Mjeteconer
Just perfect...
CommentsXp
Best movie ever!
Bob
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
tavm
This was another of the Merrie Melodies cartoons based on the songs from Gold Diggers of 1933 that is now on that movie's DVD. In this one, we see many celebrity parodies such as Bing Crosby in the bathtub (here, he's Cros Bingsby), Greta Garbo, Mae West, Ed Wynn, etc. There's plenty of movement and some amusing gags though nothing really hilarious. Still, I was entertained enough by the way the animators were trying to fill the 6-minute running time that was standard for these theatrical filler cartoons meant to fill a block program that also included one live action short, a newsreel, some trailers, and the main feature. So on that note, I've Got to Sing a Torch Song is worth a look if you're interested enough.
slymusic
"I've Got to Sing a Torch Song" is an unusually wacky black-and-white Warner Bros. cartoon, made before any star characters such as Porky Pig and Daffy Duck were even created. This cartoon is essentially about THE RADIO, one of the entertainment industry's finest inventions during the early 20th Century. Where there's a radio, you can be darn sure there will be scores of ardent fans tuning in! Here are my favorite highlights from "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song". I especially like the hilarious physical & vocal caricatures of Bing Crosby (ALL the gals listen to him!), Mae West, and Marlene Dietrich. In addition, a bearded, hookah-puffing sultan thinks nothing of his harem girl's dance; he'd much rather listen to Amos 'n' Andy! If you want to see an early thirties cartoon with a lot of quirk, try "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song". By no means my favorite Warner Bros. cartoon, but certainly not one that makes a descent into inferiority!
ccthemovieman-1
They didn't have videos way back in the 1930s, and they didn't have television, either. However, you can still do aerobics from a voice on the radio encouraging and instructing you. That's what we see in the opening minutes as people of all ages are seen exercising in unique and clever ways. One guys is doing pulleys from the girdle on his fat wife! An old rich guy is doing arm exercises while reading ticker tape on the stock market quotations. There are a lot of these type of things, all in a short space of time.Then the story, if you want to call it that, switches from aerobics to celebrities as we see movie stars and others on the radio and people listening to it from all over the globe, from Shanghai to Alaska. Some of the celebrities I couldn't recognize, making this a cartoon more for folks back in the that era.This cartoon was a showcase by Warner Brothers for some of its stars and the title song comes from "Gold Diggers Of 1933," one of their films.
Robert Reynolds
This short doesn't really have a plot to speak of, but is instead a series of sight gags, celebrity caricatures and a version of the song which provides the title. Consider this a spoiler warning: The cartoon is a bunch of gags loosely connected by radios. The viewer is bounced around the world from one radio to the next. Some of the bits would probably be offensive to some in this day and age, like scenes involving Chinese policemen and African natives and a slightly risqué (for 1933, anyway) scene with a harem girl.There are also celebrity caricatures, including Ben Bernie, a takeoff on Bing Crosby (here, he's Cros Bingby), Greta Garbo, Zazu Pitts and Mae West, plus quite a few who clearly were caricatures whom I didn't recognize. Oh-there's also a scene where Jimmy Cagney and an actress have a bit together.The performance of "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song" is done by, among others, Garbo, Pitts and West and the end title has Garbo saying, "That's all, folks!" All in all, a nice little short, if nothing special. Well worth watching once. Recommended.
