Little Boy Blue

Plot synopsis:
Living in the backwoods of Texas is the dysfunctional and apparently incestuous West family: a psychotic war veteran father, Ray (John Savage), a compliant wife, Kate (Nastassja Kinski), and a 19-year-old son, Jimmy (Ryan Phillippe); who is relegated to a warehouse outside the family home. Ray and Kate seem to be a normal couple running their bar, raising their two sons (around 3 and 5 year-old), but as they return home from work Ray turns violent and abusive. At his insistence Kate and Jimmy were having a shocking and strong sexual relationship. Ray goes even so far as to call Jimmy "Little boy blue" and to shout that 'he knows' Jimmy likes it.
As it turns out, during Jimmy's conversation with his girlfriend, Traci, (Jenny Lewis), he rejects a full scholarship for college. He cannot leave his brothers with his father. He explains that if he is not there Ray will take all his rage onto his little brothers, which he finds not tenable. Traci can understand that, but she cannot give up her own future, and so they eventually break up. The movie ends with their probable re-engagement.
In the course of the events it becomes clear that Ray harbors a secret he cannot share with anyone. When a stranger appears in his bar and wants to befriend Ray, the latter gets suspicious and in and attempts to knock down the man. He kills someone who appears to be a private detective. Jimmy starts becoming suspicious about his father being a murderer and one night when Kate visits him in the warehouse he asks her to take the boys and leave Ray for good. She declines for reason of panic.
Kate explains that she cannot imagine what she can do in such a frightening place, unbeknownst to her. Ray enters the warehouse and upon seeing Kate in Jimmy's arms he generates' a ruckus, and insists that Kate and he should tell Jimmy the truth. Kate manages to calm him down, but Jimmy is still too frustrated and the next morning he goes to Traci's place to talk to her and to say his final goodbye. She listens to his shocking story about Ray's abusive behavior and is startled when Jimmy says that he cannot leave his own sons with such a Vietnam-traumatised monster. He leaves her house and goes back to his place. On his way he is stopped by Ray who takes advantage of the absence of Kate and the boys and tells Jimmy that he needs to know who he really is and why he keeps on calling Jimmy "Little boy blue". Figuring out where Ray is going Jimmy wants to stop him and a fight is started for which Ray is obviously ready and has been expecting it all along.
A few days after that Jimmy is nowhere to be seen (with everyone except Traci assuming that he has left the town) a mysterious woman (Shirley Knight) appears in town looking for her private detective. As the police interrogate her the secret unfolds about Ray, Jimmy and herself. Years ago she had met Ray when she, her husband and their newborn baby where driving their family minivan and Ray needed a ride. While Ray had complemented them on their beautiful baby-boy and conducted a cheerful, friendly conversation, she was reading a book to her son (the same "little boy blue" book Ray had been keeping among his personal things and which Jimmy had taken from his elder son earlier to prevent Ray from punishing the boy for stealing), without any hint of what was coming. Hours after they had picked up Ray, she was tied to a tree, beaten severely, her partner killed and watching as Ray walked away with her son, got into the minivan and drove away. As she breaks into tears while telling the story, she does not forget to mention that "it was 19 years ago and that nobody helped her then and did not find her son."
The police send her to her motel room and guard her so she will not do anything "stupid" before they get an order to interrogate Ray, but she slips away at night and goes directly to Ray's house. With the boys out at the lake and Kate out in the warehouse to find a hint where Jimmy might have gone, Ray wakes up to find her pointing a gun to his head. While he starts mumbling that she has got the wrong person, that he has not done anything bad to her, she shoots him several times and heads to the warehouse where Kate is hiding near Jimmy's bed. As the woman starts looking around the place, she finds the "Little boy blue" book lying on the table and breaks into tears. Right then she hears Kate crying, too, and without any remorse shoots her dead as well. The boys, who had been hiding under the house, run towards the warehouse, but are stopped by a police officer, who had come to find the woman. She comes out of the warehouse waving her gun at the officer and as she is about to shoot, she is shot dead by the policeman. The boys spend the night in the police car, and in the morning the elder brother remembers that their father had been recently working a lot around their minivan. The policeman sets everyone to work and as the minivan and the soil under it are removed they find doors in the ground. As the doors are opened, the viewer gets an inside look at unconscious Jimmy tied up to the wooden shelves like on a cross, all bloody and bruised. As the ambulance is cutting the ropes and placing him in the ambulance car, Jimmy has a vision of his future. There he is a policeman, married to Traci, playing with his sons and his newborn baby in the park. As he slowly wakes up from his dreams, he hears his sons calling his name and assuring them that everything's okay and that he is never going to leave them, Jimmy smiles. The final scene shows the ambulance car drive away as the credits start to roll..

