Mysterious Mose (1930)

Mysterious Mose Review

Mysterious Mose is a 1930 animated short film from the Talkartoons series.

Betty Boop can’t sleep on a scary night, so she sings the title song and meets the gentleman in question – a surreal version of Bimbo. In this cartoon Betty still has dog ears and muzzle. It’s interesting to see this earlier version of Betty as she is actually very similar to the final version with those animal tidbits added. She’s well utilized here and her singing was great.

The highlight of this short was its horror atmosphere. Not only does it feature stunningly inventive animation, but there is a lot of innovative action and imagery on display with the highlight being that ghost in bed scene. I have never seen anything quite like it. The only issue here was the humor that was somewhat lacking, but otherwise the short is visually splendid and so well scored with the titular jazz number being reliably fun.

Mysterious Mose is a terrific Talkartoons short that benefits from stunning animation and a great score. It’s an inventive early 30s cartoon.

My Rating – 4.2