Betty Boop’s Life Guard (1934)

Betty Boop’s Life Guard Review

Betty Boop’s Life Guard is a 1934 animated short film from the Betty Boop series. It is a solid short.

Betty is drowning in the sea, so it is up to her boyfriend Freddy to save her. While she is being carried back to the shore, she imagines that she is a mermaid underwater. And that was the best part of this otherwise uneventful, slight movie. The mermaid section was very imaginative, beautifully animated and so adventurous and charming. It also had a great score and some very nice visual touches, including the scene where each marine creature eats a smaller one repeatedly.

The rest of the short is this standard save Betty narrative that has become tiresome by now. Freddy as a character is thinly developed, but at least somewhat memorable. Their romance was actually quite sweet here, but the overall plot was very slim and forgettable. This was the first Betty Boop cartoon released after the Production Code was installed, which meant that the sexiness and the edgy humor were entirely absent here unfortunately.

Betty Boop’s Life Guard has one truly terrific underwater sequence, but otherwise it was a slight, uneventful short.

My Rating – 3.7