Ain't She Sweet? (1932) User Reviews

Follw the bouncing ball

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 14 July 2009]

This is one of those animations that never really did it for me when I was a kid. Given a choice between a cute and bouncy Fleischer cartoon or a fast, noisy and violent Warner Bros Melodie or Tune, Warners would win hands down every time.

As you grow older, however, your tastes mature - which might be a funny thing to say about one's appreciation of a kiddie's cartoon - and watching this film as an adult I can appreciate the thought that has gone into the on-screen antics and the inventiveness of some of the sight gags involving a bunch of cats enjoying a barn dance. The film is finished off by a live-action sequence featuring cute and bouncy Lillian Roth belting out the title song - complete with words and bouncing ball if the urge takes you to sing along..

This isn't a classic, but it's a hugely enjoyable example of the type of work the Flrischer studio was producing in the early thirties when it had aspirations of matching the quality of output of Disney. Definitely worth a look.

Ain't She Sweet is an amusing Max Fleischer Screen Song cartoon from the talkie era

[tavm · 8/10 · 17 March 2008]

I discovered this rare Max Fleischer Screen Song cartoon on Thad's Animation Blog. It basically takes place in a barn dance inhabited by cats. Many funny gags provided by director Dave Fleischer dominate most of this short like the one where one of the felines puts some punch in a cup and then drinks the rest of the bowl himself! Or another one where a cat uses his tail to grab some food off a plate and then gets it cut off! Then singer Lilian Roth, in live action, appears on screen and sings the title song in her bouncy and bubbly manner that makes her the living embodiment of the tune. Then there's a bizarre animated ending that has to be seen to be believed. Oh, and this one has the original Paramount opening and closing credits. So on that note, I recommended you go to Thad's and watch this short.

The animation is the strongest aspect of a very good Screen Song

[llltdesq · 8/10 · 1 May 2015]

This is one of the Screen Song series produced by the Fleischer studio. There will be spoilers ahead:

This Screen Song has a very simple animated sequence to open the short, with minimal plot (read, zero). It's a barn dance, with the participants mainly cats. There's a cute bit with a horse and a horsefly and a gag with a centipede. Basically, everyone else is a cat. Lots of music, lots of dancing and lots of refreshments. Some of the better gags revolve around eating and drinking. There's a beautiful scene involving hot dogs, with a rather disturbing method of slicing open hot dog buns and an interesting view of the hot dogs themselves.

Other gags include cats gaming the system in the doughnut and ice cream lines and a cute bit with cats and milk. A cat couple does some interesting dance steps early on and a group of cats display a novel method of playing piano. It's all well animated and takes up roughly four minutes at the start.

Then there's a transition from the barn to a house, where a zoom in comes to live action footage of Lillian Roth, who leads in to "Ain't She Sweet" as the lyrics come up on screen and the "bouncing ball" cues the audience. Roth has a beautiful voice, but the theatrical nature of her performance is over the top on occasion and hasn't aged as well as her singing style has.

There's a brief animated close which adds just a touch of the bizarre and is quite funny. This short is available and is well worth seeing. Recommended.

I'll say she is!

[wmorrow59 · 9/10 · 17 July 2010]

Here's another zippy mini-musical from the Fleischer Studio, chock-full of song, dance, and laughs, accompanied throughout by lively music. This time it's the Inimitable Lillian Roth (as she is billed) who invites us to sing along with the Bouncing Ball, and her high energy performance of the title tune is a joy to behold. But first, in keeping with studio tradition for this series, we're treated to an array of disjointed, bizarre and occasionally macabre gags. The setting is a barn dance attended by dozens of cats, and believe me these cats really know how to party. They dance like Broadway professionals, and even when they take a break for refreshments -- or romance, or a bit of casual violence -- they move in perfect time with the rhythm.

The Bouncing Ball cartoons are so swiftly paced it usually takes a second viewing to fully comprehend all the gags. Some of the bits here will feel rather familiar to Fleischer buffs; for example, there's a queue of skinny cats who enter a "Free Milk" bar (i.e. the underside of a cow) and emerge obese, or there's the one about the thirsty cat who tips the punchbowl into a glass, then ignores the glass and drains the punchbowl instead. But other ideas are strikingly original and weird: for instance, we know it's time for refreshments when an alarm clock rings, and then the numbers jump off the face of the clock, surround a bowl and slurp food out of it. (Can't say I've ever seen that one before.) There are also some clever gags involving musician cats and their musical instruments as the cartoon swings into the title number.

Still, for my money the best reason to see this short is the sight of the charming young Lillian Roth as she belts out "Ain't She Sweet?" with infectious cheer. She's delightful and great fun to watch; she also takes the song at such a rapid clip I wonder if audiences who actually attempt to sing along can keep up with her. Unfortunately, Miss Roth is a performer better remembered for her personal problems than for her talent, but this great short will give viewers a excellent sample of what she could do while she was still in her youthful prime.

Ain't She Sweet? (1933)

[Michael_Elliott · 29 September 2017]

Ain't She Sweet? (1933)

*** (out of 4)

The Fleischer Studio produced a number of these animated short films where the "bouncing ball" would have audience members singing together. The animation portion of this short has a bunch of cats playing music when their break hits and we see how their food is prepared and served. Lillian Roth then appears and does the title track with the help of that bouncing ball so that those crowd members could sing along. This here was another good short for the series thanks in large part to the animation, which is top-notch. There were some really funny moments during the animation including one cat who gets paid back for stealing other's food. The animation certainly makes the film what it is and fans of the series should enjoy it. Roth also does a nice job with her song.

There must be some folks out there that still like these sort of films....but I'm not one of them.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 9 July 2011]

This film was included in the three DVD set "Saved From the Flames"--a collection of mostly ephemeral movies that have managed to avoid turning to powder, catching fire or melting--something that usually happened with the nitrate film stock used up through the 1950s.

One sort of cartoon that the Fleischer Brothers made quite a few of in the 1930s and 40s are the singalong films--shorts that certainly don't hold up very well today. After all, the idea of the audience singing along to the bouncing ball is very quaint...and archaic. As a kid, they'd occasionally put these on TV and I'd use that as a chance to get a snack or I'd just change the channel.

"Ain't She Sweet" begins in a cartoon world--cute but pretty typical of 1933 with anthropomorphic animals and black & white film. And, they all LOVE to make music. Then, after watching a few minutes of this, Lillian Roth appears in the flesh and she guides the audience in a singalong. Personally, I'd rather take a shower with a toaster. But, it is a nice window into the 1930s and is important historically--even if it isn't particularly enjoyable. The only part that piqued my interest was the end with the creatures falling into a vat of molasses and apparently dying--rather creepy, huh?!

How these sort of films ever caught on, I have no idea.