Saturday, September 20, 2014

"The Bookworm" - MGM (1939)


A storm and an old mansion are the setting for this 1939 MGM cartoon. As the clock expires from exhaustion in the wee hours of the night a storm rages outside. And as it does the inhabitants of many of the books in the library come out to play. The witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth get Poe’s Raven to hunt for a worm to complete the making of one of their “brews.” Since this is a library the Raven looks in the books for a bookworm.

Finding one isn’t too hard, but keeping him captive proves to be a mammoth task for all concerned. The action is non-stop as the Raven and his cronies attempt to outsmart the bookworm. But remember, he’s spent a lot of time in and around books, so he has a few tricks of his own to fall back on. Great story and animation mark this one as a real keeper.

Although the cartoon was actually directed by Friz Freleng, Hugh Harman got the screen credit. The voice of the Raven is none other than the incomparable Mel Blanc.

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