Tag: in the pink

Coming Up Shorts! with… The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection: Volume 2

Welcome back for another full post of Coming Up Shorts! This time, I’m going with theatrical shorts starring The Pink Panther, featuring the shorts from 1966 through 1968 that have been released together on disc in The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection: Volume 2.

Here’s a list and quick plot description for each of the cartoons included in this set (for my comments on the individual cartoons, click on the title to go to my previous reviews):

  1. Pink-A-Boo (1966) (Length: 6 minutes, 14 seconds)
    • The Pink Panther has to deal with a mouse and his friends who have come to party.
  2. Genie With The Light Pink Fur (1966) (Length: 6 minutes, 7 seconds)
    • The Pink Panther tries to become a genie, to hilarious effect!
  3. Super Pink (1966) (Length: 5 minutes, 58 seconds)
    • After reading a superhero comic, the Pink Panther tries to be a superhero himself!
  4. Rock A Bye Pinky (1966) (Length: 6 minutes, 8 seconds)
    • When the Pink Panther can’t sleep due to the Little Man’s snoring, he tries to do something about it!
  5. Pinknic (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 9 seconds)
    • The Pink Panther is stuck in a cabin awaiting the arrival of spring, and is stuck with an equally hungry mouse.
  6. Pink Panic (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 1 second)
    • Coming out of a storm, the Pink Panther tries to spend the night at a haunted hotel in a ghost town.
  7. Pink Posies (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 11 seconds)
    • The Little Man tries to plant some yellow posies, but the Pink Panther keeps replacing them with pink posies.
  8. Pink Of The Litter (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 1 second)
    • When a policeman catches the Pink Panther littering, the Panther is forced to clean up the town of Littersburg.
  9. In The Pink (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 13 seconds)
    • Feeling a little fat, the Pink Panther goes to the gym to work out.
  10. Jet Pink (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 3 seconds)
    • When the Pink Panther walks onto an experimental aircraft base, he decides to try becoming a famous pilot.
  11. Pink Paradise (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 11 seconds)
    • When the Pink Panther comes upon a tropical island, he finds himself trying to avoid the Little Man, who is doing some hunting.
  12. Pinto Pink (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 5 seconds)
    • The Pink Panther is trying to hitchhike across the country, when he spots a horse and decides to try riding him.
  13. Congratulations It’s Pink (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 12 seconds)
    • The Pink Panther steals a basket from some campers, only to find it has a baby in it and not food.
  14. Prefabricated Pink (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 11 seconds)
    • The Pink Panther sees a “Help Wanted” sign at a construction site, and hops right in to help out the workers.
  15. The Hand Is Pinker Than The Eye (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 15 seconds)
    • On a cold winter’s day, the Pink Panther sneaks into a house to get warm. What he doesn’t know is that the house belongs to magician Zammo the Great, and he has to contend with all sorts of magical troubles!
  16. Pink Outs (1967) (Length: 6 minutes, 14 seconds)
    • In this Pink Panther cartoon, there is no story. It’s just a series of different gags, switching from one activity to another.
  17. Sky Blue Pink (1968) (Length: 6 minutes, 11 seconds)
    • The Pink Panther tries to fly a kite, but keeps causing trouble for the Little Man.
  18. Pinkadilly Circus (1968) (Length: 6 minutes, 2 seconds)
    • When the Little Man pulls a nail out of the Pink Panther’s foot, the Panther offers to be his slave out of gratitude.
  19. Psychedelic Pink (1968) (Length: 6 minutes, 17 seconds)
    • The Pink Panther walks by a psychedelic book store, and comes inside after being hypnotized by the door.
  20. Come On In! The Water’s Pink (1968) (Length: 6 minutes, 4 seconds)
    • At Bicep Beach, the Pink Panther runs afoul of a muscle-bound freak with his various inflatables.

Given that I haven’t had any luck in finding out much in the way of background information with regard to the era of Pink Panther cartoons contained in this set (compared to what I could find on Pink Panther Volume 1), I will then confine my comments to what I think of the shorts that are included. While I don’t have as strong a memory on whether I saw any of these shorts when I was younger, there are still a number of fun shorts here. Genie With The Light Pink Fur stands out as a fun one, with the Panther pretending to be a genie in a lamp (but nobody wants to make any wishes, instead chasing him away most of the time). Pink Panic is fun as a more Halloween-centered short, as the Panther deals with a ghost and skeleton (and one of my favorite shorts to watch around that time of year). The gym-centered In The Pink is also fun, as the Panther tries to exercise (and inadvertently causes trouble for the Little Man). There are some shorts that are very similar in this set (with at least two dealing with the Panther causing trouble for the Little Man’s dog, who knows the Panther is there but can’t get that across to his master, who blames him for his trouble), plus others that are close in story to some from the first set, but they are still quite entertaining. The only ones that I really didn’t care for were Pink Outs (due to its lack of story) and the hippie-era Psychedelic Pink. Apart from those, this second chronological volume of Pink Panther shorts is still quite entertaining! The level of restoration (or lack thereof) is quite similar to Volume 1, which is good enough for me to recommend it!

The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Volume 2 is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Kino Lorber. The whole set has a runtime of two hours, eight minutes.

“Star Of The Month (August 2021)” Featuring Barbara Stanwyck in… Internes Can’t Take Money (1937)

As we continue on with more films featuring this month’s Star, Barbara Stanwyck, we’ve got her 1937 film Internes Can’t Take Money, also starring Joel McCrea!

