Watch Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: The Flying House For Free

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

"The Flying House" is a 1921 11-minute short film that has its 95th anniversary this year. it was made by American animation pioneer Winsor McCay back then and it is of course a black-and-white silent film. The story is similar like in the man's other "Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend" entries, at least early on. Somebody eats a rarebit and has a very bizarre dream as a consequence. This time, it is a woman who dreams (because of high mortgages) that her husband flies away with her. But not in a balloon or airplane, he uses their house. And they don't fly just to the next beach, they fly to the moon and meet somebody there who is not so happy about his new guests. The moon really was used quite a bit in these very old films as target destination. I personally must say that this is not my favorite film from the Rarebit trilogy, but for 1921, it wasn't bad of course and I wonder how much this one here inspired the makers of "Up" perhaps. All in all, I recommend the watch only to the most hardcore animation lovers.

This movie is definitely the most impressive looking one out of the 'Dream of the Rarebit Fiend' animated movies, by Winsor McCay. It's also the longest one and overall it's just far more detailed and stylized looking.The movie looks as if it had an entire animating team behind it but it all got hand drawn by Winsor McCay and with help of his son Robert Winsor McCay. This is of course a great accomplishment, especially when you look at how well the movie is looking. Winsor McCay definitely improved his animation techniques, when you compare this to the very first 'Dream of the Rarebit Fiend' movie "Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: The Pet", which is from the same year.Unlike the other 'Dream of the Rarebit Fiend', this movie features text balloons, for the characters their dialog. It makes the movie a more involving one to watch and also adds to the movie its pace.It's a quite imaginative movie, that takes us to all kind of strange and unlikely places, with the flying house and its two inhabitants. Lots of stuff is happening, so boring is the last thing you can call this movie. It's all quite entertaining to watch but above all things the movie remains impressive visually, when you consider its age and time it got done in. Animated movies weren't a mainstream thing exactly in the 1920's and Winsor McCay was truly a pioneer in that area, though not the pioneer he claimed he was, by calling himself the inventor of animated drawing, which just wasn't the truth at all.A real impressive, early, short animated movie.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Watching The Flying House, I couldn't help but think that many of the sequences of the house spinning around up and down was just Mr. McCay showing off as I believe if the couple's home was really doing that they would've been really dizzy! This must've been the first time there was an animated depiction of space with the earth and moon moving side-by-side. Also love the detail of the gas engines with all the wheels pulling all the pulley gadgets constantly and the final sequence where we see a rocket about to explode on the moon instead destroying the house leaving the couple spinning around before they start to fall hastening the woman to wake up...Fascinating if less known of Winsor McCay's animated shorts, this Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend entry certainly keeps on its toes in movement and, through written balloons, dialogue. Highly essential viewing for any animation history buff.

This is one of the coolest early animations I have seen and probably the most enjoyable here in the 21st century of all the McCay films. Unlike his early LITTLE NEMO and GERTIE cartoons, this one is 100% animated and have marvelous animation and exquisite backgrounds. Sure, it's black and white and is a silent film, but for its time it was a terrific film--one that is about as good as you can find at that time.Like the other "Rarebit" films from McCay Studios, this film just goes to show you that the recent commercial about cheese IS correct--"Behold the power of cheese"! All feature people eating cheese and then having bizarre dreams. This flying house one is just amazing and a lot of fun. The lady who partook of the cheese dreams that her husband uses his genius to make their house fly!! And, after buzzing around the Earth for a while, the house leaves orbit and heads out to space--being highly reminiscent of the Georges Méliès film LE VOYAGE DANS LE LUNE. A wonderful and timeless piece of history--not to be missed.