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5.5/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.5/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Three's a Crowd remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have any patience for early animation that feels like a fever dream, you might enjoy Three's a Crowd. If you need a plot that actually makes sense or characters that aren't just shifting between random cultural references, skip it. It’s a short, weird, and surprisingly frantic relic.
The whole thing starts with an old guy going to bed, which is the standard setup for these vintage cartoons. But then Alice crawls out of a book and things get unhinged pretty fast. The radio starts playing and suddenly you've got Nero fiddling while Rome burns right next to Cleopatra doing a dance. It’s sensory overload in black and white. 🎨
The pacing is honestly all over the place. One second someone is singing a spiritual, and the next, Mr. Hyde is causing trouble. You really get the sense that the animators were just throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick. It doesn't have the emotional weight of something like Waterloo Bridge, but it’s not trying to. It’s just trying to be loud.
The rescue mission. Tarzan and his buddies decide that the best weapons against a classic villain are pens, matches, and fountain pens. Watching them box up Hyde using office supplies is just… bizarre. It’s oddly specific, like someone was sitting at their desk and thought, 'What if this stapler was a weapon?' 🖋️
It’s definitely not a masterpiece. It feels like a rough draft for a much longer, more coherent movie that never happened. But sometimes, watching a piece of history that doesn't care about being 'good' is refreshing. It’s just there, doing its own thing, and occasionally making you blink in confusion.
It’s not for everyone. It’s barely for anyone, honestly. But for a few minutes, it’s a fun little time capsule of how cartoons used to just be whatever they wanted to be. No rules, just vibes. 📺
