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I've Got to Sing a Torch Song

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I've Got to Sing a Torch Song
Directed byFriz Freleng
Tom Palmer
StarringSara Berner
Production
companies
Leon Schlesinger Studios
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Cartoon Studios
Distributed byWarner Bros.
The Vitaphone Corporation
Warner Home Video
Release date
  • 23 September 1933 (1933-09-23) (location)
Running time
7 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

I've Got to Sing a Torch Song is a 1933 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short film, directed by Tom Palmer.[1] The short was released on September 23, 1933.[2]

The animation was supervised by Jack King and produced by Leon Schlesinger. The musical score was composed by Bernard B. Brown and Norman Spencer.[3] It premiered on September 23, 1933.

The cartoon features the song, "I've Got To Sing A Torch Song," written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin. "I've Got To Sing A Torch Song" had been recorded by many artists, including Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallée, and Al Bowlly.

Dick Powell sang the song in the film, Gold Diggers of 1933.

Plot

The cartoon is a series of gags featuring characters all singing and dancing to the song "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song" and/or reacting to radio broadcasts. Some scenes are set in stereotypical portrayals of China, Africa, the Arctic, the Middle East and New York City. Some characters are caricatures of celebrities of the 1930s, including: Benito Mussolini, George Bernard Shaw, Leopold Stokowski, Ed Wynn (doing a running gag with 8:00AM), Bing Crosby (described as Cros Binsby on the door of his office), James Cagney and Joan Blondell, Ben Bernie, Guy Kibbee, Wheeler and Woolsey, the Boswell Sisters, Greta Garbo,[4] Zasu Pitts and Mae West.[5][6] In one gag, a sultan is shown listening to the Amos 'n' Andy radio show. Another gag features the Statue of Liberty singing the title track, while ending with the line "Ha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha", in reference to Jimmy Durante. Garbo, Pitts, and West then played a short tune from The Girl I Left Behind Me. Then Ed Wynn returns to the microphone for one more running gag with a cannon, but it misfired and sent him flying back into his home through the sunroof and landed on a bed with a wife and children, who are all wearing firemen's hats and said the catch phrase, "Sooo...", with Ed Wynn chortling as the sequence ended.

Garbo concludes the cartoon by saying That's all, folks!.

Sources

  1. ^ Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 22. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
  2. ^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 104–106. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  3. ^ "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song (1933)". explore.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on 30 January 2016. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  4. ^ "GarboForever - Garbo Cartoons". www.garboforever.com. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  5. ^ Hartley, Steven. "Likely Looney, Mostly Merrie: 68. I've Got to Sing a Torch Song (1933)". likelylooneymostlymerrie.blogspot.be. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  6. ^ "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song". Forgotten Films. 16 January 2012. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
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