20th Century Fox
Terrytoons Studios
Here I come, to save the daaaay! Yes, it’s Mighty Mouse once more battling Oil Can Harry for the affections of lovely Pearl Pureheart.
This train-laced, Terrytoons animated short, is done in a wonderful, fake-opera, melodramatic style with MM (our hero) belting out tenor, OCH (our villian) singing bass/baritone and PP (our damsel in distress) warbling soprano.
The art work is right up there with Warner Brothers for quality and the animators did a great job with backgrounds and interiors. Lots of action and enough asides and adult-gags to keep it interesting.
On with the show!
Wonderfully-detailed coach interior right down to the red-plush seats and pot-bellied stove; Standard old-fashioned steam locomotive about to change into an anthropomorphic object at the hands of Oil Can Harry.
“In our last episode, we left Mighty Mouse in a desperate situation.” Well, there was no last episode, but that’s how they started each of these faux-opera cartoons — with a cliffhanger.
“Meanwhile, at the Old Mill, we find Pearl Pureheart in the clutches of Oil Can Harry!” Yep, OCH is fixing to marry PP against her wishes. The fiend! Now. On to the train action.
At the 2:48 minute mark, we have our first railroad scene with OCH encountering a lower quadrant semaphore. Spotting the approaching train, OCH modifies the signal to display a shapely, female leg complete with stocking and red garter.
Wow! Wow! wolf-whistles the 4-4-0, only to discover OCH’s got the drop on him. This is a stick-up!
From the fireman’s side of the cab, OCH is racing along with PP in his clutches. Meanwhile, the parson is galloping alongside to join the couple in a sham wedding.
Interesting how the consist changes from passenger cars to freight cars and back to passenger cars.
With an evil smirk and his hand around PP’s throat, OCH prepares to take a solemn vow…until the parson is snatched away by a US Mail crane trackside. Curses!
Yaaaaaah! PP races down the corridor with OCH in hot pursuit.
“No one ever gets away from Oil Can Harry!” Rubbing his hands together in the classic sinister manner, OCH prepares to assault Miss Pureheart on the flat car when…
Mighty Mouse arrives in the nick of time, punching OCH the length of the train — listening as he smashes through each car.
OCH’s velocity is such, that he goes clear through the locomotive cab, into the firebox, and is ejected through the smoke stack. Great animation of OCH in a cloud — evil grin and fedora intact.
Back on the flat car, MM is attempting to revive PP who has fainted. Cloud Harry snatches PP and floats back to the caboose.
Reaching the caboose, MM’s rescue attempt is foiled as the train enters a tunnel.
As MM and OCH battle it out, Big Time Wrestling-style, PP is tied up on the roof of the now-uncoupled red caboose cheerfully singing, “I’ll be comin’ round the mountain when I come…”
Moving to one of the coaches, the boys battle it out with revolvers until MM gets the upper hand (fist) sending OCH chin-first through the car reversing the seats as he goes.
Hmm…. The coaches now have GREEN plush seats….which change back to red.
More wrestling moves as the fight moves to the flat car — now with conveniently-placed boxes of TNT. OCH uses one to blow up the bridge sending the caboose and PP towards the jagged rocks below!
“What a situation to be in, to be in…” and “Falling off the mountain, here I go, here I go…”
MM to the rescue! Great animation of the train crossing a trestle and coming down the mountain as the caboose tumbles down the mountainside.
OCH finishes off the train scenes in our cartoon with the classic, “Curses! Foiled Again!” and twirling his handlebar moustache in the prescribed villainous manner.
Bonus. There were several train scenes in other Mighty Mouse cartoons such as:
Stop Look & Listen 1949
A 4-6-2 “Pacific” steam locomotive….with no tender!
OCH up in the interlocking tower throwing switches; A bull chases a locomotive, and vice-versa; more tender-less engines emerge from the roundhouse; steaming along in column.
A Fight To The Finish 1947
This MM short was the first one done in the “fake-opera, melodramatic style”
“As a storm rages outside the old Beaver River station,” MM and OCH are in “a fight to the finish” inside the depot.
Later on, MM finds himself tied to the railroad tracks. But what’s this? As the narrator explains, “Here comes old #95. On time for the first time in 20 years. Wouldn’t ya know?”
Defying physics, MM turns the speeding train into a pile of twisted metal. It’s a cartoon, after all.
The Silver Streak 1945
Locomotive #197 is racing along as MM attempts to stop it. The engine kinda sorta looks like a Pennsy K4 with its high headlight. Maybe just wishful thinking on my part. ;p
If you’d like to watch Love’s Labor Won yourself, it is on YouTube:
Here’s what IMDb has to say about Loves Labor Won (not much…):
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151402/
If you have ANY information about this movie you’d like to share, please contact me at: Lindsay.Korst@gmail.com, or leave a comment. Thanks and enjoy the blog!
THE END
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