54. The Organ Grinder (1933)

Release date: April 8th, 1933

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Rudolf Ising

Starring: Johnny Murray (Woman, Cat, Maurice Chevalier), Shirley Reed (Boop-Oop-a-Doop Singing), Ken Darby (Organ Grinder Singing), Rudy Ising (Organ Grinder)

Don’t worry, the cartoon isn’t as terrifying as the title lets on (You can imagine my surprise when I briefly forgot what an organ grinder was.) We follow the antics of the organ grinder and his monkey, entertaining the citizens of the street.

An Italian man and his monkey prowl the streets of the city, the man grinding away at the organ while the monkey bounds around, chattering. An offscreen whistle calls the attention of the monkey, who scales a lamppost to meet the source of the sound. A woman is sticking her head out of her apartment window, holding a coin. The monkey takes off his hat with his tail and graciously accepts the coin, sliding back down the lamppost to his master.

As typical for a Merrie Melody, the man launches into “The Organ Grinder” while his monkey partner continues to run around him.

The monkey comes across a hanging bunch of bananas outside of a store front, and helps himself. Love this gag of the monkey peeling the banana with zippers.

While the duo traipse down the streets, we get an inside look of one of the apartments. A woman is washing a giant sweater that’s defined to look like it suits a burly man, her “What a man!” asserting that hypothesis. She overhears the organ grinder and sings some bars herself—I love her belty, raspy singing voice! She’s rather large, so it fits. I also love that above shot of the streets. Is that beautiful or what? 

Another woman across from her grabs a coin and signals for the monkey to come to her, the organ grinder urging him on. There are some very fun visuals of the monkey scaling the towering building, using curtains to propel himself upward.

The monkey makes his way to the woman and accepts the coin, stuffing it in his pocket and tipping his hat. He jumps into a pair of underwear hanging on the clothesline and reels himself forward to the voluptuous woman from before, and accepts her tip. I’ll always say this, but the music is beautifully jazzy and upbeat! They always did a good job of making each Merrie Melody an earworm.

To get down, the monkey climbs onto a pair of hanging socks, which tears beneath his weight. He plummets to the ground, a few awnings breaking his fall as he bounces beneath them, finally landing in a pair of pajamas that he gets out by unbuttoning the butt flap. The gags and the animation are so fun and imaginative!

Hurrying back to the organ grinder, the monkey gives him the coins he collected to put in the cup, prompting the organ grinder to pinch his cheeks.

Suddenly, a group of children crowd around the organ grinder. The organ grinder instructs the monkey, Tony, to do some tricks, instructing him to dance and to shake his little can. Tony shakes his ass in front of the children, and the organ grinder quickly stops him (“What’s-a matta you?”), giving him the actual collection can for him to shake. There’s some fun animation of tony dancing to the organ music, cranking a nearby alley cat’s tail like an organ and prompting it to yowl out the notes of the song.

Frightened by the cat’s hissing, the monkey runs by a nearby thrift store. He spots a mannequin and plucks off its wig and puts it on, making a caricature of Harpo Marx. Certainly an interesting first Harpo caricature! 

He then rushes to a nearby harp and plucks the strings, pulling a string that sends him rocketing through the air. He uses his tail as a spring and hops back over to the crowd of kiddies, who applaud him.

First caricatures of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy! Another looney tunes favorite to caricature, especially Hardy. He was often portrayed as a pig in a few cartoons, such as The Case of the Stuttering Pig (evidently a relative of Porky’s), You Ought to Be in Pictures (ACTUALLY Porky disguising himself as Hardy), and The Timid Toreador (once again Porky). The monkey transforms his face into Laurel and then Hardy.

Interest lost with caricatures, the monkey turns his attention to a piano, swiping the keys with his tail. He hops on the stool and plays the piano, the children of the street singing “The Organ Grinder” (complete with a baby singing a verse in a bass voice). Another piano comes into view, and the monkey plays the dueling pianos with his hands and feet.

Now the monkey launches into “42nd Street”, sitting on an accordion, beating a drum with his tale, and playing a clarinet. The eponymous musical birthed a few songs you may have heard of: "We’re in the Money", "Lullaby on Broadway", "Young and Healthy", "Shuffle off to Buffalo"... three of those would all be Merrie Melodies, too.

Like anyone would, the monkey gets carried away by the spirit of the song. He ends up hijacking a car, running into a fruit stand and eventually into a music shop (where the organ grinder narrowly avoids being crushed).

The monkey comes out on top, his car now tricked out with various instruments. The organ grinder pops up in the backseat and grinds his organ as they parade through the streets, playing music for all to hear. Iris out.

For a relatively plotless cartoon, this one was really enjoyable! The music was very catchy (the organ grinding was a little hard on the ears, but the jazz score was fantastic) and the gags were fun, fresh, and crisply animated. There was a lot of personality in this cartoon, and celebrity caricatures are always a plus! Very enjoyable, I’d recommend a watch! 

Link!