Hold Anything (1930)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Crappy film

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The Bosko cartoons may not be animation masterpieces, but they are fascinating as examples of Looney Tunes in their early days before the creation of more compelling characters and funnier and more creative cartoons.After an interesting if just slightly above average and not much more pilot cartoon 'The Talk-Ink Kid' and the decent 'Sinkin' in the Bathtub' and 'Congo Jazz', 'Hold Anything' is not great and the execution is variable but most of it works well. While a hit and miss cartoon, it hits more than it misses, or at least to me it does.'Hold Anything's' weakest element is the story, very much like 'Congo Jazz' the story here is more a paper-thin excuse to string along music and gags with a few draggy stretches and an ending that doesn't feel that well rounded off, pretty anti-climactic actually.Most of the gags work well, but faring less well is the repetitive business with the goat's tail, that was good the first time or two but grew tired quickly especially when the more it happened the less inspired the methods got. Honey is also rather bland.On the other hand, the animation is not bad at all. Not exactly refined but fluid and crisp enough with some nice detail, it is especially good in the meticulous backgrounds and some remarkably flexible yet natural movements for Bosko. The music is 'Hold Anything's' highlight component, its infectious energy, rousing merriment, lush orchestration and how well it fits with the animation is just a joy.While none of the gags are hilarious, most of them are amusing, like the udder gag and the goat being floated up as helium. Parts are cute and there is much less of a static feel than there was in 'The Talk-Ink Kid' in sound quality. Bosko is never going to be one of my favourite cartoon characters, or among the all-time greats, but he has more personality this time round and it's more endearing than before.In summary, variable but mostly works. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Although Walt Disney was producing exceptional cartoons circa 1930, Warner Brothers (through Leon Schlessinger Studios) was way behind on the curve. The quality of their Bosko series was clearly light-years behind Mickey Mouse--mostly because the cartoons weren't especially funny or charming. Instead, they were rather corny. Because of this, you practically never (thank goodness) see these cartoons today.Here in HOLD ANYTHING, Bosko is working around a construction site. He sees his girlfriend and they begins making eyes at each other. It's all a bit mushy and they dance around a bit until eventually (and mercifully) it all ends. The only interesting part is when Bosko cuts the head off a mouse that looks amazingly like Mickey!

Hold Anything (1930) ** (out of 4) Early animated film from Warner before they gave us their more memorable (and better known) characters. Bosko is doing construction where he tries to do everything as if it were a note of music. I know Bosko was probably Warner's biggest character at the time but I don't think he holds up too well (and who knows if he did in 1930). The biggest problem I had with this short was that the music numbers weren't all that memorable and even though this ran under ten-minutes you can't help but feel like it's longer. There are some mice in the film, all looking like Mickey Mouse, which I guess should be expected since the director's originally worked at Disney.

This is a fairly typical early Bosko and is reasonably amusing. There are one or two points I want to discuss in some detail, some "Here there be spoilers": This short is musically-oriented and lots of things become musical instruments in the hands of Bosko, his work crew (a bunch of small, strangely familiar mice) and Bosko's girlfriend. It is to the temporary misfortune of one particular mouse that Bosko is his foreman. The mouse falls off a wall and lands on a saw, which starts making music. Bosk starts bending and warping the saw to get musical notes from it, which tosses the mouse up into the air. At one point, the mouse comes down on the saw-teeth and his head lands on one side and his body on the other. You then see the head and the body moving around on the saw as Bosko bends and warps it to make music as the body and head frantically try to get back together.Later on in the short, Bosko sees Honey in an office and goes across to her window by using musical notes as steppingstones in mid-air. He proceeds to put sheet music in her typewriter and play it like a piano. The capper on the music from unusual sources is Bosko's use of a goat as bagpipes.This has quite a few of the visual gags that would be used frequently in the Bosko shorts, such as Bosko breaking up into lots of little Boskos after hitting the ground and the playing of music when running across steps or bricks where the path is differentiated enough to resemble a keyboard or a xylophone.Good, if rather standard, Bosko short. Worht watching, if you get the opportunity. Recommended.