The Worst Film Ever

Fantastic!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Working late one night an elderly chemist appears to be attacked in his sleep and shrunken down to bottle size by a wicked bottle of poison with a skull for a top and discovers that after dark all of the bottles in his store come to life to cavort and sing, while a couple of more sinisterly-designed containers plot something nasty for him in a more traditionally eerie dark corner of the dwelling... The idea of this short is pretty neat, although humble bottles by their very mundane nature sure ain't the most inspired of things with which to base a short cartoon around. But it's surprising just how creative they managed to be with such a different strange premise, and there's a good amount of striking and delightful sight gags involving the anthropomorphic bottles playing up to their namesakes, like the cold cream bottles have colds and are warming themselves by a little fire, annoying baby bottles wail in unison, ammonia spirits are literally spirits, and so forth.. Some of the gags are obvious and some not so, I love the red water bottle singing in a fine deep baritone out of its floppy mouth, and also the Indian ink charming a coil of toothpaste like a snake! The witch-hazel witch, poison skeleton and trio of ammonia spirits are some genuinely spooky creations I must say, great well placed touch of the macabre they made. The cackling skeleton is way scarier than the teeth chattering terrors from Disney's The Skeleton Dance! The short really kicks it up a notch when the skeleton seizes the poor old man and distils him through twisting tubes until he pops out the other end as tiny versions of himself which the fiend then sucks up with a syringe and injects into a bottle which he then attacks with scissors! And at the end, although what's revealed is an often-used plot device it's a good use of it. It does beg the question though, to have experienced such a bizarre and startling dream, did the old man inhale the vapours of some of his wares without realising it? It has an admirable amount of creativity put into it, and to say it was made in 1936 the animation is beautifully coloured and amazingly fluid. It's very old but nonetheless is a pretty cool and impressive short, it does command a certain unique niche amongst the legions of vintage animations. Good show!

In 1929, Walt Disney Productions began to produce one of the most influential series of short films of all time, "Silly Symphonies". Unlike Disney's other famous series of shorts ("Mickey Mouse"), the "Silly Symphonies" shorts wasn't about the company's famous recurring characters, but were more about experimenting with new techniques and styles of animation. This approach made "Silly Symphonies" very popular, and soon other animation teams began to follow that approach, like Warner Bros' "Merrie Melodies". Among the best of the shorts influenced by "Silly Symphonies" was definitely "Happy Harmonies", a series of musical short films created by former WB employees, Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, which was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Produced in Technicolor, "Happy Harmonies" showed a technical proficiency at times as good as the shorts by Warner and Disney, and 1936's "Bottles" is a good example of this.The story of "Bottles" is pretty simple: During a dark stormy night, a Druggist is working late making what seems to be a new kind of poison, as the bottle has its top shaped as a skull. The druggist falls asleep, and at this moment, the Bottle of poison comes alive, using a potion to shrink the druggist to the size of a bottle. The druggist awakes, shocked after being magically miniaturized, but his shock becomes marvel as he discovers the secret world of his bottles, who by night come alive and begin to sing. Baby bottles crying in harmony, dancing Scotch whiskey, and two bottles of salt water who dance like sailors are just some of the many bottles who participate in the dancing and the singing with the druggist. However, not everything is fun and party, as the deadly bottle of poison has a secret plan for the druggist, and recruits the witch-hazel and the Spirits of Ammonia for his evil scheme.Like most of the "Happy Harmonies", the movie was written and produced by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, with the music and the songs written by their regular collaborator at MGM, Scott Bradley. As usual in their cartoons, the movie is based on the concept of inanimate things coming to life, in surreal experiences where the inanimate things sing, dance and behave as real persons. Anyways, inn "Bottles" they show a lot more of imagination and wit in the creation of the characters, as while at times the link between the bottle and their persona is pretty obvious, there are a couple where the connection between them is a very creative and unexpected one. The comedy is done in lighthearted fun, although the plot about the Poison bottle has a nice touch of the horror as it's filled with a good dose of suspense. Finally, Bradley's songs are fantastic, and some of the best in an MGM cartoon.Produced in wonderful Technicolor, "Bottles" is a beautifully looking cartoon that makes excellent use of the variety of colors that the Technicolor process allowed director Hugh Harman to use. Harman brings Bradley's song come alive in remarkably well designed musical numbers where the highly detailed bottles (resembling popular brands of those years) act like singers and dancers in the film's choreographs. The visual look of the movie retains the same style that Harman and Ising had been developed since their years at Warner Brothers, with very fluid and dynamic animation and, as written above, carefully designed characters. Also, given the horror elements of the story, the directors add a nice touch of Gothic atmosphere to the movie that works perfectly within the film, with the serious looking "monster bottles" making good contrast with the "good" bottles.While there's a lot to praise in "Bottles", it also carries with what was the bane of the musical "Happy Harmonies" films done without Bosko, their signature character: the plots were pretty much the same. So, even when "Bottles" does include some of the cleverest character design of all the "Happy Harmonies" films, when one has seen a film from this series, the rest will invariably look like repetitive. However, if one can get past these flaw, "Bottles" is a very rewarding cartoon, as it manages to play on the many stereotypes of the culture of 1930s without being insulting or disrespectful in any way (as some other short films from those years were). Showing a remarkable use of the Technicolor process, "Bottles" is all about good fun, good music, and of course, a few scares. 8/10

At a little over ten minutes, Harmon and Ising's Bottles is one of the longest one-reel cartoon shorts I've seen from the '30s. It's basically about a druggist who's up overnight mixing a potion for a poison bottle. As he falls asleep on the counter, the bottle comes to life and pours some of its liquid on the druggist's neck as he shrinks to a small size and wakes up. It's here that things get surreal with various medicine and alcohol bottles that come to life and sing and dance with the druggist joining in. Prominent among them are three baby bottles with diapers singing about doing nothing but crying because "no one will change our di-di". Quite amusing and a little bit atmospheric. Worth seeing for anyone curious about MGM cartoons before Tex Avery and Tom and Jerry came aboard.

It seems that one major theology of animation concerns the animating (meaning coming to life) of normally inanimate objects. Its one strain worth tracing, because with today's film technologies, animals can easily be seen to talk and even wear clothes and such. Its the power to make objects and environments have agency that gives great animation its power. And if you trace the evolution of the idea, you'll come through this. Its an unimaginative idea: a chemist/druggist mixes a poison, then dreams that it comes alive and evilly threatens him, together with all the other objects in the lab.As with all early attempts with object life, some of the objects must be juvenile, and the centerpiece here are three baby bottle who whine because their diapers are dirty.This was made toward the end of prohibition when use of opiates and marijuana became its great rise in popularity in the US, and that's the not so subtle subtext here.Unfortunately the animation itself isn't any great advance.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.