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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. The Terrible Troubador remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Honestly, only if you're a total sucker for 1930s animation or if you've got a weird obsession with early sound cartoons. If you’re looking for a tight plot, you'll probably hate this. It’s messy, it’s disjointed, and it barely functions as a narrative. But man, the energy is something else.
Pooch the Pup is basically the star here, and he’s doing the standard 'I want the girl' routine. The guardian is a total wet blanket, which is fine, but the movie doesn't really care about the romance. It just needs a reason to get to the music.
You get 'Lady of Spain' thrown at you, which is a catchy enough tune if you don't mind it being played on a loop. Then, completely out of nowhere, there’s this segment with these Mills Brothers lookalikes. They show up, sing 'Hold That Bull,' and then poof—they're gone. It feels like the animators just decided, 'Hey, let's put a concert in the middle of this chase scene.'
It reminds me a bit of the frantic, nonsensical energy in Traffic Troubles. Both films have that feeling of someone throwing kitchen sinks at the screen just to see what sticks.
The bull sequence is… loud. The animation gets all jittery during the chase. You can tell they were really pushing the limits of what they could do with ink and paint back then. It’s not smooth, but it’s weirdly hypnotic to watch them try.
Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it better than watching another CGI-fest that looks like a video game cutscene? Probably. It has that imperfect, gritty quality that only comes from old hand-drawn frames where you can see the effort—and the mistakes—in every line. It's a short, weird, musical mess. I sort of loved it for that. 🎷🐂🎶