Studio: Van Beuren Studios
Distributor: Pathé
Produced by: Amedee J. Van Beuren
Short Synopsis
Documentation of this short's plot is thin, and this summary follows the surviving film. It is midnight, and four alley cats line up on a backyard fence in front of a huge full moon and launch into a howling serenade, mouths wide open, swaying in close harmony. Their concert keeps the neighbourhood awake. Inside a house, a lanky old man in his nightshirt is driven to distraction, and a cat ends up perched on a table beside him as he tries to deal with the racket. Outside, a pair of dogs join in, wailing and pulling at a fan of strings, until the whole yard is a chorus of yowls and howls. The film is mostly a string of musical gags around the cats' night-time singing, rather than a single story, and its ending is not described in sources this book could check.
Why It Matters
- The moonlit fence shot, four black-and-white cats in silhouette against an enormous moon, is a striking piece of early sound-cartoon staging, and the film shows the loose, odd humour of Van Beuren's studio, which was always a little stranger than its rivals at Disney and Fleischer.
- It is a late entry in Aesop's Fables, the series Paul Terry had started in 1921 and which Van Beuren continued into the sound era. The series was one of the most prolific of the silent and early sound years, and its directors John Foster and Mannie Davis were among the steady hands who kept New York cartoon studios running between the big names.
Notes and Trivia
- A restorer who posted one copy warns that the film contains an "unfortunate stereotype", a common feature of Van Beuren cartoons of the period.
- The surviving scans are rough; one restorer noted the print had trouble tracking the sprockets.
- See also: Swing You Sinners! (1930).