Prod. UM2 - Trader Mickey

One can think what one wants about the ethnic caricatures, but as a film it's just a bit of fun, and captures the spirit of the time, as so well exemplified by my all-time favorite short, Building a Building, by the same director.

The animation is by pretty much all of the animators who worked on the Mickeys of the era, Ben Sharpsteen, Gerry Geronimy and the director Dave Hand himself, with a few scenes by Les Clark, Kevin Donnely, Tom Palmer, Frenchy de Tremaudan, Johnnie Cannon, Dick Lundy, Norm Ferguson, Hardie Gramatky and Jack King.

This draft dated 8/20/1932, the date of the film's release. It was obviously recreated at a later date, as drafts this early were hand-written or completely typed, and very few are known to have survived.Have you taken note of Al Malotte's notes on music in Animation below? Then the next bit will make sense to you.
(See it on the Treasures DVD Mickey Mouse in B&W Vol. 2 Disc 2).

From Dave Hand's original barsheets we learn that the film starts on 2-12s (with a single 3-12 at beat 36 in sc. 5 because of a removed scene). At the start of sc. 21 it becomes 2-16s. From sc.35 it is 2-12s again, for SAN (that's what it says) and Darktown Strutters' Ball. After a 4 bar vamp it becomes 4-12s for the St. James Infirmary, then from Sc.55 4-10s, and from sc. 57 to the end, the Dixieland One-step on 2-10s.
Interestingly the cuts are always directly on the beat.
Even more interestingly, after planning all this, they changed two bits around! In the actual film, the Darktown Strutters' Ball bit comes after St. James Infirmary bit, vamp and all. Rhythm-wise, it does seem to make a more textured film with a longer fun ending.
Note, though, that this was changed after the draft was done, so beware!!! (How this fits with this being a copied later draft, we may never know...)

A lot of time has been spent to calculate the footage, it seems, and the barsheets calculate the length to 617-11 ft, while the draft notes 624-12 ft, a discrepancy of 7-01 ft (4"17fr)...