phantom_tollbooth Review of The Film Fan

The Film Fan (1939)

Worth a watch, although it pales in comparison to 'She Was an Acrobat's Daughter'

[5/10 · 3 November 2008]

Bob Clampett's 'The Film Fan' is one of the early Porky Pig cartoons in which Porky is still cast as a little boy. Sent on an errand by his mother and told to come straight home, Porky can't resist going to the cinema. So begins another of the many cinema-set Warner Bros. cartoons. 'The Film Fan' has some nice moments in it, especially the visual gags involving sardine-can-like public transport, a deflating building and an arcade crane machine, but for the most part it is overshadowed by Friz Freleng's 'She Was an Acrobat's Daughter' from two years previously. 'The Film Fan' borrows a few gags from that cartoon but doesn't pull them off nearly as well and, overall, it doesn't evoke a sense of being in the cinema like Freleng's cartoon did so well. Also, as is the case with many of his early starring roles, Porky is almost completely unnecessary and barely features between the gags. His sole purpose seems to be to set up the closing gag and to provide the cartoon with a star name, even if that star spends the majority of the cartoon off screen. Nevertheless, Porky fills the role as well as any other character could have done and there's enough good material here (including a very funny spoof of The Lone Ranger towards the end) to make 'The Film Fan' worth a watch, if not exactly worthy of ecstatic recommendation.