accelerating into a free-for-all. While the theater is in color, the films-within-the-film are black-and-white. A short "newsreel" is narrated by Robert C. Bruce.
The main feature is a film called To Have- To Have- To Have- ..., a parody of To Have and Have Not. It includes reasonably realistic, semi-rotoscoped depictions of Bogart and Bacall, who are credited as "Bogey Gocart and Laurie Bee Cool". In addition to recreating a few well-known scenes from that film, including the kissing scene and the "put your lips together and blow" scene. The players sometimes lapse into slapstick, such as Bee Cool lighting her cigarette with a blowtorch like Harpo Marx or letting loose with a loud, shrill whistle after her famous sultry comment, and they interact with the theater audience.
Although the theater was initially full, it is eventually empty except for one patron: a lone wolf in a zoot suit who falls head over heels for Bee Cool (a likely homage to Tex Avery's wolf character from MGM). The wolf grabs a cigarette that Bee Cool flicks into the theater, resulting in Bogie shooting him. He takes the cigar from the wolf, which explodes, covering his face with ash in a way that resembled him wearing "blackface". Bogie adopts a Rochester voice and says, "My, oh my! I can work for Mr. Benny now!"
Caricatures[]
Availability[]
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Vol. 2, Side 5: Bob Clampett
To Have and Have Not, Region 1 and 4 only (USA dubbed version)
To Have and Have Not, Region 1 and 4 only (restored in HD)
Production[]
"Bacall to Arms" was the first of five cartoons left unfinished by Bob Clampett who, by the time the cartoon released, left Warner Bros. in May 1945. In this case, the short was finished by Arthur Davis. The other films that Clampett left unfinished include "The Goofy Gophers" (finished by Davis), "The Big Snooze" (finished by Davis), "Birth of a Notion" (finished by Robert McKimson), and a Tweety cartoon that would eventually be reworked by Friz Freleng as "Tweetie Pie". Some scenes also heavily reuses footage from "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter".
The cartoon is noted for having several abrupt cuts across the film, which is unusual for a cartoon of its time. According to Jerry Beck's DVD commentary on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5, this cartoon's choppy, incomplete feel was a result of Davis rushing to complete the short. Animation historian Devon Baxter however, claimed that these cuts were "indicative [to] censor edits [that] were made before release."[2] Most of the missing scenes are said to be lost to time.
This cartoon's production number originally belonged to a cartoon entitled "For He's A Jolly Good Fala",[3] which would have starred then-president Franklin D. Roosevelt's dog Fala, and would have been the first appearance of Stan Freberg as a voice actor.[4] Roosevelt's death resulted in Clampett aborting the project and letting "Bacall to Arms" take its place.
Censorship[]
- The entire ending, where the Tex Avery-esque wolf happily puffs on Laurie Bee Cool's cigarette only to get shot by Bogey Gocart, who retrieves the cigarette and smokes it only to get blown up and turn blackfaced, replying, "My, oh, my! I can work for Mr. Benny now!" à la Rochester, was cut when shown on TNT, giving the cartoon a rather abrupt ending on that channel.[5] Cartoon Network and its sister channel Boomerang, despite editing out a similar Rochester blackface scene from "Goofy Groceries" (and scenes of outdated African-American stereotypes in general, including scenes of white characters in blackface often from an explosion), left this ending scene uncut, though only in The Bob Clampett Show. The short itself did not appear in any other compilation show on either network.
Notes[]
- This is the first film to be directed by Arthur Davis, although there is no director credit present.
- Neither director Bob Clampett, who left the studio before the cartoon was finished, nor voice actor Mel Blanc are credited. Blanc's voice is recognizable as the wolf, the fat theater patron, the hippo from "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter", and the Elmer Fudd-looking, Sylvester the Cat-sounding man in the newsreal. Impressionist Dave Barry did the voice of Humphrey Bogart.
- The credits for the fictitious film "To Have...etc" are:
- Thief.............Oph Bagdad
- Doctor...........Jekyll
- Lawyer...........Ima Shyster
- Beggar Man....Kismet
- Poor Man........John Dough
- The house in the newsreel segment is the same house used in the Private Snafu short "Payday", where Snafu keeps wasting his money on souvenirs, drinks, prostitutes, and gambling and his post-war home and family disappear piece by piece.
- According to Jerry Beck's DVD commentary on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5, actual audio from the film "To Have and Have Not" was intended to be used in the "To Have...etc" parody. However, due to legal reasons, they wound up being unable to use it, so instead, the soundtrack and the dialogues for the Bogey Gocart and Laurie Be-Cool are completely recreated from scratch, with Dave Barry voicing Bogie and Sara Berner voicing Laurie.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ https://archive.org/details/catalogofc19733271213libr/page/116/mode/1up?view=theater
- ↑ https://x.com/dee_bax/status/1687179973784735744
- ↑ https://www.whataboutthad.com/wb-production-number/?sfw=pass1682875847
- ↑ http://www.whataboutthad.com/2013/03/06/the-clampett-freberg-lorre-connection/
- ↑ http://satamhangover.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/episode-2-cut-and-drawn-9-to-1