Michael_Elliott
Gold Diggers of '49 (1935) *** (out of 4) Beans is out digging for gold and hits the big one. He rushes into town and soon everyone is out there digging. Porky Pig is helping Beans when their bag of gold is stolen so Beans must go after it.GOLD DIGGERS OF '49 is a fairly entertaining short from Tex Avery and it features that wonderful animation that he is known for. There are a lot of good gags scattered throughout the running time but for me the highlight is simply the animation. This is especially true during a sequence where Beans feeds his car some extra fast gas. Just look at the detail as they go zipping by various things including picking up Porky. Speaking of Porky, this here was his second short and he's bigger than he's ever been, weight wise, and makes for an interesting father.
Edgar Allan Pooh
. . . Warner Bros.' Looney Tuners always have been "unstuck in time." GOLD DIGGERS OF '49 probably gave FIVE author Kurt Vonnegut himself fits when he first viewed this as a youngster. (Of course, the World appreciates that the adult Mr. Vonnegut was able to harvest the seeds sown in his Imagination by '49 in order to chronicle Billy's amazing travels.) The opening sequence of '49 implies that it might be based upon some small incident of the California Gold Rush (which U.S. schools USED to teach began at Sutter's Mill in 1849; now that Politically Correct Trivia has replaced a Common Core of Facts for America's kiddies, no one under Age 50 knows WHY San Francisco's NFL team is called the 49'Ers). However, Porky Pig is soon seen tooling around in a 60-years-premature Model T, and later Beans pilots a Bonneville Salt Flats speedster post-dating this cartoon by decades. Furthermore, '49 champions Interspecies Marriage with the Union of Beans and Porky's daughter, and it shows that racial identity is as fluid as all of Today's genetic testing TV ads would seem to suggest, as this animated short transforms two Asian Men into a pair of Black Males.
Lee Eisenberg
Porky Pig's second appearance (and Tex Avery's directorial debut) does feature a few racial stereotypes, but overall, "Gold Diggers of '49" made me laugh. Set at the time of the 1849 California gold rush, Porky and Beans are prospectors, and Beans wants to marry Porky's daughter Kitty (the three characters got introduced in "I Haven't Got a Hat" earlier in 1935, and Porky looks as if he needs triple bypass surgery). Part of this involves Beans guarding a little something of Porky's.If you've seen any of Tex Avery's cartoons, then you should know what sorts of things to expect here. The gags aren't quite as zany as I might have hoped for, but I try to imagine how hilarious they must have looked the first time that moviegoers ever saw them. If absolutely nothing else, this should be of interest to cartoon fans as a look into the Termite Terrace crowd's early days. Worth seeing.As for the question of how a pig fathered a cat...well, in cartoons things don't have to make sense.
theowinthrop
A mildly amusing 1935 cartoon that was replayed yesterday on Turner Classic Movies.Beans was briefly (very briefly) the leading figure in Merrie Melodies, before his lack of any humorous comic personality suggested that he really did not deserve such an exalted position. He is one of the gold miners in Red Gulch, California in 1849 (hence the title - a joke supposedly on the popular Warner "Gold Digger" Musicals). His girlfriend is the daughter of Porky Pig. At this time Porky's size and personality were still up in the air. He is taller and fatter (and quite honestly gluttonous) in this cartoon. Beans brings back gold to the town and a rush starts. The town empties out. One racist joke in the film: a Chinese pair are riding a rickshaw (one is pulling it) when auto fumes (this cartoon has several anachronisms in it) turn them Black, and one starts talking like Amos and one like Andy.When a villain lassos Porky's tied bag, the latter says Beans can marry his daughter if he gets the bag back. He eventually does, in the course of changing his his old Model T into a streamlined racing car to catch the villain.As I said mildly amusing. The future touches of genius that Avery brought to his cartoon work in the 1940s are not found here. But he had to start somewhere, I guess.
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