Robert Reynolds
This is one of Friz Freleng's musically driven shorts from Warner Brothers studio. There will be spoilers ahead:There are only a couple of segments which have dialog and what little there is was recorded at higher speeds, though it hardly matters. The animation is set to various pieces of classical music and the timing of things is superb The basic plot is straight out of fairy tales, namely "The Shoemaker and the Elves". A shoemaker is laid up in bed and needs help in his shop. Cue the music and the elves. There follows a series of scenes, each set to some piece of classical music, with the animation timed to the music-and excellently timed at that.There are really nice bits like two elves doing a turn on Charlie Chaplin's "little Tramp", two others who do Laurel and Hardy and various other bits such as Russian elves to some Russian music. Different types of work is done to music. one of the highlights is when two less than bright elves try to hammer in a nail. The scenes are done perfectly, with a typical Warner's conclusion.The ending of the short is a twist on the original, with the shoemaker trying to sneak off to play golf, only to be caught by the elves. It's a beautiful ending.This short is available on DVD and is worth finding. Most recommended.
Lee Eisenberg
Among the greatest Warner Bros. cartoons were the ones putting the action to music. One example is Friz Freleng's "Holiday for Shoestrings", taking the children's story of the shoe cobbler whose work gets secretly done by elves, and having the elves work to the "Nutcracker" music...with a few gags along the way. If you ask me, this is the way to get people into the holiday spirit; don't bombard people with that awful music and advertising that we have to experience every November and December. This cartoon (plus "Gremlins", "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "The Ref") create the perfect amount of yuletide feeling. Just recently became available on DVD on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5 Disc 2.PS: one of the elves looked a little bit like Elmer Fudd.
ccthemovieman-1
This cartoon features two great Looney Tunes writers, Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce, along with the direction of Friz Freleng and the music of Carl Stalling. Often the latter gets unnoticed by the casual observer but animated short buffs know and appreciate the incredible work of Stalling. His music and instrumental sound-effects were always good. Sometimes they stood out in a cartoon. This is one of the times. Of course, it's easy to say that in a cartoon that has no dialog, just sight gags and music, but Stalling, nonetheless, is often taken for granted. I plead guilty to that sometimes, myself.This cartoon really isn't a story, just a bunch of gags based around watching elves work at night making and repairing shoes at "Jake's Shoe Repair.". The shoe styles are interesting, since several of them are long out of style.The title of this cartoon, by the way, was a play-on-words to a very popular song in 1940s called "Holiday For Strings."Some of the elves are takeoffs on Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. The music comes from a number of classic composers. The jokes are all musically-synchronized. For classic music lovers, there is a lot of music they'll recognize here.
toodler2th
to some of my favorite music. These elves are cool, and how about when the cobbler decides to sneak out for a round of golf? I love this cartoon. I hope WB or whomever has control of these cartoons puts them out on dvd so we can enjoy them at our leisure.
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