The time Betty Boop accidentally got the entire city, including inanimate objects, high on laughing gas.
This cartoon was banned for a time in the '60s, due to fears that it promoted recreational drug use. I am personally also convinced that this short was the inspiration for Ralph Bakshi's "Cool World."
An incredible find! This film is "Cleopasty," a German parody of Theda Bara's famous "Cleopatra" (1917), which itself is a lost film. This YouTuber went to the trouble to get the title cards translated to English, and reconstructed the movie as best he could. "Cleopasty" was directed by Hal Roach, producer of "Lauren and Hardy." The slapstick comedy holds up surprisingly well, at least if your sense of humor is as juvenile as mine is.
In other news, I've managed to get back onto YouTube, though it will still be a little bit before I can get any of my film noir or Peter Lorre related videos up yet.
"I've been away for a long time. You should be very glad to see me."
"I hate the sight of you!"
"I know that. Lorraine, you have been in Mr. Smith's arms. Nothing like that must ever happen again. It embarrasses me. You're my wife and he's a murderer."
Grabbe, newly staged at the Carl-Theater, 1928.
"Joke, satire, irony and deeper meaning" – Eddie Peppler, Franz Berisch, Peter Lorre, Max Wittmann (Willinger).
I could tell this gig wasn't gonna be like the others.
I'm used to being pulled out of a tophat by a dame in a spangled leopard, or sniffin' out technicolored eggs in a field where gangsters full of lead are lying six feet under the unsuspecting citizens and their suguar-addled crotch-goblins. When you're a foot tall and covered in fur, you take whatever work you can find.
But this fellow had other plans for me. Plans that involved gambling, forgery, ancient secrets. And murder.
To most of Philadelphia, she seems like a sizzling moll to Hector “Hercules” Greco, upcoming heavyweight champ with known mafia ties. Specifically, his long-lost, recently found, father, Big Zeus, head of the Greek Mafia from Philly all the way to Atlantic City.
It's not a great shock that Meg is up to her earrings in seedy crime. As of the 1920s, women bootleggers are commonplace, since they can hide more under their skirts, and attract less suspicion from coppers. Herc and the boys jokingly refer to Meg as their own personal Mata Hari. But what Herc and his grouchy Italian trainer Phil don’t know is that Meg is actually an F.B.I. informant.
Meg doesn’t want this job. But after her last good-for-nothing boyfriend left her to take the fall for his toppled schemes, she was forced into a plea deal, and now acts as a government mole, reporting to Agent Haiden “Hades” Burns. Meg has orders to nab evidence that Wonder Boy is entangled in fixed fights, as part of his pop’s crooked gambling ring. Once she completes this assignment, Meg's record will be wiped clean, and she'll finally be free. But she’s starting to fall for the big lug.
AN: Megara is one of my favorite Disney ladies, so it's a shame it took me so long to get her flapper picture redone. I did like the old version enough to keep it, but unfortunately it's saved in very poor quality. So I largely just traced over it. Meg's hair and scarf were inspired by Myrtle from "The Great Gatsby" (2013).
Esmeralda Danzer is a traveling Vaudeville dancer. As a Romani person in the 1920s, the entertainment industry is one of the few in which she can thrive with relative ease. Just as Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli, and Charlie Chaplin. It certainly helps that not only is Vaudeville at the peak of its popularity, but Esmeralda's greatest talent, rigorous and "risque" (for the time) dancing, is the new national pastime. Her troupe combines jazz with traditional Romani music, in a proto-version of what will eventually be called "Gypsy Jazz." The band is long overdue for a stop in Charleston, South Carolina—entertainment hotspot, and home of the new and “scandalous” Charleston dance.
While performing at the Topsy Turvy Club, Esmeralda meets Quasimodo Bell, a shy young worker from a local circus. Quasi spends most of his days backstage as a strongman, but occasionally endures taunting in the sideshow, where he's billed as "the Hunchback." Before meeting Esmeralda, Quasi's only friends were Vic, Hugh, and Laverne, three disfigured dwarfs who also perform in his troupe. Sneaking into this speakeasy is his first time breaking the law.
Esmeralda is shocked to learn that Quasi’s foster-father is none other than Claude Frollo. Frollo is a judge considered racist even for his time, venomously obsessed with enforcing Prohibition, and using it to harass minorities at any opportunity. Frollo pushed Quasi into the circus career, convincing him that it was all he'd ever be good for, in spite of Quasi's artistic talents. Esmeralda can't believe someone as cruel and bigoted as Frollo could have raised someone as kind as Quasimodo. The surprises continue when Chief of Police Phoebus Gold turns out to also be incredibly progressive and noble, and a romance begins.
Judge Frollo develops a twisted fixation on Esmeralda, after witnessing her “sinful” performances around town, and being publicly challenged by her when he refuses to stop a mob from harassing Quasi at the sideshow. Quasi and the Chief track Esmeralda to an underground speakeasy called the Court of Miracles, to warn her that Frollo is planning a raid. Unfortunately, Frollo used Quasimodo and Phoebus to lead them right to the hideout.
