Midnight
About Midnight
Alley cats form a barbershop quartet and sing into the night. The noise brings dogs from the pound, sent to shut them up. The dogs do not manage it.
Cast & crew
More about Midnight
An Aesop's Fables short produced by Amadee J. Van Beuren, directed by John Foster and Mannie Davis, and released by Pathé Exchange on October 12, 1930. Gene Rodemich wrote the music.
Themes
Background
By late 1930 the Aesop series was competing with Disney's Silly Symphonies, and many of the Van Beuren entries were night-time musical gags like this one.
Making
Van Beuren's Aesop shorts had only recently added synchronized sound. This one is built as a short musical argument between the cats and the dogs rather than a chase plot.
Music
Gene Rodemich composed the score, which carries the cats' quartet and the dogs' failed interruption.
Preservation
A raw HD copy circulates from the Van Beuren materials, filed on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Wikidata files it under both Foster and Davis.
- The gag is aural: the cats keep singing after the pound dogs arrive.
- Rodemich was scoring most of the Van Beuren shorts in this period.
- A raw HD copy is on Wikimedia Commons under the Foster and Davis credit.
- Pathé was still the series distributor in 1930, before the RKO releases.
Scenes
- Four alley cats sing in close harmony on a night street.
- Dogs from the pound arrive to quiet them and fail.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (John Foster and Mannie Davis - Aesop's Fables - Midnight (1930) (raw HD version).webm)
