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Max FleischerBetty Boop: Snow White (1933)

Memorable rendition of "St James Infirmary" by Cab Calloway


This movie is part of the collection: Film Chest Vintage Cartoons

Producer: Max Fleischer
Sponsor: Paramount Publix Corporation
Audio/Visual: sound, black and white
Keywords: Betty Boop; cartoon; humor

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: FDO Andy - - April 30, 2008
Subject: What is the Music? After 'Please' - and before 'St James Infirmary'
This is an amazing cartoon and as with many of the Betty B cartoons, incorporates extracts from popular hits of the day. I can identify most numbers, but if anyone can tell me what the music is after 'Please' (Betty/Koko/Bimbo evade execution)and before Cab Calloway(Koko) singing 'St. James Infirmary'.

This tune accompanies Snow White/Betty as she cascades down hill in the ice coffin. This tune is familiar to me but I can't identify it. Vaguely Hungarian/gipsy perhaps, but may be wrong.

Reviewer: mdebutante - - April 5, 2008
Subject: Cab Calloway!!!
Awesome!

Reviewer: pooooolki - - October 23, 2007
Subject: How are you?
You will be much better after you watch Betty!

Reviewer: krine - - October 19, 2007
Subject: How to
How to turn this friggin thing off

Reviewer: canam101 - - April 16, 2007
Subject: Roland Crandall was a brilliant surrealist
The Fleischer brothers were second-rate compared to Disney, but they had the brains to hire Crandall who made the Snow White cartoon what it is.

Did Crandall do any more of that sort of work, or did the Fleischers just have others copy his ideas?

Reviewer: Furbish Lousewort, Ph.D - - April 12, 2007
Subject: Ahh, Now THIS Is Classic Animation!
It doesn't get any better... Betty, Bimbo, Koko the Clown (voiced by Cab Calloway), in a nightmarishly funny, "weird" atmosphere.

Walt Disney probabaly didn't even understand this Surrealistic Betty Boop cartoon, and his later, full-length version of "Snow White" shows absolutely no Fleischer Brothers influence at all.

But it was the Fleischers who came closest to the disturbing psychological undercurrents of the original Brothers Grimm story... A nightmare that's completely nightmarish, but is also hilarious at the same time. Don't ask me how they accomplished that feat, but they did!

Reviewer: Abe in NYC - - December 10, 2006
Subject: WARNING - ToonCast videos have pre-roll and border
Dear all:

Please be advised that the ToonCast versions of these videos (in QuickTime format) all have an added border advertising the ToonCast site, and two out of three have an added pre-roll with a big red "more" (at ToonCast)!

Reviewer: tooncast - - November 2, 2006
Subject: audio solution
Vintage ToonCast has a download for this classic that has flawless audio...

Reviewer: linseed - - February 19, 2006
Subject: Incredible
I just saw this for the first time the other day and must have watched it a dozen times. Cab Calloway is beyond impressive. His musical number is so haunting and the rotoscoped animation sequence with the song is amazing. it is just so inventive and surreal. I'm just stunned by how hip these pre-code cartoons are.

Reviewer: ihor oid - - November 7, 2005
Subject: snow white - audio portion
the video portion is transferred just fine, but the audio is set to some dismally LOW level of 1 out 10, so one does NOT get to enjoy the vocal antics of betty boop or cab calloway.

I-) ihor

Reviewer: Valpy - - September 6, 2005
Subject: St James Infirmary Blues
I've read of two conflicting reports of the song's origins.

One says that the song originates from an 18th century English ballad "The Unfortunate Rake". About a person dying of syphilis on the stairs of St. James Hospital ("As I lay dying on the stairs of St. James Hospital"). SOURCE: http://robwalker.net/html_docs/letterthirteen.html

The other says that Cab Calloway's wailing rendition of St. James Infirmary adds a dark and sinister undercurrent to the old Snow White story, a juxtaposition especially of interest because the song is supposed to be about a girl who died of a cocaine overdose, and "snow" is another name for cocaine. Leslie Cabarga has suggested that the Fleischers were unaware of the significance of this and the other songs that Cab performed for Betty Boop cartoons, but the cave imagery suggests that the animator, at least, knew what was going on. SOURCE: http://www.heptune.com/snowwhit.html

Valpy

Reviewer: judeblack, bbc - - May 16, 2005
Subject: Who needs Disney??!
We've got Betty, Koko, Bimbo, enough surrealism to satisfy Salvadore Dali and best of all, we have the great Cab Calloway! I joined this website just so I could hear Cab Calloway and I don't understand why he isn't as highly praised as Ellington and Armstrong. Don't let Cab go, bless him! Scat sing his praises or better yet, recommend this site to all your friends and relations.

Reviewer: Little Nemo - - April 13, 2005
Subject: This is the one
Sheer brilliance - along with Betty Boop MD and Betty in Blunderland, one of the most inventive, surreal, downright enjoyable Bettys. This one was recognised by European critics in the book Film: Critics' Choice. Like M.D., it's totally psychedelic - a puff of the God-given green stuff goes delightfully well with this confection of Fleischer's crazed mind.
Betty looks hot in her final, glorious pre-code year.
thanks Archive! (Donate, everyone!)