Watch The Night Watchman For Free

I wanted to but couldn't!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Director: CHARLES M. JONES. Story: Tedd Pierce. Animation: Ken Harris. Music director: Carl W. Stalling. Color by Technicolor. Producer: Leon Schlesinger. A Warner Bros. "Merrie Melodies" cartoon. Songs include "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" and "Yankee Doodle". Copyright 19 November 1938 by The Vitaphone Corp. U.S. release: 19 November 1938. 7 minutes. COMMENT: Thomas, the night watchman cat is sick, so assigns his little nephew to guard the household kitchen against a tough band of food-marauding mice. Although originally intimidated, the little nephew wins the day. A mildly entertaining entry, but the idea would seem to hold more promise than what is actually developed on the screen, namely fairly familiar fisticuffs, that are not particularly imaginative.

. . . is the REAL story of this animated "Merrie Melodies" short from Warner Bros., titled THE NIGHT WATCHMAN. Instead of investing in a "no-kill" ultrasonic deterrent device easy to plug into a kitchen electrical socket, the wealthy homeowners in this tale have squandered their fortune on multi-generations of cats for a failed attempt to cope with their catastrophic rodent problem. Their regular fat cat "Thomas" has allowed dozens of rats to thrive in a well-stocked kitchen. Then he gets sick (or maybe he just is malingering to squeeze in another of his cat naps). Pops cat sends his kitten son to watch the rats feast. After they've devoured everything in sight and grown too fat to move, the suddenly feisty junior feline throws out a few love taps here and there. This probably will endure as Junior's "greatest success," as his owners buy him thousands of dollars worth of gourmet cat food, pricey cat toys, etc., plus shell out big bucks to the vet to have him neutered and then "humanely" Euthanized after 15 or 20 years of sleeping on the job.

The Night Watchman is definitely notable and worth the watch for it being Chuck Jones' debut. It is not bad, far from it, but is not one of Jones' best by a long shot. There is definitely the sense that Jones was still finding his own feet. The animation is colourful and vivid. The music is wonderfully jazzy and characterful. The floor show is very exciting, with catchy music and very nicely choreographed. The funniest moment is the scene where you see the way the mice eat, very inventive and very funny. And the voice acting is great. The Night Watchman does suffer generally though from a lack of energy, which makes the rather dully thin story even more lacking. The ending is also rather tacked on as already mentioned, and the funny moments come only in spades rather than the laugh-a-minute quality that Jones was wholly capable of. While there definitely some cute moments, some parts of the cartoon come across as too cutesy that it's almost rather cloying, and the characters while also sweet are not very compelling enough to carry the story. In conclusion, The Night Watchman is interesting. But it is also a disappointment. Luckily after a shaky but worthwhile enough start with this Chuck Jones went on to much better things, the best of his work are masterpieces or close to that. 5/10 Bethany Cox

This is a very cute cartoon, but not an especially interesting short on its own merits. The chief point of interest here is as the very first cartoon which Chuck Jones directed. As I will mention some details, there will be mild spoilers: The basic premise of this short is that the regular night watchman, a full-grown cat, is sick and can't make his rounds and so the task falls to his young son. To say that the mice are less than concerned about the new night watchman would be an understatement. They're bigger, meaner and tougher than the little cat and bully him mercilessly.This turn of events means that they have pretty much got free run of the kitchen for most of the short. There are a few cute food-related sight gags, but the short is a bit flatter and less energetic than you would expect, though, to be fair, if you look at it without comparing it to later work by Jones, it comes off looking a good deal better.The ending is all rather predictable, though fun to watch for the most part. This isn't a bad short, it just pales in comparison to the work which would come later, though it does make clear that Jones was interested in the cute and sentimental from the beginning. This was probably the genesis of the Sniffles shorts done a bit later.This short is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 and is worth a look. The Collection, as with the previous three volumes, is most highly recommended.