User Reviews

This Aesop's Fables cartoon from Paul Terry's silent era shows the efficiency, competence and cheapness that typified his operations in his forty-year career as a cartoon producer of probably over thirteen hundred cartoons. Henry the cat witnesses others being in love and falls in love with the picture of a vaudeville dancer. The gags that eke out the cartoon are well spaced and competently handled. They are also recycled or would be recycled -- I could swear I've seen them interpolated into other Terry cartoons. There are also a goodly number of repeating routines -- cheats. Look at the very beginning with the mouse pulling him along -- this one is a gag I've seen in other Terry toons and it loops.

If you want to take a look at it, it's on the National Film Preservation website.

Although I am NOT a fan of Paul Terry due to the sorts of cutesy cartoons he made in the 1930s, I must admit that for 1922, "Henry's Busted Romance" is a pretty good cartoon. The animation is fair but the backgrounds are exceptional for the time period in which they were made.

The cartoon stars a cat (somewhat reminiscent of Felix) who has fallen for a cute feline opera singer. He eventually goes to see her on stage and makes a bit of a fool of himself. Later, when she is being attacked, he comes to her rescue and wins her heart. Unfortunately, there is a twist--a rather funny one that illustrates the an aphorism from Aesop.

While the film is a bit cutesy, it avoids being too sweet and ends well. All in all, it's the sort of thing that people today would probably ignore (since the quality of cartoons has improved so much), but for lovers of early cartoons, it's well worth seeing.

By the way, DON'T freak out when you see the fortune teller's tent. It has a swastika on it--which, at the time, was seen as a good luck symbol, not the symbol of the National Socialists!

Henry the cat is using a mouse pull his cart. The mouse runs off with a female mouse. Henry sees everybody pairing up. He sees ballet cat Kitty on a billboard and falls in love. The fortune teller predicts a match, and he attends the opera house performance. He gets stopped by security. He saves her from a rich fat cat. He's her white knight until she reveals her many kittens from her first husband.

I don't know anything about Henry the Cat or the animator Paul Terry. He seemed to be a prolific cartoonist of his time. He founded Terrytoons which produced plenty of material including Mighty Mouse. I like the edginess of the story and especially the humor of the ending. I do wish to have a more famous character as the lead.