1946 film by Bob Clampett
Book Revue is a 1946 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Bob Clampett.[1] The cartoon was released on January 5, 1946, and features Daffy Duck.[2]
A semi-remake of Clampett's earlier short A Coy Decoy (1941), it also incorporates plot elements of Frank Tashlin's Speaking of the Weather (1937) and Have You Got Any Castles (1938)
Plot
The cartoon starts out in the same, pastoral "after midnight at a closed bookstore" fashion of Frank Tashlin's trio of "books coming to life" cartoons, to the strains of Moonlight Sonata. Inside, an inebriated "cuckoo bird" pops out of a cuckoo clock to announce the arrival of midnight and the books come alive.
The first of these is a book collection called "Complete Works of Shakespeare". Shakespeare is shown in silhouette while his literally-rendered insides ("works") are functioning clockwork mechanisms, along with old-fashioned "stop" and "go" traffic signals, set to the "ninety years without slumbering, tick-tock, tick-tock" portion of "My Grandfather's Clock". Cut to a book titled Young Man with a Horn; a caricature of Harry James breaks loose with a jazz trumpet obbligato similar to James' "You Made Me Love You", in which he segues into the standard, "It Had to Be You", as a striptease is about to begin on the cover of Cherokee Strip. Book covers for The Whistler and The Sea Wolf show their characters whistling and howling at the off-screen action. Henry VIII (designed to resemble Charles Laughton's portrayal of him) also gets excited by the striptease until his mother on the cover of The Aldrich Family calls for him. As she starts to spank Henry, "The Voice in the Wilderness", an emaciated Frank Sinatra caricature, in a wheelchair, gently sings "It Had to Be You" while being pushed along by an orderly. Henry's mother, along with other female book cover characters (such as bobbysoxer versions of Little Women, Mother Goose and Whistler's Mother on the cover of "Famous Paintings"), begin swooning for "Frankie". Immediately thereafter, a jam session begins featuring Harry James, Tommy Dorsey on the cover of "Brass", an Indian on the cover of Drums Along the Mohawk who morphs into Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman as the "Pie-Eyed Piper" (some mice yell "Yay, Benny!"), and a green Bob Burns on the cover of the Arkansas Traveler, all performing a jazz version of "It Had to Be You".
Annoyed by the revelry, Daffy Duck steps out of the cover of a Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies comic book and starts rifling through a trunk (Saratoga Trunk) for clothes. Just after Gene plays some notes on the buttons lining the corpulent stomach of Hudson's Bay, Daffy dons a zoot suit coat, gloves and a curly, blonde hairpiece, as well as what appears to be a set of fake teeth (resembling Cab Calloway). Daffy orders for the music to "STOP!" and the jam session screeches to a halt. Standing in front of a book called "Danny Boy" with the classic Ukrainian tune Ochi chyornye as background music and the background becoming one with illegible newsprint superimposed on silhouettes of urban buildings, Daffy (effecting Danny Kaye's fake Russian accent) starts reminiscing about his "natife willage" with its "soft music", "why-o-leens" and the "happy peoples sitting on their balalaikas, playing their samowars" (misusing both terms) and also talks about a girl called Cucaracha, who he describes as "so round, so firm, so fully packed, so easy on the draw". Saying that "they would sing to him a little gypsy love song", Daffy breaks into his normal character and briefly sings "La Cucaracha" (including his "hoo-hoo" sounds).
Daffy continues in his fake Russian accent as he sings Carolina In The Morning, inadvertently teasing the Big Bad Wolf, who at this point is still in the window of "Gran'Ma's House"; Daffy beats a hasty retreat to stage left. Meanwhile, Little Red Riding Hood, based on Margaret O'Brien, skips past Daffy and toward Gran'Ma's House. Realizing the danger, Daffy puts himself between Red and the door, breaking into Danny Kaye's scat singing style to warn Red about the Wolf, including mock chewing on her leg for emphasis, not noticing the Wolf adding salt to his leg. Red runs away screaming and Daffy halfway notices the Wolf before returning to his pantomime; finally he fully recognizes the danger (becoming a giant eye in a wild double take).
Daffy runs away, pursued by the wolf through Hopalong Cassidy, Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Petrified Forest. The police sergeant on the cover of the Police Gazette notices what's going on and alerts all other police officers. The Wolf ends up apprehended by the Long Arm of the Law and is placed before The Judge who declares the Wolf guilty and sentences him to Life in spite of his objections ("You can't do dis to me! I'm a citizen, see!" to the tune of the sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor), though the Wolf makes his Escape soon after. Jimmy Durante, incongruously illustrating the cover of So Big, turns toward the Wolf, and his huge nose trips the Wolf, who goes sliding down Skid Row, nearly falling into Dante's Inferno. The Wolf scrambles to the top, but the Sinatra caricature reappears, held in the orderly's hands as if he were a doll. The Wolf screams and faints, skidding head first into the inferno. The rest of the characters, including Daffy and Red, proceed to celebrate the Wolf's death by dancing to a swing version of Carolina in the Morning. Suddenly, the Wolf pops out of Dante's Inferno, ending the cartoon demanding the characters "Stop that dancing up there! (as Daffy had done earlier) ... Ya sillies!" (a la Joe Besser)
Production notes
The film was reissued in 1951, as Book Review.[4] The original title is a pun, as a revue is a variety show, while a review is an evaluation of an artwork; this pun is however not retained in the title of the reissue.
Reception
Animation historian Steve Schneider writes that many of the cartoon's references are dated, "but who cares? ... Better simply to revel in Book Revue's headlong brio, overlapping settings, meticulous economy of gesture, intertwining narratives, resourceful color effects, super-efficient use of screen space—and a great, great turn by a duck called Daffy, as he dances, scat-sings, cavorts, and distorts in one of his true moments of glory... Book Revue is an encyclopedia of what can be done in the animated medium if you're brilliant enough."[6]
