 | This article consists almost entirely of a plot summary .(June 2023) |
| Love's Labor Lost | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Vernon Stallings |
| Produced by | J.R. Bray |
| Color process | Black and white |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Goldwyn Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 3:33 |
| Language | English |
Love's Labor Lost is a 1920 short, animated film by Bray Productions and is one of the silent Krazy Kat cartoons. [1] The film's title references a play by William Shakespeare.
Ignatz Mouse is sitting on a rock at a silent place. He then sees a charming girl hippo and develops an affection for her right after waving hello, despite the size difference. An elephant, probably a policeman, sees his steady girlfriend hippo and approaches to court her. The elephant sits next to the hippo on a bench and tickles her chin using its trunk. The elephant gently elbows the hippo in a loving sense, and she responds by slapping his face. The elephant then puts his hand in her hand. She moves his hand back to him. All of a sudden, the elephant gives her a tight hug, and the embarrassed hippo covers her face. Then the elephant pulls on a tree and hugs her again.
Just then, Krazy Kat comes to the area where Ignatz Mouse is. Krazy begins playing a song on his banjo. Ignatz Mouse even dances at the beginning, and then Krazy Kat catches the mouse, but the mouse slips out of the cat's paws. The mouse grabs Krazy's banjo and uses it to knock the cat down.
Ignatz Mouse then approaches the hippo and elephant and tries to serenade the hippo with the banjo. Because the elephant has a fear of rodents, the mouse drives the elephant away. Ignatz Mouse laughs at the elephant, and the hippo confesses that she loves a brave man. The hippo straightens her skirt while sitting on the bench, and Ignatz Mouse becomes excited. The mouse sits next to the hippo and gives her a little tickle, which makes her laugh. Ignatz Mouse unexpectedly kisses the hippo on the mouth, and she feels very happy and hugs the mouse.
After fleeing from the mouse, the elephant finds himself outside a tavern. He notices a barrel of Beevo, and drinks the contents of the barrel. The scene goes back to the hippo and Ignatz Mouse on a bench, where the hippo ends up sitting on the mouse unknowingly. The hippo notices that Ignatz has disappeared; she stands up and sees that she had just crushed the mouse. Then, Ignatz returns to his original form and laughs. The scene returns to the tavern, where the elephant is flexing his muscles and gaining the courage to confront the mouse. The elephant returns to the place where the mouse and hippo are sitting on the bench. The elephant hits the mouse with his trunk and jumps on him, smashing him to death, then covers the mouse with dirt. The elephant regains the hippo's attention, and she says, "I just dote on a brave man". Before the two lovers walk away, the elephant places the hippo's hat – that looks like a flowerpot – next to the mouse's grave.
Krazy Kat shows up to see what became of Ignatz Mouse. Saddened by the mouse's death, the cat plays a solemn tune on his banjo, and his tears shower upon the flowerpot. The pot's flower grows taller, and Ignatz Mouse's ghost appears at the top. Annoyed by Krazy's gesture, Ignatz Mouse strikes the feline off his feet with a brick before ascending to the great beyond.
George Joseph Herriman III was an American cartoonist best known for the comic strip Krazy Kat (1913–1944). More influential than popular, Krazy Kat had an appreciative audience among those in the arts. Gilbert Seldes' article "The Krazy Kat Who Walks by Himself" was the earliest example of a critic from the high arts giving serious attention to a comic strip. The Comics Journal placed the strip first on its list of the greatest comics of the 20th century. Herriman's work has been a primary influence on cartoonists such as Elzie C. Segar, Will Eisner, Charles M. Schulz, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Bill Watterson, and Chris Ware.
Krazy Kat is an American newspaper comic strip, created by cartoonist George Herriman, which ran from 1913 to 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run. The characters had been introduced previously in a side strip with Herriman's earlier creation, The Dingbat Family, after earlier appearances in the Herriman comic strip Baron Bean. The phrase "Krazy Kat" originated there, said by the mouse by way of describing the cat. Set in a dreamlike portrayal of Herriman's vacation home of Coconino County, Arizona, KrazyKat's mixture of offbeat surrealism, innocent playfulness and poetic, idiosyncratic language has made it a favorite of comics aficionados and art critics for more than 80 years.
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