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Saturday, March 5, 2016

Short Subject: Brave Little Tailor (1938)



Love the title card for this short.



It’s a great design with the shield, the lettering, Mickey on one side and the knight in the opposite corner.
The short itself lives up to that nice title card too.  Having a fun story where Mickey is sent to defeat the giant after being mistaken for a giant slayer when he kills seven flies in one blow.  I love Mickey’s outfit here and the pear shape style to his body introduced by Fred Moore.

The other characters aren’t quite as nice.  There’s some jerkier movements in crowd scenes.  Understandable given it was some of the nine young whippersnappers working on them, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas.   The designs themselves are very 30’s and that does date it a bit.  Also some of the shots of giants’ face take the plunge into the Uncanny Valley.  Minnie looks very nice though, and I enjoy that it was her idea to marry Mickey if he defeated the giant.   

I like that Mickey uses his tailoring techniques to defeat the giant too, though where he got that oversized needle and thread I have no idea.  Seeing the giant make a bench and lighter out a stove and some poor farmer’s house is neat, as is the carnival at the end run by the snoring giant.  Once again logic comes in to play though as I wonder how anyone is supposed to get off the rides.

So a couple of clunky movements and some dated designs, but otherwise this was a fun creative short that again showcased Mickey as a hero with positives trait and no rogue personality in sight and it’s still engaging.  The rogue personality has its place and the everyman one does too and both give us nice stories when properly balanced. 

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