Coming Up Shorts! with… In The Pink (1967)

(available on Blu-ray and DVD as part of The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection: Volume 2 (1966-1968) from Kino Lorber)

(Length: 6 minutes, 13 seconds)

Feeling a little fat, the Pink Panther goes to the gym to work out. This one is really funny, with all the things that the Panther does to exercise (all the while causing trouble for the poor Little Man in the process)! I find many of the gags be quite funny, especially the one with the punching bag and the chicken! Some are predictable, like the “shadow-boxing,” but they don’t take away from what is a very funny cartoon worth coming back to with some frequency!

And Now For The Main Feature…

At Mountview General Hospital, medical intern Dr. James Kildare (Joel McCrea) is trying to take care of the various people that come to see him. One of his patients is Janet Haley (Barbara Stanwyck), who has come in to take care of some burns. They feel an instant spark for each other, but she faints from hunger as she is about to leave. When she comes to, Dr. Kildare gives her something to drink, and advises her to come back the next day about her burns. Afterwards, Dr. Kildare and the other residents are summoned to Dr. Henry J. Fearson’s (Pierre Watkin) office. There, fellow intern Jim Weeks (Lee Bowman) is fired for performing an experimental operation on a patient that died afterwards (a procedure that he and Dr. Kildare had worked out together, but only Weeks had a chance to do first). Dr. Kildare takes his friend Weeks to the bar across from the hospital. Janet also goes to that same bar, where she tries to talk with gangster Dan Innes (Stanley Ridges). As we find out, her late husband was a crook, and kidnapped their daughter to keep Janet quiet. However, a bank robbery he was involved in went wrong, and he died from being shot (but never revealed the location of their daughter). Janet was sent to prison herself for two years (because she was accused of being his accomplice), and, having been released, was now trying desperately to find her daughter. Innes (who knew her husband) tells her that he might have some information, but it would cost her $1000 (which she doesn’t have). Gangster Hanlon (Lloyd Nolan) walks in the place with a bad knife wound, and Dr. Kildare tries to save him there (since Hanlon’s men won’t let Dr. Kildare take him to a hospital), with Janet’s help. The next day, Janet tries to follow a lead on her daughter (and fails) before trying to talk with Innes again. He still wants the $1000 dollars to give Janet the information, but also offers her up the possibility of sleeping with him to get the information (which she turns down). Due to this detour, she is late to work and is fired. Since she doesn’t come back to Dr. Kildare, he decides to go see her in person and take her a meal. On the way, he stops at the bar, where he is given an envelope by one of Hanlon’s men (which he later finds out has $1000 in it). Dr. Kildare tells Janet about it, but also mentions that he has to give it back (since interns aren’t allowed to accept money). Janet tries to steal the money when she thinks he isn’t looking, but he catches her at it, and is disappointed in her. He gives the money back to Hanlon, who offers to do him a favor if he needs it. Faced with no other choice, Janet reluctantly decides to go along with Innes’s proposition. She has one last appointment with Dr. Kildare about her burns, and she gives him a note explaining things (but asks him to read it later). However, he decides to read it sooner, and, realizing the fix she is in, asks Hanlon to help find her and Innes before they can do anything she might regret. But will Dr. Kildare and Hanlon be in time? Or, for that matter, will Janet be able to find her missing daughter?

This was another captivating performance from Barbara Stanwyck. As a desperate mother and an ex-con, we see her fighting to find her missing daughter. She has her limits to what she is willing to do, but, with hope slowly dissipating as time goes on, those principles are harder to hold onto. In the end, she is willing to sacrifice herself and her own happiness in the hope of having her daughter restored to her (and, with the help of others that she cares for, she finally succeeds).

The story for this film was taken from Max Brand’s story (of the same name) that appeared in Hearst’s International-Cosmopolitan in 1936. This marked the first appearance of Dr. Kildare on film, and it was almost the last, as the box office was lower than expected, resulting in Paramount dropping any possible plans for a series (although MGM thought they could do something with the character and bought the rights, turning it into a successful series at their studio with Lew Ayres cast as Dr. Kildare). Personally, while I have known of the Dr. Kildare films, it’s never been a series that I’ve been interested in. I mainly saw this film because of Barbara Stanwyck’s presence in it (and she certainly didn’t disappoint). I think Joel McCrea did a good job as the doctor, giving us an honest man, who wants to help people (like trying to come up with a better operating procedure for liver operations), and, due to the rules, is unwilling to accept the money that a gangster tried to give him for saving his life (even though he found it tempting). I think that Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea work well together (in what was the third of six films pairing them together), making their onscreen couple work, even with her character’s principles going down the drain as she tries to find her daughter. It’s an interesting start to the overall Dr. Kildare series (although I really only like this cast and am unlikely to dig into any of the Lew Ayres films at MGM). This is one I would certainly recommend!

What’s Old Is A New Release Again (2020) with… Internes Can’t Take Money (1937)

This movie is available on Blu-ray as part of the three film Barbara Stanwyck Collection from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. Like the films in the other collections I’ve reviewed so far, it mainly sports an HD scan (at least, to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge on the subject). For the most part, it looks quite good with very little damage evident onscreen, outside of a few moments here and there. It may not be a full-fledged restoration, but, at the same time, it doesn’t look like it needs one, and is probably the best one can hope for at this time. I certainly think it is worth it!

Film Length: 1 hour, 19 minutes

My Rating: 8/10

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List Of Actor/Actress Filmographies/Collections

The Bitter Tea Of General Yen (1932) – Barbara Stanwyck – Remember The Night (1940)

Joel McCrea – Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

 Barbara Stanwyck Collection – The Great Man’s Lady (1942)