Out of the Inkwell (1938 film)

Out of the Inkwell
Directed by	Dave Fleischer
Produced by	Max Fleischer (producer) S. Roy Luby (associate producer)
Starring	Featuring the voice talents of: Bonnie Poe as Betty Boop Oscar Polk as a live-action black janitor (both uncredited)
Animation by	Animated by: Thomas Johnson and Otto Feuer
Color process	Black-and-white
Production company	Fleischer Studios
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	April 22, 1938
Running time	7 mins
Language	English

Out of the Inkwell is a 1938 Max Fleischer/Betty Boop live-action and animated short film. The title and concept for the film were a tribute to the Out of the Inkwell series of films that Max Fleischer had produced during the 1920s.

Synopsis

A live-action black janitor, played by Oscar Polk, best known for his portrayal as the servant "Pork" in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, studies hypnotism from a book while cleaning Max Fleischer's desk at the Fleischer studio. He manages to conjure Max's pen into drawing Betty Boop. In a sequence of animation mixed with live-action, he uses his new powers to control the white animated Boop. She in turn is able to control a small dog. After waking from the spell, Betty manages to work a few more spells. Fraught with racial innuendo, one of her tricks includes turning the black man white for a split-second, after which he begins cleaning in overdrive. Before that, he was sleeping on his broom and sweeping dirt under the carpet. At the end, Betty Boop leaps into a bottle of black ink.

External links

• Out of the Inkwell on Youtube
• Out of the Inkwell at IMDb