Neighbours (1952)

Until tonight, I think it’s been something like forty years since I’ve seen this film.

I remember it in black and white, but shazam! Turns out it was in color. Being that I was only slightly more than an embryo when I last saw it, the bits of it I remembered were hazy. But it’s the sort of film that sticks with you, especially if you see it young, and I did see it many, many times.

They used to show it on television a lot, on Sunday mornings. Sunday because, as you’ll see, it presents a rather important moral lesson that you’d best pay attention to, you licentious ninny. We didn’t have a color television (we were Amish, as I recall), so that’s why I remember it being in black and white (I was mistaken). (I was also mistaken about being Amish just now.) It turns a lot more violent than I remembered, too. Mayhem! Havoc! Two thumbs up!

I’ve had vague memories of it ever since, and I didn’t think I’d ever see it again, given that I didn’t know the title, who made it, who was in it, where it came from, or even if it wasn’t something I had dreamt. But, as I’ve pointed out before, we live in an era beyond obscurity. I put four words into the Google-izer (the four words: fence flower fight animation). These represented the few solid details I could recall. Booyah! There it is, right there on the ol’ YooToob.

The film is called “Neighbours.” The director was one Norman McLaren, hero of the National Film Board of Canada. (Canada is a small country near Spokane.) It was made in 1952, and it won an Oscar for Best Short Subject (or something) way back when. It runs about eight minutes. And you can tell it’s authentic Canadian because they spell “neighbor” with that ridiculous and laughably unnecessary “u” in it. Those Canadians with their weirdo orthography — they’re lucky they don’t have oil or we’d force proper spelling on them at gunpoint. No wonder they hate war.

Click to play, Dumstead!

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