The Crab with the Golden Claws (1947)
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The Crab with the Golden Claws Movie Review
The Crab with the Golden Claws is a 1947 Belgian animated adventure comedy film that adapted the titular comic book by Herge. It’s a flawed, but solid adaptation.
This comic is my second favorite in the entire Tintin series, so it was a great choice to have that be the first ever film adaptation of the series. This is one of the rare animated films released in the forties by anyone other than Disney, so the Belgians need to be praised for actually making it in the first place. It aged mostly surprisingly well.
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This is a stop-motion work and I found the aesthetic very pleasing, especially for the time. The puppets look like dolls, and although they aren’t particularly detailed in clothing and hair, the overall look to each character is very faithful to their depictions in the comics. Tintin’s facial expression was always the same, but others had more variety. The landscapes were also solid and I really liked how well they executed the imagery from the story, especially the desert sequence.
Haddock is as endearing as he was in the original work, but nowhere near as funny as the humor in this movie is only okay. The dialogue is very good, but the humorous sequences simply lacked the bite of those scenes in the comic. With that being said, this is one extremely faithful adaptation that adapts the story in almost its entirety, condensing and/or rushing some plot points, but the core is very much preserved, which I really appreciated.
The Crab with the Golden Claws is just one hour long, which made it pleasantly breezy and fun. It’s well edited and paced, though the directing could have been stronger. The characterization is on-point, but I did find Snowy speaking rather odd. The score on this flick is very strong and we even get a couple of musical scenes. The second song is a Haddock and Tintin duet that is endearing, but too silly in lyrics. The highlight is the first song where the captain sings about his love for wine and the ocean.
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The Crab with the Golden Claws is the first ever Tintin adaptation and one of the rare non-Disney animated films of the forties. It features a fun score and surprisingly strong stop-motion. Although it lacked the fun adventurous elements and brilliant humor that defined this comic book story, the overall plot is very faithfully adapted. It’s a short, breezy watch that is flawed, but quite charming.
My Rating – 3.5
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