March 11, 1970

Bimbo's Initiation (1931) *****

A surrealistic masterpiece from the Fleischers, one of their finest film. Bimbo falls into a manhole and finds himself in a nightmarish maze of narrow corridors, trapdoors, torture chambers and empty wells, at the mercy of several masked individuals asking if he "wants to be a member". There are many inventive gags and surrealist transformations, including knives changing into sharks, decapitated shadows and dancing flames.