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The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Blistering performances.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Ben Buzzard tries to sell a broken plane to Donald Duck and tricks him into signing an insurance policy that is payable to Buzzard should Donald get into a wreck. So, he tries several times to get Donald to wreck the plane while he was flying, resulting in some clever comeback scenes by Donald and some funny moments, like when Donald hammers Buzzard on his head.Some suspense and excitement in this cartoon short and plenty of action to get the story going. Donald does get the upper hand several times and delivers yet another hilarious performance.Grade B+

The Flying Jalopy (1943)*** (out of 4)Donald Duck wants to buy an airplane so he heads to a used lot where a crooked buzzard talks him into buying a junk plane. That's not the only thing the buzzard has in mind because he fools Donald into signing a life insurance policy over to him so now the mail goal is to make sure Donald dies in a crash.THE FLYING JALOPY is another cute and fun Disney short that offers up Donald on a platter for a very fun villain who of course just wants to make sure the duck doesn't live so that he can be awarded some money. This makes for some very good action once we take to the skies and the two characters really play well off of one another. Fans of the Donald shorts will certainly like this one.

I should probably mention that I'm a big fan of Donald Duck and that he's my favourite between him, Mickey, and Goofy. The Flying Jalopy is ranked among my favourite of Donald cartoons because I never fail to be entertained by Ben Buzzard, who is responsible for blackmailing Donald by selling him a defective plane rather than a used one. Ben doesn't stop there, but also rearranges Donald's payment so that he (Ben) gets the benefits, and pursues Donald in the air. Although I have to wonder why Donald needs a plane to fly while Ben doesn't, I really enjoy Ben Buzzard. I actually prefer Ben over Pete, because while Pete just spends his free time pranking Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, Ben actually attempts to kill Donald, which is much more sinister. The chase itself is very fun to watch, especially the scene where Donald is trying to extinguish the fire on the gasoline trailer by blowing on it, blocking it with his hat, and cutting it with scissors. Overall, a very entertaining short film and I wish Ben would make more appearances.

Seeing as I do love Disney and Donald is one of my favourite animated characters, I saw The Flying Jalopy as part of my Donald Duck short marathon, I've also had one for Mickey, and Goofy and Pluto are to come in due course. While not one of Donald's very finest, The Flying Jalopy is very entertaining. The animation is beautifully detailed and vibrant, the mountains are especially impressive, and the music is characterful and energetic with lovely orchestration also. The story as ever is simple and told and paced in a lively fashion, and it is interesting and entertaining to see the lengths taken by Ben to put Donald in peril. The Flying Jalopy is somewhat atypical though, while entertaining Donald is not at his very best not being in a situation that leaves him annoyed or easily frustrated. And there is his adversary, Ben Buzzard, a very telling character who couldn't be more different from Donald's other adversaries, apart from causing chaos(the worst the other adversaries came to against Donald) this marks the first time anybody actually tries or wants to kill Donald. Even with that angle, The Flying Jalopy does thankfully avoid showing this in a overly-sadistic and violently distasteful(The Gene Deitch Tom and Jerry cartoons should have taken notes from this). The voice work is very good as ever. All in all, entertaining though different to what we usually see from Donald Duck shorts, but could've worked in its favour or against it, good thing to know is that The Flying Jalopy fell into the former camp. 9/10 Bethany Cox