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The Worst Film Ever

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Director: ARTHUR DAVIS. Color by Technicolor. Animators: Bill Melendez, Don Williams, Manny Gould. Backgrounds: Philip DeGuard. Lay-outs: Thomas McKimson. Music: Carl W. Stalling. Song: "The Old Folks At Home" by Stephen Foster. Producer: Edward Selzer.Copyright 7 August 1947 by Vitaphone Corp. A Warner Bros. "Merrie Melodies" cartoon. U.S. release: 23 August 1947. 1 reel. 7 minutes.COMMENT: The Tex Avery influence is still rather strong here in this amusing encounter between a feather-snatching fox and an evasive duckling. True, the visual gags are mostly somewhat familiar, but they are all handled at a pleasing pace and with plenty of style - in the hilariously exaggerated Tex Avery manner, of course, despite the change of director to Arthur Davis (not a man that I recognize at first glance. I will have to look up his career). Anyway, whoever the director is or was, I can heartily recommend "The Foxy Duckling".

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.Arthur Davis may not have been one of the all-time greats when it came to animation directors, and he was in the shadow of a stiff competition of animation directors (won't name them right now because that wouldn't be fair on Davis) with more distinctive and imaginative styles. He was nonetheless a competent director with enough solid cartoons under his belt. 'The Foxy Duckling' is another one of Davis' cartoons seen recently that fits under the solid, good but not great category.'The Foxy Duckling' does a lot right. More so than it does wrong. And actually there is not a lot to dislike here, merely that other than the somewhat different concept in the quest for a duck's down rather than for food it does tend to be predictable, with the story and material treading somewhat familiar ground, and there is not much hilarious. Amusing and well-timed but the only gag that properly rises above the amusing is right at the start. The end though was effective. So there is not much to criticise here, it's really that it's stuff that can be found elsewhere too and done in those cases with more freshness.However, the animation is excellent. Beautifully drawn, very detailed and the colours are vibrant, complete with some great expressions and Davis' distinctive style of the characters moving from foreground to background.Carl Stalling's music score is typically lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms, it's also beautifully synchronised with the action and gestures/expressions and even enhances the impact.Everything is well-timed and well-engineered and nothing misfires, while not being much special on the whole. The characters are a lot of fun, as is their chemistry. The fox is especially well realised. The ever versatile Mel Blanc's voice work is stellar as one would naturally expect from a legend. In conclusion, good cartoon. 7/10 Bethany Cox

. . . while you view THE FOXY DUCKLING, you'll begin to appreciate where Warner Bros.' always prophetic Animated Shorts Seers division (aka, The Looney Tuners) are going with this warning of impending doom intended for We Americans of (The Then) Far Future. It should not take a nuclear brain surgeon to figure out here that THE FOXY DUCKLING continually tricking the actual Fox into destroying his Homeland is meant to be none other than Red Commie KGB Chief Vlad "The Mad Russian" Putin. This, of course, makes the book-reading fox--who goes around with the attitude that "I'm the Smartest Critter that ever lived in the Whole History of the World since I can read books!"--a perfect representative for Putin's Braggart-in-Chief, installed into the White House in a fiendish plot to Destroy the Once-Great USA during the KGB-rigged Election of 2016. THE FOXY DUCKLING's ending implies that America will have NO CHANCE to turn the tables on THE FOXY DUCKLING (that is, Putin) until our actual fox-in-the-hen-house breathes no more.

There's nothing really special or unique about this cartoon, save the fact that the fox wants the duck's down for his pillow instead of duck for dinner (I wonder, if pork is the other white meat, is duck the other dark meat? But I digress.). The opening sight gag with the fox's pillow is excellent, the rest amusing, if better done in other cartoons. Still a most enjoyable cartoon and well worth seeing.