The Village Smithy (1936): A weird, rubbery trip through poetry

Is this worth a watch?

Honestly, only if you're a animation nerd or just really bored on a Sunday afternoon. It’s pure chaos. If you hate old-school, slightly mean-spirited physical comedy, you’ll probably want to turn it off before the first horse gets annoyed.

The whole thing is basically a playground for gags that don't really care about the source material. It starts with a narrator doing that classic 1930s 'let's read this poem' bit, but it quickly spirals into Porky being a total disaster in the smithy.

The rubber horseshoe bit is pure gold, though.

Watching the blacksmith try to hammer that floppy, bouncing rubber thing while the horse just stares at him with total judgment is actually funny. It’s the kind of dumb, low-stakes joke that makes me like these early shorts.

The animation isn't always smooth—sometimes the characters look like they're melting into the background—but that’s part of the charm. It feels like they were making it up as they went along.

• Porky is basically just there to cause problems.
• The horse has more personality than most of the humans.
• The rhythm is all over the place, which is fine by me.

It’s nowhere near as polished as something like Mickey's Tent Show, but it has this weird, frantic energy that I kinda dig. It’s not trying to win an award or teach you a lesson. It’s just trying to make you laugh by burning a horse's backside by accident.

I found myself wondering if they ever actually intended to finish the job. Probably not. Who cares? The pacing is erratic, the jokes are predictable, and yet I didn't want to skip forward. Sometimes you don't need a masterpiece; you just need a rubber horseshoe and a very confused horse. 🐎

Also, the transition from the 'serious' poem intro to the slapstick is so jarring it’s almost impressive. Like, they didn't even try to bridge the gap. They just went, 'Okay, poem's done, let's have Porky break things now.'

If you're looking for deep, meaningful cinema, go watch Songs of France or something. If you want to see a cartoon blacksmith have a complete breakdown, stay right here.