Watch Bacall to Arms For Free

Too much of everything

Good concept, poorly executed.

Admirable film.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Bob Clampett's cartoons often were high in energy and fun and displayed a uniquely wacky visual style that one can recognise immediately.Caricature cartoons very much vary in quality, a lot of them are clever, funny and ones where the references are recognisable, easy to spot and are a lot of fun, while there are others that don't work as well as they should due to some of the humour not holding up and some caricatures due to unfamiliarity with the person in question go over people's heads. 'Bacall in Arms' is one of the better examples, it's silly and it's corny but very clever and just so much fun.The animation is excellent. The blacks, whites and greys look absolutely beautiful, even nearly 80 years on, while also rich in detail and high in imagination. Clampett's style is all over the cartoon and is immediately distinctive, while the use of Technicolor is equally striking if slightly less imaginative. Carl Stalling's energetically high-voltage, luscious, rousing, dynamic and action-enhancing music score and inspired arrangements of pre-existing music shows off his genius.It is an exceptionally funny cartoon as well, with some wonderfully cornball lines and names. Plus 'Bacall in Arms' was an example of a caricature cartoon where none of the caricatures got lost on me due to being familiar with the celebrity. The spoof on 'To Have and Have Not' was very inspired as well.All the characters are colourful, and while Robert C. Bruce and June Foray are excellent it is Mel Blanc that once again shows the second-to-none ability to bring different personalities and voices to several characters.On the whole, great caricature cartoon and spoof and a near-classic for Clampett. 9/10 Bethany Cox

" . . . and blow." This cartoon not only echoes the Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall vehicle of a few months earlier--TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT--it also provides an opportunity for the characters on the big screen to interact with the little people sitting out in the audience. Bogart, for instance, orders an obese patron with ants in his pants to "SIDDOWN!" and stop blocking the view of other movie-goers with his constant exits and re-entrances. Overall, the material is pretty thin, and the jokes about secret American military weapons fairly lame. Of course, no Bogart (or "Bogey Gocart, here) screen appearance would be complete without some gun violence, so toward the end of the film Bogie guns down a serial sexual assaulter--innocuously labeled as a "wolf" in this misogynistic yesteryear time--depicted as a literal wolf, for giving his new bride Lauren Bacall ("Laurie Bee Cool," here) his signature call when she appears on-screen. For once, this is a case of just desserts, as the earlier off-screen slap in the face from a physically molested usherette (who may have forgotten to wear her panties) obviously failed to teach the randy carnivore a lasting lesson.

"Bacall to Arms" is a decent Warner Bros. cartoon that centers around going to the movies. The "meat and potatoes" of this film-within-a-film is a beautifully-done takeoff of the classic Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall picture "To Have and Have Not" (1944). The black-and-white caricatures of these two screen giants are great, and a movie-going wolf can't contain himself upon spotting Bacall on the big screen.My favorite moments from "Bacall to Arms" include the following. Bacall asks Bogie for a light, and Bogie obliges by throwing a rather unglamorous blowtorch. He also admonishes a hippo in the theatre audience who is late in seating himself. I also dig the clever stereotyped mother-in-law joke! "Bacall to Arms" makes use of stock footage of a theatre audience from an earlier cartoon titled "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter" (1937), which parodies another Bogart film - "The Petrified Forest" (1936).

We are taken back to the movie theater in the '40s where people are playing musical chairs, wolves are making passes at beautiful usherettes, and the "warmer news" movie short is showing, explaining how "American industry cleverly adapts the implements of war to peace time use." We then see clever and funny ways radar is now being used in post-war 1946.Then, the feature movie begins with "Bogey Gocart and Laurie Bee Cool in Too-Have, Too- Have, Too-Have and Too-Have." In between this animated take-off of the famous film, "To Have And Have Not," we see what's happening in the theater such as a Hippo barging his way in front of people and "Bogey" telling him, "Hey, Fat Boy. If you want to see how this picture ends, sit down!" We see the wolf going nuts whenever "Laurie" is on screen, etc.Man, the humor was corny back then (but fun to watch in these old cartoons).