Gobsmacking Cinema: THE DUCKTATORS (1942)

Have you ever watched a film that is so bad, so weird or so offensive that you just can't believe what you're watching? For most people, it happens every once in a while. For me, it's a regular occurrence, but that's because I deliberately seek out such oddities.

I have a love of what I refer to as "gobsmacking cinema" - films that leave you staring blank faced at the screen, jaw on the floor, wondering what the hell just happened, why it happened and indeed how the hell it happened.

It could be that something is just so bad it's great (INSEMINOID anyone?); perhaps it's just an appallingly cheeky rip-off of some other film (I could write all day about such things, with Italians and Turks being the undisputed kings of rip-off cinema); maybe it just deliberately goes out of its way to offend (that'll be me talking about the video nasties again); then again maybe it's a once-innocent film that now seems offensive by modern standards (just about any film from the early days of Hollywood that features a minority character); perhaps something that must have seemed like a good idea at the time but just goes wrong on every level (try searching the web for THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL and you'll find something that makes ATTACK OF THE CLONES look like CITIZEN KANE in comparison); or occasionally it's just so strange you can't help but be engrossed by its all-encompassing weirdness (if you ever meet Sean Connery, please ask him what he was thinking when he made ZARDOZ).

I'm not talking about films that are so bad you can't enjoy them on any level (INDEPENDENCE DAY and SUPERMAN III to name but two) but rather what some people would term guilty pleasures. I don't think that's a strong enough term though - many films in my collection are guilty pleasures, but it takes something truly special to leave you so stunned that you're convinced you've just imagined the whole thing.

Naturally, I feel it's my duty to share such cinematic joy with you, which is why I now proudly present the first film in my "gobsmacking cinema" appraisal.

THE DUCKTATORS is a short Warner Bros cartoon from the early 40s featuring, of course, the vocal talents of Mel Blanc. Being a piece of WW2 propoganda you expect a degree of unpleasantness towards other nations but in this modern politically correct world where the same old cartoons are constantly trotted out on the telly while the less PC efforts languish in a vault somewhere, coming across something like this can really knock you for six.

We begin on a farm, where a couple of ducks are awaiting the birth of their child. Rather ominously, the egg is black. Shattering open the egg with some gusto, a white duck with a windswept tuft of black hair and a short black moustache raises an (armband-wearing) arm and cries "SIEG HEIL". Uh-oh.

After a brief glimpse of this rather familiar looking animal giving an animated speech (in German) to other gullible members of the farmyard, we then get introduced to a fat, shaven-headed bird waffling away in a mock-Italian accent to a (literally) captive audience of one (his speech is a lot of nonsense using random Italian phrases like "tutti frutti") and then finally along comes the Japanese bird who not only has slit-like eyes and big buck teeth but also says "very sorry" a lot. At this point it's difficult to say which is more disturbing, the bizarre cartoon treatment of the three enemy leaders or the shameful racial stereotypes.

Eventually the trio are thwarted by another large bird whom one assumes is supposed to be the mighty USA but by the time it's all over it's difficult to ponder what the meaning behind it all is, because you're too busy wondering who actually thought this all up anyway. It's not that an animal retelling of World War 2 is even that bad an idea, it's just the lack of subtlety that's a little disconcerting for a modern audience. I appreciate the sentiment and undoubtedly the filmmakers' hearts were in the right places but really...

It would be easy to end with a casual "they don't make them like this anymore" but in this modern PC world, I'm not entirely sure they're allowed to either.