What a waste of my time!!!

A Major Disappointment

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

"Feline Follies" is a 1919 4-minute black-and-white cartoon about Felix the cat. American director Otto Messmes made this one almost 100 years ago and he went one to become one of the defining animation filmmakers in the 1920s before the real boom of cartoons started a decade later. He is probably not a name to many anymore today, but the Animation Oscars Annie Awards honored him with their most precious award.The animation in this cartoon here is still really basic, that's why I cannot really recommend it, but the jokes are all fine and were reused in much more known films in decades afterward, such as the cat that is blamed for the chaos the mice made, or the mice having a party when the cat isn't home or people in the neighborhood complaining about cat noise. A solid watch all in all I guess, but really only for people who like old films.

With a poll currently taking place on IMDbs Classic Film board for the best movies from the 1915-1919 era,I began to search online for titles to view,and I was surprised to stumble up on the debut appearance of Felix the Cat,which led to me getting ready to see Felix's first tail.The plot:Promising to keep the mice away from taking all their food & drink,a cat called Master Tom waits until the shadows of his owners are long gone,and then secretly leaves the house for a date with Miss Kitty.Seeing no sign of Tom,the mice decide to come out and make make sure that this time the cat will not get the cream.View on the film:Despite sadly not featuring a score,director Otto Messmer is still able to make the film pop with a tremendous bite,thanks to Messmer giving Felix (here named Master Tom!) a gritty,pulp appearance,with Messmer also skilfully using speech bubbles to give the title an animated comic book atmosphere.Along with the stylish design,Messmer also reveals an excellent,jet-black Comedy streak in the movies screenplay,as Miss Kitty reveals that their date was far from innocent,and Felix/Master Tom dies from a suicide!,which thankfully did not stop Felix from coming back to life.

"Feline Follies" is the first Felix the Cat cartoon, though it isn't exactly the Felix that was popular through the 1920s. The character looks similar and it was brought to the public by the same folks who made the Felix cartoons, though he is more like a real cat in this cartoon and they call him 'Master Tom'.The film begins with Tom going out for a walk and meeting a cute white female cat. They spend time together--much to the annoyance of everyone but the mice! And, in the end, the ending (which I won't divulge) is very, very dark--and the sort of cartoon parents probably would NOT let their kids see! So dark that I was actually pretty shocked.While this cartoon is much too normal for my tastes (except for the ending), it is historically important and worth a look if you are an aficionado of the history of cartoons.

Originally part of an 'issue' of 'Paramount Magazine' which consisted of Bobby Bumps in "Their Master's Voice" (by Earl Hurd), "Feline Follies" and Bud and Susie in "Down the Mississippi" (Frank Moser).This is generally thought to be the first Felix cartoon, though he's called 'Master Tom' at this stage, and bears only a fairly tenuous resemblance to his later appearance. The story is pretty uninteresting. Tom heads off for a rendezvous with his girlfriend, some mice come out while he's away and cause havoc, and he cops hell when he gets back again. There's little of the wit or inventiveness of the later 20's Felix cartoons, though significantly we do see Tom do some trademark Felix things, like pluck question marks out of the air and turn them into go-cart wheels.I find this cartoon interesting because to me it opens up the Messmer/Sullivan debate a little. It's more or less accepted now that Felix is Messmer's creation, but the fact that in this earliest supposed appearance he's called 'Tom' lends some credibility to the argument that Felix was a development of Sullivan's 'Thomas Kat' who debuted in 1917. I suspect the truth is that both guys deserve credit for Felix in one way or another, but what would I know? Anyway, a decent cartoon, and historically important, but not mind-altering.