Now completely unhinged, Frollo cuffs Esmeralda to the bars of her prison cell and douses her in alcohol, planning to “burn the witch in her own sin.” But just before the deranged judge can drop the match onto her, Quasi breaks through the bars of his cell, and sends Frollo across the jailhouse in a swipe of his arm. A mass jailbreak ensues, followed by an epic brawl, with some cops like Phoebus joining the wrongfully imprisoned citizens against Frollo’s corruption. Frollo ends up falling off the highest part of the Grace Memorial Bridge, to his long-overdue demise. Quasimodo is hailed as a national hero, and the city celebrates. Quasi eventually finally finds love with a gun moll named Maddy, who betrays her scam-artist boyfriend Sarouch and turns a new leaf.
AN: I hate how long I took for this one, since Esmeralda is my favorite Disney heroine. I didn't want to redraw her flapper picture from scratch, but the old version was of such low-quality that it couldn't be salvaged. It looks alright from the thumbnail, but up close you'll see what I mean. Her dress was inspired by Seraphine's red dress in the comic "Lackadaisy."
When the Ottoman Empire dissolved in 1922, Yasmine Agrabah and her father Hamed were among the wave of Arab immigrants starting a new life in Jacksonville, Florida. But a few years later, in 1926, the family moves to the other side of the state, to the newly developing Aladdin City. (Yes, seriously.)
Hamed Agrabah is a respected, if eccentric, businessman, who runs a successful shop selling animal figurines. He has no problem with his daughter being outspoken and dressing in Western fashion, because in the 1920s, neither of those is too unusual for women in many Middle Eastern countries. Women in Afghanistan actually gained the right to vote a year before women in the U.S. did! The Arab world is even developing its own version of jazz music. Yasmine Anglicizes her first name to Jasmine, and goes by Jazz for short. But Hamed draws the line at Jazz venturing outside their upper-class neighborhood, fearful for her safety.
Jazz sneaks out at night to frequent speakeasies, despite having no interest in alcohol. She just wants to break some rules, and make some real friends. During her nights out, she meets streetwise bootlegger Al, and the connection is immediate. But they’re separated when the speakeasy is busted, and they're both hauled off by the coppers. Jazz is bailed out of jail by her displeased father. To rub salt in the wound, her father’s business partner Jafar casually drops that he heard Al was killed in prison. Jazz is devastated, and blames herself.
Some time later, Jazz’s father hosts a fancy party at their mansion, in the hopes of introducing her to some eligible young men. A purple-and-gold limousine catches everyone’s attention as it pulls up to the driveway. The visitor’s blue-skinned butler introduces “Ali Ababwa,” a brilliant young business mind from a renowned “old money” family that no one has heard of. In his spiffy white suit with gold trim, Ali saunters into the party and charms the pants off everyone except Jazz and Jafar. Later that night, on her bedroom balcony, Jazz sees “Ali” trying to shoo her cat Raja away with his white, gold-brimmed fedora. His bad haircut underneath is instantly familiar. Ali insists that he and Jazz have never met, but she isn’t convinced. Nevertheless, she joins him in his purple limo for a night of adventure. Among other things, they see a production of the groundbreaking animated film “The Adventures of Prince Achmed”—the first feature-length animated movie in cinema. As the film ends, Jaz muses, “It’s too bad Abu couldn’t see this,” referring to Al’s pet monkey, and trips up “Ali” in his lie.
Later, Jafar’s hitmen send Al to sleep with the fishes, and Jafar slips Hamed a very powerful Mickey, hoping to coerce him into signing over his company and daughter. Al shows up just in time to expose Jafar’s snake-oil quackery. But Jafar catches a glimpse of a familiar art-deco bottle in Al’s fedora, and realizes that “Ali” is in fact Al, the young bootlegger who made off with the enchanted booze bottle Jafar had hoped to nab for himself. Jafar has Iago swipe the bottle out of Al’s purple limo, and the genie has a new master.
The magical battle that follows cumulates in the Miami Hurricane of 1926. Al defeats Jafar, frees the genie and gets the girl; but Aladdin City’s real estate value is permanently damaged. Nevertheless, everyone is happy to have survived the hurricane, and be free of a twisted crime lord. Citizens who recall seeing Al battle a giant snake, and Jafar transforming into a giant red genie, attribute these memories to the giggle-water they’ve been guzzling all decade. Those who don’t drink figure maybe they got a head injury during that hurricane. At any rate, Al and Jazz are married, and begin their life together in a whole new world of adventure.
AN: I waited far too long to get Jasmine into this series, and I blame her absence for why my "Prohibition Princesses" project hasn't gained as much attention as I'd hoped. Part of why she's so late coming is that I kept waiting for the chaos in the Middle East to simmer down, to minimize controversy. But Jasmine was also always going to take longer, because my favorite princesses tend to get the most elaborate designs. The patterns on her dress are based largely on her live-action counterpart.
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