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5.7/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.7/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Little Boy Blue remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you like vintage animation with a side of genuine menace, then yeah, sure. It’s short, punchy, and doesn't waste your afternoon. If you’re looking for something gentle to show the toddlers, maybe keep looking—the Wolf in this thing is not messing around.
The whole setup feels like a fever dream you’d have after eating too much cheese before bed. You’ve got Bo Peep, the wolf, and the title character, Little Boy Blue, who is mostly just there to toot his horn. It’s classic nursery rhyme stuff until the Big Bad Wolf shows up and starts acting like a genuine predator.
The moment the Wolf swipes the sheep, the tone shifts from 'cheerful farm day' to 'horror movie light.' There’s this dancing scarecrow that shows up, and honestly, he’s kind of a weirdo. He’s got these elastic limbs that move in ways that feel a bit too wiggly, even for 1940s animation.
The rescue mission is where things get really off the rails. It’s all singing and dancing until the impalement happens. I had to rewind it just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. It’s not every day you see a classic storybook character get pinned to a wall by a pitchfork. It’s oddly specific, violent, and honestly? It caught me totally off guard.
I couldn't help but compare the pacing here to something like A Day's Pleasure. Where that film finds humor in the mundane, this one finds it in absolute chaos. It’s like the animators were told they had five minutes to finish the story and just decided to cram every single gag they had into the final sequence.
Is it a masterpiece? Probably not. Is it memorable? Definitely. There’s a frantic energy to the background art that makes the whole thing feel like it’s vibrating. I’m still not sure how I feel about the ending, but I definitely haven't forgotten it. 🐺🌾