The Cuckoo Murder Case
About The Cuckoo Murder Case
On a stormy night a revolver kills the cuckoo in an old clock. The clock itself telephones detective Flip the Frog. Flip's car tiptoes through puddles to a house that keeps blowing him back outside, and indoors his shadow will not stay where he tells it. In the cellar a robed figure stamps "Out" on a drawing of the cuckoo and turns the page to Flip. Flip snatches the robe and leaps clear. Two chicks hatch in the clock so the hours can go on.
Cast & crew
More about The Cuckoo Murder Case
Ub Iwerks produced and drew the cartoon for Celebrity Productions. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released it on 18 October 1930 as a Flip the Frog short. Carl W. Stalling wrote the score, recorded on Powers Cinephone. The titles note that the cartoon process was licensed under the Bray-Hurd patents.
Themes
Making
Exhibitors Daily Review and Motion Pictures announced on 21 February 1930 that Iwerks, lately of Disney, would produce twelve Flip cartoons for Celebrity. He told the paper a frog "more nearly represents a human being than anything else in nature." The same paper reported on 7 July 1930 that MGM had taken distribution.
Reviews
Variety of 29 October 1930 called the short fair and wrote that letting the characters speak now and then "does much to disrupt the illusion." Motion Picture News, 1 November 1930, praised Flip's "amazing contortions" and said the film "shows real thought." The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, reviewing the Astor bill, put this cartoon and Dogway Melody among the most amusing items of that kind all season.
Music
Carl W. Stalling composed the score. Dialogue spots sit on the Powers Cinephone track, which is what Variety complained about.
Preservation
The short survives in black and white. Image Entertainment and Thunderbean Animation have both mastered it for disc from the Flip the Frog materials.
Notes
- Copyright MP2476 was registered on 27 April 1931 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Distributing Corp.
- The AFI Catalog calls the short a spoof of Paramount's Philo Vance pictures.
- Irven Spence is credited with animation.
- The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of 24 October 1930 caught it at the Astor Theater on a bill with the dog comedy Dogway Melody.
- A 1936 Kodascope Talking Film Library blurb says Flip finds the villain and runs when he sees he is next.
Scenes
- The last bullet curves in the air, punches through the cuckoo, and the bird checks the hole before it drops.
- Flip tells his shadow to wait, then traps it behind a door.
- The robed figure stamps "Out" on the cuckoo and turns the page to a drawing of Flip.
Influenced by
- Paramount Philo Vance detective films
Also available
- Internet Archive (TheCuckooMurderCase1930UbIwerks)
- Cartoons That Time Forgot: The Ub Iwerks Collection, Vol. 2 (Image Entertainment DVD)
- Flip the Frog: The Complete Series (Thunderbean Animation Blu-ray)
Quotes
Damn.