Tags: violence, fantasy

Review:
Stallings' Music About The Only Highlight.
I really don't know why this is called "Little Boy Blue" since his character plays a minor role in this story.
The hero of the fairy tale is the scarecrow, not Little Boy Blue who only enters the "action" in the last 30 seconds of the cartoon after the scarecrow had defeated the "big, bad wolf." Earlier we saw scenes in which led to the climactic final, how one black sheep in the group inadvertently helped the wolf in going after the other lambs.Overall, this is a very weak Iwerks' effort because there is almost no humor to this cartoon.
The only saving grace is an excellent "score" by one of the best-ever in the business, Carl Stallings.
The music is here will get your attention more than the story or visuals..
Won't banish the blues away.
While not one of my favourites, Ub Iwerks was responsible for a lot of interesting work.
Especially when working with Walt Disney, his oldest friend and one of his best, and co-creating one of animation's most famous characters in Mickey Mouse.
His career since opening his own studio had interest value but the quality was variable, often being successful in the animation and music but wanting in the story and variable in gags, lead characters and tone.1933 to 1936 saw twenty five cartoons, mostly based on famous fairytales and familiar stories, as part of Iwerks's "ComiColor" series.
The "ComiColor" series is very much worth watching and interesting, as is the case with many series some cartoons are better than others but there are no real animation nadirs.
1936's 'Little Boy Blue' is very disappointing, and a contender for being the weakest of the series, it's between this and 'Mary's Little Lamb' for that title for pretty much the same reasons as each other.'Little Boy Blue' is very slight, pretty plot-less, and is too saccharine, like at the beginning.
There is just not enough content and the middle especially is where one feels the over-stretching.Its characters should have been much more interesting, their personalities are bland to the point of being personality-deprived.
The title character has too little a role and is neither likeable or compelling.
There is far more imagination and humour in other cartoons in the series, it is just as and even more bland as the characters.
A vast majority of it is not very funny, could have had a sharper kick pace-wise, has very little conflict or enough urgency and tries too hard to be cute that it goes too far the other way.
However, 'Little Boy Blue' has merits to stop it from being completely dull.
There are a few amusing moments that aren't too repetitive or corny, though this is very sporadic, and there is some charm here and there, again not enough.
The wolf is by far the most interesting character, the only one to make an impression, and is amusing and menacing.
Billy Bletcher couldn't have voiced him more perfectly.Furthermore, the animation is great apart from an awkwardly animated Mary.
Meticulously detailed, fluid in drawing, vibrant in colour and often rich in imagination and visual wit.
The music, by far the best thing about the cartoon, is cleverly and lushly orchestrated, is infectiously catchy and adds a lot to the cartoon.Overall, another example of a worth a look once but not repeat viewings cartoon.
5/10 Bethany Cox. Pretty bad.....
This is an Ub Iwerks Comicolor cartoon.
Like most of the Comicolor shorts, it has lovely animation but not much else going for it.
When the story begins, lazy Boy Blue is sleeping away as the Wolf is stalking for prey.
The Wolf grabs a girl's sheep (perhaps she's Mary from Mary Had a Little Lamb) and Boy Blue and his scarecrow spring into action.So what's not to like about this one?
Well, it starts off with some very sappy singing--the sort of stuff that make many 1930s cartoons practically unwatchable today.
Additionally, bland characters and a rather creepy scene where the scarecrow is decapitated make this a tough film to love..
Lesser Short.
Little Boy Blue (1936) ** (out of 4)Ub Iwerks directed this animated short, which is just a knock-off on Disney's Big Bad Wolf series.
Little Boy Blue might be the title but the real story deals with a wolf trying to eat a baby sheep.
Little Boy Blue and a scarecrow eventually come to the rescue.
For the most part there's really nothing overly entertaining here, although if you are a fan of the director then you'll probably want to still watch it.
The animation is pretty good for the most part and there's no doubt that the wolf character is mildly entertaining.
The biggest problem with the film is that the story just isn't all that original and nothing fresh is done with it..
Cheap knockoff of Disney short..
This one was released a couple of years after the classic Disney short entitled "The Big Bad Wolf".
I saw this short under the same exact title on a DVD compilation of cartoons.Instead of chasing the Three Little Pigs, this wolf is terrorizing the sheep of Little Bo Peep.
Her sole black sheep does an exaggerated dance routine and then dons a wolf mask to scare the white sheep.
Unbeknownst to him, a real wolf has been carefully watching and decides to pull a prank of his own.The wolf is able to grab one of the sheep and carries it away.
Once inside his domicile, the wolf grabs a multitude of knives and begins to sharpen one of them.
It's up to a singing and dancing scarecrow(!) to race inside and try to save the helpless woolen creature.
There isn't an impressive moment in this one and I would stick to watching the superior short which this was likely inspired by.