Dumb Patrol (1931)

Dumb Patrol Review

Dumb Patrol is a 1931 animated short film from the Looney Tunes series. It is once again a structurally odd movie.

Bosko is fighting a plane in World War I and then lands in a home where he meets Honey and tries to impress her by playing a piano. Again we have two very different subplots which aren’t well connected at all which is all done in the vein of ‘Ups ‘n Downs‘. Let’s first talk about the part that works and that is the Honey part which is actually one of the better sequences concerning the two thus far.

I loved his role here and he was quite funny, but Honey was also charming and I loved the moment where she was angry with him and frustratingly thumped her foot and she synchronized it with the rhythm of a playing piano. That was very clever and amusing. But the problem here is that they never went back to Honey afterwards and the cartoon needed closure. As for the war part, it is okay. Nothing particularly memorable. It is well scored and well executed, but it is never memorable or particularly entertaining.

Dumb Patrol is weak in its war subplot, but excellent in its Honey subplot where it is quite funny and memorable.

 My Rating – 3.5