This fine documentary deals with the rise and fall of Betty Boop. As far as I know it is unavailable on home video, which is a shame. Many existing Betty Boop tapes are low quality dupes of scratchy 16mm prints released (along with many Warners and Terrytoons) due to unclear copyright laws. This video contains crystal clear prints of several crucial Boop cartoons such as Bimbo's Initiation, Minnie the Moocher and Snow White with edited highlights from other films such as Any Rags Today and Popeye the Sailor. Unfortunately, several clips from other cartoons are obviously not done from the original negatives.
Those who remember Betty Boop are in for a treat. The documentary includes live action footage of Helen Kane, who inspired the Fleischer brothers to create Betty. Some rarely seen embryonic versions of Betty are also on display; in these early versions she is an anthropomorphised dog! (Fleischer Studios soon turned her puppy ears into hoop earrings). Very little is seen of the other Fleischer cartoons save for a couple clips of Koko, which serve to introduce the clown as one of Betty's supporting players. The informative narration is done by Steve Allen, who sounds as though he is particularly enjoying his task. Allen's narration illuminates and rarely gets in the way of the cartoons, although it may be annoying upon subsequent viewing. There are no archival interviews with the Fleischers or Mae Questel, and no testimonies from current animators which is a major disappointment for animation scholars. Both the sound and picture are amazingly crisp, which means that those who came for entertainment will not be disappointed. In fact, the clarity of the prints is one reason I highly recommend this video.
Those who have never seen any of the Fleischer cartoons are in for an amazing experience. Not only are the cartoons hilarious, but they contain a healthy dose of surrealism rare in today's animation, several Yiddish references, an atmosphere steeped in the New York of the 1930s, and an often shocking sexuality. The pre-Code Fleischers created cartoons far removed from the Disney school, and some entries (Betty Boop's Big Boss) are definitely not for children.
Boop-Oop-A-Doop is not the perfect documentary on Betty Boop. Several cartoons are presented out of sequence, for example. Betty's rare color appearance (as a redhead!) is not included here, nor is Grampy's appearance in the color cartoon Christmas Comes But Once a Year. Apart from Popeye, none of Betty's pairings with other comic strip characters such as the Little King are mentioned. And there is no footage from any of the 3-D Betty cartoons that Fleischer filmed in the late 1930s. Fleischer's use of the tabletop multiplane camera was simply astonishing, and its omission is unfortunate. Although both Max and Dave Fleischer were dead by the time this documentary was assembled, a Ken Burns-style reading of some older print interviews would have been very illuminating.
As such, if you can find a copy of Boop-Oop-A-Doop by all means purchase it. It is a safer purchase than many of the cut price, low-budget tapes of Betty that are readily available.
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Other NonAnime Reviews Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle Review* American Pop Review* Bug's Life Review* Fantasia Review* Lord of the Rings Review |
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