The Gorilla Mystery

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Gorilla Mystery
Directed byBurt Gillett
Produced byWalt Disney
Animation byJohnny Cannon,
Les Clark,
Ben Sharpsteen,
Jack Cutting,
Jack King,
Dick Lundy,
Tom Palmer,
Wilfred Jackson,
Dave Hand,
Charlie Byrne,
Norm Ferguson
Color processBlack and white
Production
company
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release date
September 22, 1930[1]
Running time
7:27
CountryUnited States

The Gorilla Mystery is a 1930

animated film produced by Walt Disney for Columbia Pictures, as part of the Mickey Mouse film series.[1] It was the twenty-second Mickey Mouse short to be produced, the seventh of that year.[2]

The short is a spoof of the 1925 play The Gorilla by Ralph Spence, which had been made into a 1927 silent film and a sound remake.[1]

Plot

a gorilla has escaped from the zoo, and he calls Minnie to warn her. She is not afraid, and sings a song to Mickey over the phone. Then the gorilla breaks into her house and kidnaps her, and Mickey—hearing her screams over the telephone—rushes to save the damsel in distress
. The gorilla takes Minnie upstairs to the attic and ties her up, then plays cat and mouse with Mickey. At the end, the gorilla trips over the rope, knocking him senseless. Mickey and Minnie dance to celebrate their narrow escape.

Production

While the gorilla in the short isn't named, it was retroactively identified as the same gorilla seen in the 1933 shorts Mickey's Mechanical Man and The Pet Store, named Beppo.[1]

The 1944 short

Ajax
escaping from the local zoo.

Reception

In Mickey's Movies: The Theatrical Films of Mickey Mouse, Gijs Grob observes: "The Gorilla Mystery is noteworthy for the extensive dialogue in the beginning. By now the Disney animators had mastered lip-sync, and neither Mickey nor Minnie show any awkward faces while talking. Even more interesting is the cartoon's elaborately drawn gorilla, which in several scenes is staged to show its huge size. The gorilla and the clever use of light and shadow make The Gorilla Mystery look more sophisticated than earlier Mickey Mouse cartoons. Even The Fire Fighters of only three months earlier starts to look primitive".[3]

Motion Picture News (December 6, 1930): "This is not up to the standard of other Mickey Mouse cartoons, but it is a good comedy, nevertheless. The telephone sequence is especially good".[4]

Voice cast

Home media

The short was released on December 2, 2002, on Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black and White.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ .
  2. . Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  3. .
  4. ^ "Short Subjects". Motion Picture News: 121. December 6, 1930. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  5. ^ "Mickey Mouse in Black and White DVD Review". DVD Dizzy. Retrieved February 19, 2021.

External links