Tweety's Circus (1955)

Such a frustrating disappointment

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

. . . one of the many circus lions involved here (Tweety claims that this traveling show features 50 big cats toward the close of TWEETY'S CIRCUS, but its prone to exaggeration) claws Sylvester, causing a delayed reaction in which one "slice" of Warner Bros.' top cat after another slides off as Sylvester struts away from his long distance slicer, pretending nonchalantly to be unhurt, until finally only his hind legs and tail are left to meander. This incident, which occurs about three and a quarter minutes into TWEETY'S CIRCUS, probably will put many if not most viewers in mind of Dead Cat Walking. However, what this incident reminded me of was an elementary school trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago when I was quite young and impressionable. Though a few of the things there, such as the coal mine, were slightly interesting, the one thing that stuck in my mind was the lady who was on display in containers in several if not all of the stairwells. After she'd passed away, she'd been sliced horizontally--just like Sylvester in TWEETY'S CIRCUS, only less on a diagonal slant--but many more times than the lion ripped the feline (since it only had four or five claws on its action paw). The museum staff had carefully labeled each piece of its show woman, and I learned many anatomical terms that were new to me.

Unlike Red Riding Hoodwinked, Tweet and Sour and Hyde and Go Tweet which I was familiar with for a long time, I didn't see Tweety's Circus until very recently. And I absolutely loved it, it is hilarious and for me one of the better and funnier Sylvester and Tweety cartoons. The animation is plentiful in the colours and fluid in the backgrounds, while the music as it typically is is rousing and energetic. The writing maintains its freshness, but the revelations were the sight gags my favourite being the one where the lion grabs Sylvester's whip and lashes him back and forth. Tweety himself is good and quite active, but he is sidelined by the elephant and especially the lion. Sylvester though steals the show, he is lovable while being quite full of himself at the same time, and throughout he is comedy gold resuming his usual role of providing the laughs. Overall, hilarious. 10/10 Bethany Cox

People who find Tweety disgusting for being too cute obviously don't realize that he's actually a total sadist. I mean, look at some of the things that he does to Sylvester. But beyond Tweety's personality, this cartoon focuses on Sylvester a little more and takes a look at his ego. Following a rather boisterous entry, he casually angers a lion (apparently believing himself to be invincible).One might interpret this as a parable of our hubris bringing us down. Napoleon tried to invade Russia, and it led to the collapse of his empire. Hitler tried to take over the world, and it led to his downfall. Currently, it seems that Bush's aim of complete domination is dooming the United States (Hurricane Katrina was but one example). Therefore, it's no surprise what eventually befalls Sylvester.Of course, I might be reading too far into "Tweety's Circus". The cartoon was probably intended as zany entertainment, and it certainly entertains. Worth seeing.

Another of the benchmark Sylvester films, one that really makes the viewer zero in on the character's persona as a movie star. Sylvester's so full of himself in this one--he wears his feline pride on his sleeve, and thinks nothing of being a knave in front of the king of beasts. He's not a villain, just a lovable boor. All the better to set him up as the lion's target. Director Freleng employs great rapid-fire camera pans when the lion seizes Sylvester's whip and chair and lashes him back and forth in the big cat's cage. Noteworthy, too, is the fact this is virtually one big, long, continual chase with (when I last counted) only ONE fade, when Sylvester's made pancake-flat by the elephant. But the tension never really lets up, fortunately. This film is very much an allegory. And I LOOOOOVE that "Meow" song at the beginning!