Forty Winks

1931 Animation Directed by Otto Messmer

About Forty Winks

Felix conducts four singing cats until a neighbor rolls a bowling ball at them and then sprays them with ether. At home, Felix's dwarf master cannot sleep, takes a toy cannon, and fires it into Felix's back. Felix tries a clothesline and a doghouse, and the dog's tears float the little house away. He lands where the plot calls the Dark Continent, fights a mountain lion until it turns into a pillow, and finally sleeps.

Cast & crew

More about Forty Winks

Otto Messmer is the director on the catalog and on Wikidata, and Wikipedia describes the short as a Pat Sullivan Studio Felix the Cat cartoon. The catalog year is 1931. The Wikipedia article is titled as a 1930 film, and Wikidata lists both 1930 and 1931.

Themes

  • sleep that will not come
  • a hostile master
  • a pillow won in a fight
  • Felix the Cat
  • ether
  • dwarf
  • mountain lion

Notes

  • The Internet Archive identifier FelixFortyWinks1929 includes the year 1929.
  • Felix offers the dwarf warm milk and then a clarinet tune that sets toy soldiers dancing.
  • One soldier's cannonball punches a hole in a picture before the dwarf turns the cannon on Felix.
  • Wikidata's genre label for the short is road movie.

Scenes

  • The mountain lion is punched until it becomes the pillow Felix sleeps on.

Also available

  • Internet Archive (FelixFortyWinks1929)