Play Safe is a 1936 animated short film produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. This film was part of Max Fleischer's Color Classics series.[1] The film follows the story of a boy who has a dream about being on a real train (and learns a lesson about train safety).[2]
| Play Safe | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Dave Fleischer |
| Produced by | Max Fleischer Adolph Zukor (executive) |
| Starring | Jack Mercer Mae Questel |
| Music by | Sammy Timberg Vee Lawnhurst (music) Seymour Tot (lyrics) |
| Animation by | David Tendlar Eli Brucker |
| Color process | Cinecolor |
Production company | Fleischer Studios |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 8 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
In his backyard, a little boy dressed like an engineer, is reading a book about trains while playing with a toy train. He has a brief thought about what it would be like to operate a real train. At that moment, he hears a real freight train approaching. He opens the gate to see the train stop, and goes to board it, but fails when his St. Bernard, whose name is given as Rover, grabs him before he can get far. Still wanting to get a hands-on experience, Tim attaches Rover's collar to a nearby tree and then makes his way toward the train and climbs onboard to the boxcar at the end. Rover frantically tries to get free from the rope, fully aware of the dangers at hand. As the train starts moving, the boy ends up falling off, knocking his head against the rails and sending him into Dreamland.
Entering subconsciousness, the boy finds himself in an enormous train yard filled with steam engines with built-in yet uneasy smiley faces. Too excited to care, he looks around and boards a shiny, greenish streamliner engine. Then he hops in the seat, blows the whistle, and pulls the brake lever backward, but starts fiddling with the rest of the valves and levers. The engine starts moving, slowly at first but quickly shifting up to rapid speed. Suddenly, the gauges on the dashboard, and the engine, start stalking the boy with the ominous warning "play safe". Frightened, the boy realizes that the train is going much too fast, and reaches for the levers, but they disappear before he can grab hold of them. With no way of stopping, the boy finds himself trapped on the runaway engine as it travels around treacherous mountains and into a cavernous tunnel. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a red streamliner, coming in the opposite direcction, appears on the same track. The two engines blow their whistles at one another, but instead of colliding, they jump off the tracks and scream face to face as the nightmare cuts away.
The boy is still not fully awake, and Rover hears another train coming down the tracks. Rover finally manages to break free from his collar, and rushes to the boy's rescue. As the train speedily approaches the boy laying on the tracks, Rover finally manages to outrun the engine. He dips his tail in some red paint and waves it like a flag, hoping to stop the oncoming train. Alas, the engineer doesn't notice, and as the engine runs into Rover, sending him speeding along the tracks toward his young master, Rover grabs the boy in his teeth and pulls him out of danger just as the train speeds right past. Once the train has gone, Rover licks the boy's face to wake him up. He happily hugs and kisses Rover.