Black Cats, Superstition and Witchcraft!

Below I present some creepy screencaps perfectly suited for the Halloween season. They are from an obscure Disney animated short... I'll reveal its title at the bottom of the post. If you're a Disney fan, see if you can guess.

Oh, that's a giveaway right off, eh? This spooky moonlit sky is instantly recognizable from The Adventures of Ichabod Crane, right? Yes, and no. While the shot is clearly recycled from "Ichabod..", this short uses a slightly longer, uninterrupted cut than the version that appeared in that earlier film.


At first glance this spooky graveyard, used to illustrate the devastation caused by the plague, might look vaguely similar to one in the "Night on Bald Mountain" segment of Fantasia, but it isn't.



The forboding gallows await those condemned to death for practicing witchcraft. Bedknobs and Broomsticks? No way.



This superstitious old woman fears strangers passing in the night...she believes they cause stormy weather! She looks like she could live up the block from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but she's on an entirely different continent!



The sinister stare of the black cat caused some villagers to fear it was casting a supernatural EVIL EYE upon them. One of the siamese cats from Lady and the Tramp? Ha!



A torch-bearing mob roves the village square in search of demons, which they believe can disguise themselves in the form of a common housecat! Are you getting warmer?

So were you able to identify the Disney short these screencaps came from? Scroll below for the answer.

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The short is The Great Cat Family (1953), a segment from Disney's Wonderful World of Color which depicts the history and cultural influence of the domesticated cat, from ancient Egypt to colonial America. Find it in the extras on The Aristocats Special Edition.

The Mask 3-D (1961)

Everything old is new again. In the early to mid 1980s, the novelty of 3-D films (which first erupted in the 1950s as a hook to get people to turn off their new-fangled televisions and go to the movies) briefly re-emerged as the latest "new" thing to hit theaters.

It started with new theatrical releases, films like Comin' At Ya (1981), Treasure of the Four Crowns (1983), Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983),and Starchaser: The Legend of Orin (1985). Even already popular franchises got in on the action, serendipitously releasing the third chapters in their series in 3-D: Amityville 3-D (1983), Friday the 13th Part III (1982) (this one promised a "new dimension in terror!"), and even Jaws 3-D (1983).

You would also get the occassional theatrical rerelease from 3-D's first wave, films like House of Wax (1953) . I caught a showing of House of Wax in glorious full-color 3-D and at one point you would swear that Charles Bronson leaps out of a seat in your theater and runs up onto the screen.

Television wasn't going to get left behind. Local stations scoured their vaults for whatever 3-D movie they could ressurect for that weeks Creature Feature or Saturday Night Movie. Of course 3-D doesn't really work that well on television (IMHO) but that didn't stop them from hyping the presentation of, say, Gorilla At Large (1954) for weeks in advance. Glasses were purchased at the local convenience store (7-11 in my neighborhood) and the excitement built up in anticipation of the show was huge. Sleepovers were often timed to coincide with the films. Popcorn was popped. Glasses were customized with magic marker.

Which brings us to The Mask (1961), an obscure 3-D title rediscovered on television as part of the 1980s 3-D ressurgance, which finally debuted on DVD this month (purchase it here.)

The plot revolves around an ancient tribal mask that transports its wearer into an alternate reality of psychedilic imagery. The wearing of the mask seems to be used as a metaphor for drug-abuse: those who use it find it addicting and behavior-altering, and the hallucination segments resemble the depiction of the "bad trip" you might see in a classroom drug scare film.


The Mask is presented in standard black and white, until a character in the film puts on the mask. A voice booms "Put the mask on now! Put the mask on now!", which is the viewers cue to put on their red/blue 3-D glasses. Let's try it now, eh? Grab that pair of 3-D glasses you have in the drawer next to your CD-Rs and USB cables, and take a look into another world....

PUT THE MASK ON NOW...PUT THE MASK ON NOW...PUT THE....













A Word About the DVD
The DVD of "The Mask" ships with 1 pair of 3-D glasses and the quality of the transfer is pretty bad. It looks like it could have come from a videotape source. But it is watchable, and the 3-D effects are actually pretty decent. Just make sure you have a few spare 3-D glasses lying around the house for friends (I always do!)

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

SPOILER ALERT!!

Actually, is a spoiler alert required for a movie from 1945? I think the statute of limitations has run out. Anyway, safety first.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) was finally released to DVD this month. Based on the Oscar Wilde short story, its basically a classy, if overlong, episode of the Twilight Zone.

Set in Victorian London, aristocrat Dorian Gray, upon having his portrait painted by an artist friend, is struck with the idea that his image in the portrait will remain unchanged long after he has given in to old age and even death. This prompts him to make a wish that the effects could be reversed...so that his image in the portrait ages while he remains eternally youthful.

The wish seems granted, and the unaging Gray devolves into an endless, meaningless life of debauched pleasure-seeking.

You've seen the "before" portrait of the young, uncorrupted Dorian above. Scroll down to see how the portrait looked after a lifetime of hard living.

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This ravaged figure would like right at home on the cover of Tales From the Crypt!



A detail of the same portrait. It looks like there's a lot going on in the background. Unfortunately the limited resolution of the DVD prevents closer analysis.

The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow (1970)

The Headless Horsemen of Sleepy Hollow (1970, retold by Cherney Berg, illustrations by Norman Nodel), a book and record set I originally ordered through my grade school Scholastic Book Club. While that copy eventually got lost sometime in my college years, I found the book (sans record) at a used book sale years later.

Beistle Company Halloween Cutouts

Nothing says Halloween like these great cardboard cut-out decorations that seem to have adorned the walls of every public school I ever attended throughout the 1970s and 80s. Printed by The Beistle Company (some designs are copyrighted as early as 1968), their availability in stores from year to year is entirely unpredictable.

I happened upon this 8-peice set at Wal-Mart a few years back. These seem to be slightly smaller versions of the ones I remember from childhood, but otherwise haven't changed.

(Apologies in advance for the patchwork nature of some of these scans which were pieced together from multiple passes.)

The Witch (1973)


Black Cat (1968)


Jack-O-Lantern (1973)


Flaming Skull (1973)


Scarecrow (1979)


Skeleton (no copyright date appears for this design)

The same year that I found the above collection, I also happened upon this great trio of glow-in-the-dark ghosts that were also staples of Halloween decor. Only after closer inspection did I realize these also came from Beistle. I found these at Albertson's grocery store. (No copyright date appears on these designs).




The Beistle Company is still in the party decorations business and has a website here. Unfortunately not all of the designs posted here are still being sold online, and those they do sell are currently out of stock.

The Flying Sorceress (1956)

One of my favorite Tom & Jerry cartoons also happens to be perfect for Halloween... "The Flying Sorceress" (1956). Tom answers a classified ad for an old woman seeking a cat. Of course the old woman turns out to be a witch. Check out some of these gorgeous screen caps:

Tom tires of constant chores in this suburban palace.

The old lady's home stands in a perpetual thunderstorm!

Tom's new bed. Yikes.

Tom steals the witch's broom...

But the fun doesn't last for long...

Of course the whole incident was just a dream.

Or was it?

For years the only way to see this classic was in a butchered pan and scan format, the way it was broadcast on television. But now you can enjoy it in all its Cinemascope widescreen glory on DVD. Buy it here.