The Farmerette (1932)

Brilliant and touching

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.There may be worse Aesop's Fables/Van Beuren cartoons than 'The Farmerette'. That doesn't stop it from feeling bland and cheap, with very little engaging about it. It tries too hard to be cutesy which Van Beuren have rarely been successful at, and there is very little of the absurdist and surreal humour that can be seen in their best efforts, or at least it's not done right. There are a couple of decent things but they are far overshadowed by everything else that 'The Farmerette' does badly wrong.Best asset about 'The Farmerette' is the music score, pretty much the best thing consistently of Van Beuren's output. Sometimes even the only good thing. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action. Margie Hines (one of the voice actresses for Betty Boop, the reason why the voice sounds so similar) does a good job as the titular character. Didn't care for the character herself, but Hines is very game as her voice. Some neat sound effects here and there.Coming onto the numerous criticisms, the animation is not good, in fact it is downright bad most of the time with erratically sloppy character designs in particular while the simplistic background detail and lack of fluidity and crispness are just as difficult to ignore.Story is very slight to the point of non-existence and suffers from very sluggish timing on the most part. The pace was in serious need of a kick in places especially in the middle where it was especially aimless. It is not as disjointed and makes more sense than many Aesop's Fables/Van Beuren cartoons, but it just feels dull and bland.Likewise with endearing or memorable characters, the lead character is a blatant Betty Boop imitation with a little of her sex appeal but with none of her charm or likeability. The animal characters have very little personality.Generally the cartoon is very low on laughs, actually none of it is remotely amusing and it all feels rather disorganised. Nothing is inventive, never rising above the forgettable and there is not much absurdist about them. As said it tries too hard to be cute in places, to the point of being saccharine, and it sucks out the energy and humour. Overall, there is worse in the series and from the studio but there is not much to recommend. 3/10 Bethany Cox

The Farmerette (1932) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Decent animated short from RKO has a farmer hiring a sexy lady to come to the farm to try and get the animals to work better. The lady, looking like a cat, uses her swing and jazz moves to motivate the animals into working. THE FARMERETTE is a rather bizarre cartoon because you have to wonder why the filmmakers weren't sued by the people who owned Betty Boop. The female character here sounds exactly like her and I guess it should come as no shock since Maggie Hines did the vocal work here. Even more shocking is that the cat clearly has the facial structure and eyes of Betty Boop so you have to wonder how they got away with it. Either way, I think that bizarre little situation actually makes the film a lot more entertaining than it would have been otherwise. For the most part I liked the lead character and thought she brought some fun to the picture. I thought the animation for the most part was very good but I think it would have helped had the actual animals been a bit more entertaining. The final joke with the hay on the tractor was a good one though.

Just watched this Van Beuren cartoon on the Internet Archive. In this one, a farm needs someone to raise the spirits of the animals in order to get them to work again. So a feline with the voice of Betty Boop (not Mae Questal but Margie Hines who did voice the Max Fleischer character occasionally) comes and sings a couple of songs before the rest of the animals do the same. Not funny but still quite amusing and the animation was quite good concerning the musical numbers. Of course, I'm sure Max Fleischer might have sued (and maybe did) if he knew about this cartoon so I'm not surprised that this cat character didn't appear again. So on that note, The Farmerette is worth a look for any animation buffs out there.

There was no information on the film nor here on the title page of IMDb about who did the voicework, but I swear it's the same voice as the woman who did "Betty Boop," but since it's a rival company it had to be someone imitating her. At any rate, it's a great imitation of Mae Questel because this voice is a dead-ringer for our famous Bette.VanBeuren apparently were looking for someone to compete with The Fleischer Brother's Betty Boop character. Here, it's a cat who applies for the job of "farmerette." She has the big eyelashes, the short skirt, and the famous Boop giggle. She announces herself to the farmer with, "Here I am, big boy!" He points to all the animals on his farm who are lazily snoring away everywhere. "Can you put this farm back on its feet," he asks her."Can I? Watch me!" So, we do. We watch the feline Betty Boop strut her stuff. Less than a minute after she sings, all the animals are so pumped they go back to work and help the farm. In the end, this is "okay," but please - there is only ONE Betty Boop and that's the way it ought to stay!