Great Film overall

A Masterpiece!

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

. . . to Our America of the Future in this 1936 Looney Tune, LITTLE BEAU PORKY. PORKY's action opens with a fort depicted in the middle of an otherwise empty desert. Obviously, this edifice is meant to symbolize Fortress America, the "City on a Hill" since its very founding. As he often does, Porky himself plays Yankee Doodle, the World's Disrespected Whipping Boy. Soon all the dog soldiers peopling this fort pack up and leave (many viewers today will identify these feckless canines as Current Day NATO members, whom President-Elect Trump has fingered as shirkers and malingerers all along.) So like us, Porky is "An Army of One" when Middle Eastern Terrorists invade Fortress America. (Ask yourself, where was NATO when 9-11 went down? Or Fort Hood, San Bernardino, and Orlando? Totally A.W.O.L., that's where!) But as the plucky Porky decides to Be All He Can Be, the insurgent Arabs here topple like dominoes. Kids of the 1900s probably wondered why Warner was seeing off their older brothers to fight Germany and Japan with a cartoon set in a desert. Today's tots should be able to see the light easier.

Porky is not one of WB/Looney Tunes' strongest or funniest characters and his effectiveness as a lead character has been a mixed bag but he is likable and works very well as a support character with other stronger personalities. Here he takes on a lead role, and is quite funny and endearing. And Little Beau Porky has a huge amount to enjoy, Frank Tashlin was a great if underrated animation director and you can see that clearly. It does have a couple of drawbacks, the pacing is not always consistent with a build up that sets things up a little too slowly and a slightly rushed ending and somehow it does feel odd without the presence of Mel Blanc, Joe Dougherty tries his best as Porky but his stutter has always been overdone to me. The Arab stereotyping will go either way too, I personally wasn't offended but others might. The animation is fluid, well drawn and shaded/coloured with care. The camera angles are very clever and are the prime reason why Tashlin is deserving of more recognition. Carl Stalling's music score is lush and full of character, accentuating every gag and character gesture, and the dialogue even early on has freshness and sharpness. The gags come thick and fast at a wild pace, there are a healthy amount and all of them are funny, the best particularly with the camel uproarious. The pacing is generally solid, and the story while a tad predictable entertains, while the supporting characters compliment Porky well(especially Ali Mode). Billy Bletcher provides witty vocals. All in all, hugely enjoyable though Porky has done better. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Frank Tashlin's 'Little Beau Porky' is an enjoyable cartoon that showcases Tashlin's skill as a director with some trademark extreme close-ups, fast moving action and deft storytelling. Casting Porky as a member of the foreign legion who must protect the fort against the villainous Ali Mode single handed, 'Little Beau Porky' moves at quite a lick once it gets going. The build up is fairly slow but contains some great sequences including Porky's grilling by his commanding officer and an uneasy game of Echo through the fort entrance. It all comes to a satisfying if predictable climax making 'Little Beau Porky' a very enjoyable cartoon. A final noteworthy point is that 'Little Beau Porky' contains the roots of two other, superior cartoons. The camel in this short is clearly a forerunner for Humpty Bumpty from Bob Clampett's completely bonkers 'Porky in Egypt' while the evil Ali Mode is extremely similar to the frightening Lawyer Goodwill from the following year's 'The Case of the Stuttering Pig', one of Tashlin's great masterpieces.

Current events in the Middle East give us Americans an incentive to watch Porky Pig's early cartoon "Little Beau Porky". This one came out back when the famously stuttering swine was less than two years old and looked like a walking heart attack (and Joe Dougherty was still providing his voice, as Warner Bros. hadn't yet hired Mel Blanc).Anyway, the plot goes something like this. Porky is a soldier in a foreign legion outpost in either the Arabian desert or the Sahara. He always gets the most menial jobs and isn't allowed to participate in missions to trap the dastardly sheik Ali Mode (the Termite Terrace crowd loved to give people crazy, pun names, didn't they?). But when Ali Mode - who bears a mild resemblance to Osama bin Laden - attacks the fort, Porky pretty much becomes Rambo.Obviously, the Arab stereotyping makes it a little harder to laugh at this cartoon. It's mostly funny just because of some of the gags they pull. As long as we understand the stereotyping, then it's a pretty entertaining cartoon.Back when they made this cartoon, they probably never imagined that sixty to seventy years later, a lot of the world's focus would center on the Middle East. "Syriana" should explain it all.