Rabbit of Seville (1950)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Written by Michael Maltese
Animation by Phil Monroe, Ben Washam, Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris, Emery Hawkins
Music by Carl Stalling
In my humble opinion, the 1950 “Rabbit of Seville” represents the apex of the Bugs Bunny animated shorts. The film is both laugh-out-loud hilarious and an artistic triumph that creates a slapstick masterpiece on the foundation of symphonic greatness – in this case, the overture to Rossini’s opera “The Barber of Seville.”
But “Rabbit of Seville” is not a parody of opera, as “What’s Opera, Doc?” was in 1957 – and unlike the later film, it is not cumbersome or excessively artsy. (Yeah, I’m not a fan of “What’s Opera, Doc” – we’ll get into my unhappiness over that work in the coming weeks.) Nor is it a spoof of highbrow culture in the manner that the 1943 “A Corny Concerto” kidded Disney’s “Fantasia.” Instead, “Rabbit of Seville” represents the Warner Bros. animation team hitting their A-game with brilliant ferocity.
The film opens at an amphitheater where “The Barber of Seville” is to be staged, and this includes an inside joke with a sandwich board announcing the inclusion of Eduardo Selzeri, Michele Maltese, and Carlo Jonzi in the cast – an Italianized riff on producer Edward Selzer, writer Michael Maltese, and director Chuck Jones. As the orchestra tunes its instruments, there are gunshots punctuated with flashes of light coming from the hills beyond the venue. The source of the noise becomes clear as Bugs Bunny races in a life-and-death pursuit from the woods and into the stage entrance of the amphitheater, hiding as a belligerent Elmer Fudd enters after him, searching about the venue angrily as his protruding lower lip emphasizes his frustration at losing the long-eared prey.
Elmer stalks to center stage and Bugs takes advantage of his foe’s position by using his carrot to hit the switch that raises the curtain for the production. The show’s conductor, a Stokowksi clone, watches in confusion as the curtain rises, then checks his wristwatch, and then looks to the viewer while shrugging his shoulders over the early curtain. Elmer doesn’t hear the audience’s applause, although the initial boom of the overture’s music causes him to turn around in terror to realize he is standing before a vast audience with the set of “The Barber of Seville.”
And who should be the eponymous stylist than a white smock-wearing Bugs, who subjects Elmer to grooming hell in time to the Rossini overture. Among the indignities that Elmer receives from Bugs are a violent razor shave, an attack by a serpentine electric razor fueled by Bugs’ guise as a snake charmer, having his big bald head used as a setting for a massive fruit salad and then having a mix of hair tonic and “Figaro Fertilizer” to create a scalp full of long hair topped with bright red flowers.
The genius of “Rabbit of Seville” is how the wildly inventive comic action is perfectly timed to the Rossini music. The film offers some of the best sight gags in the history of the Warner Bros. animation studio. Highlights include Bugs donning Spanish female drag to become Elmer’s “little senorita” who substitutes scissors for castanets and slyly cuts away the suspenders that cause the dimwitted hunter to lose his pants. Also noteworthy are the unorthodox ways that Bugs performs a scalp massage on Elmer’s cranium – he stands on Elmer’s head and uses his feet for the massage, ending his treatment by nonchalantly wiping his feet on Elmer’s scalp as if it was a doormat. Later, he slaps his long ears slap at the skull in time with the music.
“Rabbit of Seville” soars thanks in large part to Carl Stalling’s astonishing adaptation of the Rossini overture, Michael Maltese’s innovative screenplay that keeps the gags coming fast and furious, Chuck Jones’ stylish direction and its imaginative use of spatial composition, and Mel Blanc’s greatness in giving Bugs Bunny a great singing voice. Arthur Q. Bryan, the uncredited voice of Elmer Fudd, only has one line to sing, although he offers a painfully realistic series of cries in a brief segment when Bugs aggressively razor shaves Elmer.
The razor shave bit represents a startling degree of sadism for the Looney Tunes series – although the assault takes place out of camera range, Bugs’ slashing at Elmer’s face creates a degree of violence that is uncommon for animated films. Indeed, for years that footage was edited out of television broadcasts of the short.
Equally unprecedented is the conclusion where Elmer’s violent pursuit of Bugs is upended when Bugs abruptly offers Elmer a flower bouquet, a big box of chocolates and a diamond engagement ring. Elmer, ecstatic over these gifts, quickly exits stage left and returns in a white wedding gown. Bugs exits stage right and returns in a tuxedo and a justice of the peace to marry the characters. A same-sex interspecies marriage for a 1950 film, let alone an interspecies union? Clearly, the Hollywood censors who sniffed out any whiff of allegedly antisocial behavior on screen were either unaware of this or failed to see how the Bugs and Elmer marriage ran afoul of their thou-shall-not code. However, the wedding ends with Bugs depositing his “bride” headfirst into an oversized wedding cake, his legs kicking helpless in the air as his upper body is entombed with the giant pastry. Bugs calls victory with a carrot bite, a smug look at the viewer and the short’s only spoken dialogue: “Eh, next?”