Download Unlimited Hollywood Movies Now! \r<br>\r<br>A Car-Tune Portrait is a cartoon in the Color Classics series produced by Fleischer Studios. Released on June 26, 1937,[1] the cartoon gives an imaginative take on Franz Liszts Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.\r<br>\r<br>The cartoon features a lion dressed up as a musical conductor, attempting to keep his orchestra of animal musicians in order as they half-play, half-fight their way through the piece. Memorable moments include a Dachshund playing the xylophone using his back legs while the rest of him sleeps, a group of monkeys using a flute as a pea-shooter to fire at their fellow musicians, and a horse trombonist who attempts to swat a fly using his instrument but who only succeeds in hitting the dog trumpeter in front of him.\r<br>\r<br>In keeping with the building frenzy of Liszts rhapsody, the animals become more and more violent, playing pranks on each other and generally wreaking havoc; but still the piece goes on. The final scenes see the lion conductor smashed over the head with a giant bass drum, at which point he gives in, the music finishes and the cartoon ends.\r<br>\r<br>Color Classics were a series of animated short subjects produced by Fleischer Studios for Paramount Pictures from 1934 to 1941 as a competitor to Walt Disneys Silly Symphonies. As the name implies, all of the shorts were made in color, with the first entry in the series, Poor Cinderella, being the first color cartoon produced by the Fleischer studio. There were 36 films produced in this series.\r<br>\r<br>The first Color Classic was photographed in the two-color Cinecolor process. The rest of the 1934 and 1935 cartoons were shot in two-strip Technicolor, because the Disney studio had an exclusive agreement with Technicolor that prevented other studios from using the lucrative three-strip process. That exclusive contract expired at the end of 1935, and the 1936 Color Classic cartoon Somewhere in Dreamland became the first Fleischer cartoon produced in three-strip Technicolor.[1]\r<br>\r<br>While they are sometimes considered by film historians to be pale Silly Symphonies knock-offs,[1] many of the Color Classics are still highly regarded today,[2] including Somewhere in Dreamland (1936), the Academy Award nominated shorts, Educated Fish (1937) and Hunky and Spunky (1938, first in a subseries), and Small Fry (1939). The first film in the series, Poor Cinderella, featured Betty Boop (with red hair and turquoise eyes); future films were usually one-shot cartoons with no starring characters. Two color classics - Educated Fish (1937) and Hunky and Spunky - were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons); both lost to Disney shorts.\r<br>\r<br>Many of the Color Classics entries make prominent use of Max Fleischers Stereoptical process, a device which allowed animation cels to be photographed against actual 3D background sets instead of the traditional paintings. Poor Cinderella, Somewhere in Dreamland, and Christmas Comes But Once a Year (starring Betty Boop character Grampy) all make prominent use of the technique. Disneys competing apparatus, the multiplane camera, would not be completed until 1937, three years after the Stereoptical processs first use.[1]\r<br>\r<br>The Color Classics series ended in 1941 with Vitamin Hay, starring Hunky and Spunky. In its place, Fleischer began producing Technicolor cartoons starring Gabby, the town crier from the 1939 Fleischer/Paramount feature film Gullivers Travels.\r<br>\r<br>A similar series would be started by Fleischers successor Famous Studios in 1943, under the name Noveltoons. Some of the one-shots in this series would be reminiscent of the Color Classics in terms of production value and story.
