Michael_Elliott
Porky's Railroad (1937) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Decent, if nothing overly special, short has Porky Pig traveling around in his 15th Century train when a newer, faster 30th Century challenges him to a race.PORKY'S RAILROAD is pretty slim on story and I'd also argue that there really aren't too many laughs either. The short manages to be slightly entertaining thanks to the very good animation, which is certainly the highlight. I'd say that Porky is in fine shape and manages to hold your attention as he talks to his train and keeps trying to make it do better than it actually should.
slymusic
Directed by Frank Tashlin, "Porky's Railroad" is a delightful Porky Pig cartoon in which Porky is the engineer of his own locomotive, the 15th Century Unlimited, which he nicknames "Toots".Here are my favorite sequences from this cartoon. Wonderfully voiced by Mel Blanc, Porky struggles in coaxing a cow to not sit on the railroad tracks. At the opening of this film, Porky operates his slow, broken-down train to an equally slow accompaniment of "California, Here I Come"; he adds a pepper shaker to the engine, and the train suddenly SPEEDS, and so does the music. And when Porky's train jumps the opened drawbridge, I am reminded of the live-action comedy "The Blues Brothers" (1980), in which a humble automobile does the same thing!Catch "Porky's Railroad" on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4 Disc 2, a disc that specializes in the directing style of Frank Tashlin.
Lee Eisenberg
One of the many cartoons from the days when Porky Pig was the top Warner Bros. cartoon star - though Daffy Duck would soon overtake him - "Porky's Railroad" looks to me like a parable of many American's hopes during the Depression. We see how Porky is the simple little guy with his ordinary train going about things as he's always done, but he gets replaced by a big guy, much like how the banks foreclosed on many people's homes during those years. So, Porky's only hope is to race the big galoot: he's the underdog against seemingly improbable odds.Of course, I just might be reading too far into this cartoon. I don't know what specifically director Frank Tashlin wanted to say here; he may have just intended it as a way to pass time. Whatever the gist is, it's still a pretty enjoyable cartoon. Not their best by any stretch, but worth seeing.
Marcelo Gilli
This is a very good cartoon that I intend to watch many times more in the future, but for now I will publish these modest comments based on my experience of having seen it only once. What strikes me as shocking about 'Porky's Railroad' is its absolutely -- even brutally, I should say -- honest depiction of the soul of man under capitalism -- to paraphrase the title of that famous book by Oscar Wilde -- which I unfortunately have not read yet. The first shot establishes the state-of-the-art in trains -- one that would look modern even by today's standards. Then, the film switches to Porky's obsolete -- and barely functional -- model. It is interesting then how the film establishes Porky's character as sentimentally attached to his old train, but not anti-technology at all: for him, machines have precedence over animals. The race that ensues is the necessary conflict that precedes the shocking -- and of an unbridled cynicism -- ending that carries to the last consequences the truism that sentimentality has no place in a technological capitalist society -- Porky wins the race but is not allowed to keep his train; instead he is promoted to machinist of the new one, and is soon bursting with joy. Obsolescence happens to trains as well as to people -- the old machinist goes to the 'garbage can' just as Porky's old train.
AD
