Telefon

A cute film where all the animals build themselves a telephone system to keep in touch. It's interesting that the animals here are from all over the world - yet are in the same jungle! Immediately the animals put the system to work. Mr Chukovskiy is shown on the phone to various critters. Interestingly, he's in live action and the animals are animated. Chukovskiy gets a call from an odd family of crocs asking for a supply of rubber shoes and boots. The crate is dispatched from Moscow to the the jungle. The crocs obtain the shoes and boots and proceed to skewer and grill them over a fire. The food orgy afterwords is a riot! The jungle tranquility is shattered when a rhino is trapped underwater and calls for help. Chukovskiy receives the call and flies to the jungle - in animated form now! All the animals pull together and save the rhino and succeed. Chukovskiy returns to Moscow and says goodbye. This is just a capsule review. There are so many clever subtle things going on here. It'd take too long to detail them all. While Soyuz still had a while to go before they hit their stride, this 1944 film still shows that they knew what they were doing and had done their homework.