An absolute waste of money

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

One of the Censored Eleven cartoons that has been out of circulation due to racial stereotypes. A few titles still have some artistic value, chiefly the jazz flavored ones.This short has an interesting censorship history. Before it was originally released in 1937, Joseph Breen, the head of the Hollywood Censor Board, objected to the short's irreverent depiction of religion. One of the guidelines for Hollywood producers was not to portray religion in a disrespectful way. Some historians have suggested that race may have been a factor in this controversy. Nonetheless this short was approved for distribution with some minor changes. Some of the animators for this short later corroborated this account. It is possible that Freleng made this for an African American audience. Phil Monroe later recalled "the only place they'd play that film was down in the Negro section"The problematic parts of this short are the then common stereotypes of African Americans, such as dice and watermelon references. Those felt too arbitrary. The caricature of Stepin Fetchit is cringe worthy to watch, although in this short he represents an old fashioned way of getting people to repent that doesn't work anymore. The redeeming part is Cab Calloway's swinging rendition of Swing For Sale, which also features Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. I've wondered who performs their voices, because the impressions are very spot on.This is a short with a lot to enjoy, but its no surprise that the cliché stereotypes have kept it out of official circulation.

. . . about Looney Tunes director Friz Freleng's Profile-in-Courage-worthy response to Thomas Alva Edison's 1905 offering, THE WATERMELON PATCH, which had shocked Friz when it was screened by his racist third grade teacher. (If you do not want to trust my account of Edison Manufacturing Co.'s PATCH, it is readily available to see for yourself in its 10 minute, 42 second original entirety on YouTube; PATCH is so egregious in its suggestion of a "Final Solution" for American Blacks that President Obama PERMANENTLY banned Edison's light bulbs under a guilt-by-association clause which even Leader Trump does not dare to reverse.) PATCH opens with eight Black men crawling in a field to filch melons until chased toward their rural community center by a pair of White Skeletons; the scene then shifts to that cabin, in which other Blacks are gyrating with NO sense of rhythm, including the two Gay Dudes Twerking, and the musician strumming a Racist Banjo. When the melon thieves arrive, one of them "serves" this treat by dropping it to shatter on the floor, whereupon there's a lingering Edison group shot with 16 Blacks of all ages posed in rows as they sloppily slurp up the melon pieces. Just then five Whites--including former KKK Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd--run up to the cabin, nailing all exits closed and blocking the chimney, so that these Black men, women an children will be asphyxiated (no doubt inspiring Hitler's initial plan to off all the Jews by driving them around in the back of trucks into which the exhaust was vented; however, this diverted too much gasoline from Adolf's Blitzkrieg, causing Der Fuhrer to go to Plan Xyklon-B).CLEAN PASTURES, on the other hand, celebrates the Black Culture of the 1930s by portraying an Urban Population with a good command of Jazz, Rhythm, and sophisticated musical instruments such as the trumpets and pianos favored by Beethoven rather than the Racist Banjo popularized by Southern Crackers such as that plagiarist Stephen Foster. Know-Nothings have been ragging on Mr. Freleng for decades, just because the Racist Ted Turner and his infamous spouse Hanoi Jane (the deplorable pair behind the Atlanta "Braves" Tomahawk-Chopping Politically Incorrect Fad) got smashed on six pitchers of mint juleps on their Verandah one night and randomly Red-Lined CLEAN PASTURES and several other of Friz's film offerings. But now YOU know the rest of the story (and hopefully will make the Real Racists pay by putting any future payments of "Edison Bills" into escrow until a Judicial Referee settles the question of Reparations on which the Edison miscreants are trying to block payment).

This cartoon, one of Warner Bros. 'Censored 11', is one of the funniest ones I have seen and it is such a shame a wide audience are denied the chance to see it.The premise is that Pair-O-Dice (geddit?) a place where the angels congregate, is suffering from those sinners just heading for Hades instead. So ... with the help of Al Jolson, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and Fats Waller, and 'Swing for Sale', is it possible to turn around the fortunes of the holy land? The caricatures of the great musical personalities are great and the title (a parody of 'Green Pastures') is inspired. Highly recommended if you can get to see it.

The cartoon opens in Harlem. People are dancing, drinking, gambling and generally making merry. Up in heaven (or Pair O' Dice as it is called here), a Black angel despairs that they are losing souls to Hades. He sends an angel (a caricature of Steppin-Fetchit) to teach people to resist temptation. Not surprisingly, he is unsuccessful.Then a group of angels (caricatures of Fats Wahler, Jimmie Lunceford, Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway) tell the head angel that they need to update the message. The angels go to Harlem and sing "Swing for Sale." It works, and soon they are leading hordes of ex-sinners into Pair O' Dice. Even the devil begs his way in to enjoy the new swinging good news.Many modern viewers will be offended by the caricatures in this cartoon, particularly the lazy, inept Steppin-Fetchit angel. Despite this legitimate criticism, "Clean Pastures" does a commendable job of reinforcing the fact that swing music was, in fact, African-American music. No Pat Boone/Vanilla Ice rip-offs here. "Clean Pastures" presents this wonderful music in all its ethnic and, yes, revolutionary glory to a primarily White audience. This is quite an accomplishment, considering that the real musicians portrayed in this cartoon would have had to enter and exit a White club by the rear entrance, if they could get in at all! Tragically, "Clean Pastures" has been blacklisted (no pun intended). WB has refused to release it on TV or home video. It is worth tracking down however, as it deserves more respect than its current status allows it.