Berman as an ideal property for the studio’s great range of contracted woman players, and he bought the rights for $125,000. Kaufman, had opened at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre with Margaret Sullavan in the lead, and was hailed by New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson as “a three-act panel of brilliant details.” Running for 22 weeks, the moderate stage success was seen by RKO Radio Pictures producer Pandro S. Less than a year earlier, on October 22, 1936, the original play, written by Edna Ferber and George S. The next day, its New York opening grossed over $13,000 at the Radio City Music Hall, earning almost $300,000 there in the next three weeks. Here are consecutive frames.Director Gregory La Cava introduced moviegoers to a host of energetic young women living together in a theatrical boarding house, struggling for survival and stardom on the New York stage, when his Stage Door premiered in San Francisco 80 years ago, on October 6, 1937. Incidentally, Bentley isn’t big on matching shots from scene to scene. The Major is welcomed back into the Adventurers Club and is set to blast Snagglepuss with his rifle (“fortunes of the hunt and all that jolly rot”) but Snagglepuss cleverly makes a last request-a performance on stage in front of the Club members. Snagglepuss tries to bluff his way out by pretending to be a motorcycle cop but the Major catches on (Major: “Acting? Is that what that was?” Snagglepuss: “Oh, that I should suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous critics.”). (“Heavens to Claustrophobia! I’ve been iron curtained,” he tells us when the metal bars clang down). Ta ta! Curtain!” The stage turns out to be a cage. Just call me Snag ‘cause my name ain’t John. Maltese evokes Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with Snagglepuss’ monologue: “Ere the mockin’bird is mockin’ and long before the dawn hath gone, I’ll be waitin’ ‘neath the balcony with knees a-knockin’. The cat falls for the bait and auditions on a mobile stage. The plot carries on with Major Minor pretending to be a road show impresario (“lured by the fragrance of greasepaint, the sound of applause and all that show biz jazz”) to capture Snagglepuss. The exteriors are stylised, the interiors have shading. When the cartoon first appeared on TV, kids would have been watching them on a black-and-white set so they wouldn’t have been able to appreciate Monte’s various shades of green. I really like the background colours in Snagglepuss’ cave. Zyzyr (“If ZZZ won’t have me, I’m zunk”). Give me a chancst.” Finally, he calls Zylvester Z. I’ll pop it, peddle it and pay for it, even. Shortfella, even.” Next call: “Hello, Acme Bookin’ Agency? Your actin’ worries are over. “As I was sayin’ sir, I know Shakespeare, Ibsen, Longfella. Snagglepuss is on the phone, leafing alphabetically through the Yellow Pages trying to get a job acting on stage, but getting hung up on during his increasingly desperate spiel. The next portion of the plot is where Maltese generally shines with Snagglepuss-when the pink cat fills the scene with a monologue. “Now, go!” says the Englishman leader of the Club, “And never dampen our teacups again!” Bentley worked in the Tex Avery unit at MGM and for Frank Tashlin at Warners, among many places, so he got around. Bob Bentley is the animator, though there’s nothing distinguishing about his work here that I could spot. As John Kricfalusi has reminded Hanna-Barbera fans, you can tell Walt Clinton’s layout work in the early cartoons because the animator drew human characters with ears at collar length. He never wore one in other cartoons, but Maltese seems to have decided “wildebeest” was a funny word, so into the dialogue it went. Maltese decides that the major should be divested of his wildebeest whistle. Maltese’s story is a parody of how soldiers were drummed out of the army with their epaulettes ripped off and so on. It opens with the Adventurer’s Club (apparently there is only one adventurer) drumming out Major Minor for his continued failures to capture Snagglepuss.
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