AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Foreverisacastironmess 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!

tavm 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.

tedg 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.

alanpbourke I saw this when I was about 10 years old, but it has only seemed to be available on laser disc up until its recent release as one of the extras on the DVD release of 'San Francisco'. It's exactly as surreal and fun as I remember! With the 'death walks tonight!' croaks of the animated poison bottle, it seems to convey a sense of foreboding, as if people at the time could sense the war that was coming only three years later. Some fantastic ideas, like the Spirits Of Ammonia, the Baby Bottles and the Cuban rum bottles. Some nice rotoscoping as well, in the Cuban sequence. They really did make them better back then. Contrast this or Max Fleischer's Superman series with the half-hour toy ads like He-Man that were cranked out in the 80's. My 3-year old gets to watch as many of these, and Betty Boop and old Popeye as he likes, so that he knows the good stuff!