Down on the Levee (1933) watch online HD

Showboats had been popular subjects since the success of Edna Ferber's novel and the stage show based on it, so this one is the sort of subject that would occur easily enough to Paul Terry and his staff. Still, unless you have a weakness for opossum jokes or banjo playing, there isn't much here as the melodrama is played short and ordinarily enough.

However, I have a weakness for the banjo, having spent more than a decade trying to master it -- unsuccessfully, alas. So musical director Philip Scheib's score, which includes some pretty good banjo picking, was good to my ears.

The Terrytoons are oddly interesting, mainly for anybody wanting to see (generally) older cartoons made by lesser known and lower-budget studios. They are a mixed bag in quality, with some better than others, often with outstanding music and with some mild amusement and charm and variable in animation, characterisation and content.

1933 was again a hit and miss year for Terrytoons. 'Down on the Levee' is one of the lacklustre ones, but has enough to it to stop it from being down there among the worst. It's another one of those cartoons that is worth a one-time watch, mainly for Terrytoons completests, but there is not much special here.

Best asset is the music, which predictably is incredible. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and arranged, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action. Some of the backgrounds are detailed and ambitious enough and it's a little more elaborate looking than the previous 1932 cartoons.

A couple of amusing gags revolving around the opossum and there is a little charm here.

However, the animation is still, outside of the backgrounds, primitive at best with a fair bit of crudeness, over-simplicity and choppiness.

On top of being paper thin, the story is very melodramatic and formulaic, there is an air of over-familiarity here and it does feel rather stale. More gags would have helped, the cartoon is not devoid of them but it's hardly littered with them and generally the humour was pretty bland, and livelier pacing likewise.

The pace did feel erratic at times, rushed as a result of the cartoon again being too short and then a bit dull when the timing wasn't sharp enough and the content not having an awful lot to it. Not much memorable about the characters, one has seen similar characters before and with far stronger personalities.

In summary, lacklustre but a long way from unwatchable. 4/10 Bethany Cox