Rudolf Ising | The Organ Grinder / 1933 [animated cartoon]

monkey business

by Douglas Messerli

 

Rollin Hamilton and Thomas McKimson (animation), Rudolf Ising (director) The Organ Grinder / 1933 [animated cartoon]

 

The organ grinder and his monkey travel down a New York street, performing to the pleasure of several high-rise apartment dwellers, one of whom, a very large woman, takes particular joy in the daily musical interlude. At the end of the song, the organ grinder sends his monkey scrambling up the side of the high-rise to get his tips.

     He climbs one building by propelling himself off of rolled-up shades, then jumping into a pair of women’s panties whereafter as the sound score lets out a hoot of “woo-woo,” as even the monkey cannot resist reverting into a hand-flapping queer, riding the clothes-line across the street to collect the other’s patron’s donation.

     After dancing for a group of gathered children, the chimp uses nearby movie posters to imitate Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy before donning a wig and playing a harp as Harpo Marx. Finally, settling down to a piano, he performs the song “42nd Street.”

     Inexplicably he finds himself at the wheel of a runaway car which, after running down a fruit stand, crashes into a music store, the constantly metamorphosing monkey coming out as a one-man band followed up by his organ grinder companion.

 

Los Angeles, April 21, 2022

Reprint from My Queer Cinema blog (April 2022).