It's a Bird (1930)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Harold L. Muller

Writer:

Lowell Thomas (writer)

Genre:

Animation | Short | Comedy

Plot:

A junk man travels to Africa to find a rare metal-eating bird.

Plot Keywords:

Africa | Tall Tale | Metal | Gas Tank | Wheel

Cast

Charles R. Bowers	...	Charley Chucklehead (as Charley Bowers)
Lowell Thomas	...	Himself, Lowell Thomas

Runtime:

14 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Bowers Comedy Corporation

Quotes:

[first lines]
Radio Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a program of tall stories dedicated to the Great American Whopper. Allow me to present the Exalted Giraffe of the Tall Story Club, Lowell Thomas.

Soundtrack:

A-Hunting We Will Go

A must-see for connoisseurs of the Weird

By the time he made this strange little movie Charley Bowers had been a comic strip cartoonist, early film animator, and star performer in his own series of silent comedies, so for his talkie debut Bowers combined all of his talents into one genuinely bizarre, unique curio.

The film begins in a radio station, as Bowers is introduced to listeners as "Charley Chucklehead of Chattanooga" by journalist Lowell Thomas, of all people, looking very much as he would decades later as host of the 'Lowell Thomas Remembers' documentary TV series. For those of us who recall that series seeing him here kicks things off on a startling note, rather like having Walter Cronkite pop up in a Marx Brothers movie. At any rate, Charley is introduced as a man with a tall tale to relate, but as the film switches to flashback mode the first portion of his story consists of more-or-less straightforward gags involving the junk yard where he works. In appearance Bowers suggests Stan Laurel in his baggy over-alls and derby, but his face is wizened and heavily powdered, and his delivery of dialog is halting and awkward.

However, things get decidedly more interesting when, somewhat abruptly, Charley goes on a quest for a rare metal-eating bird. He meets with a Professor Ditterhoffer of the Natural History Museum who illustrates his points with a series of cartoon-y drawings (undoubtedly drawn by Bowers himself) which bear a striking resemblance to the later work of Dr. Seuss. And then Charley is off to the Belgian Congo, accompanied by a German Oom-pah band, where he locates the goony-looking bird and then manages to capture him with the help of a worm who inexplicably talks like a Brooklyn thug.

The bird and the worm are impressively animated puppets: in the mid- to late 1920s Bowers starred in a series of films in which the puppet animation sequences were usually the highlights. The puppet scenes in IT'S A BIRD are weird and delightful, and feature a number of off-the-wall Bowers motifs from the earlier series, such as animals eating metal and then hatching machines from their eggs.

It would be nice to say that IT'S A BIRD marked the first of a new series of similar comedies, but, unfortunately, Bowers' films weren't properly appreciated by the American public, and he worked only sporadically after this. Still, for connoisseurs of vintage animation, silent comedy, and Le Cinema Bizarre, Charley Bowers' work is essential, and this film is one of his best.