Catching Trouble (1936) User Reviews

My boyfriend sure knows his stuff; torturing nature.

[CelluloidRehab · 2/10 · 1 April 2009]

First of all, this movie was made back in 1936 and it's a bit like talking to your grandpa. You understand it's his way & not malicious, but it's still a bit outdated and un-PC. Based on the movie on it's own, I would give it a 1. The extra vote was for the MST3k version, which improves upon the pain. Definitely do not watch alone & remember to adopt an orphan afterward.

Our protagonist, Ross Allen, is described as a modern day Tarzan. His job is catching live animals for the zoo from the Florida Everglades. With the assistance of his faithful Seminole guide, who's name is either "Eh Wat" or nothing at all, he fulfills an order asking for the following: 1 live bobcat, 2 cub black bears, 3 six-foot diamondback rattlers & a partridge in a pear tree (I made that last part up).

Ross has a variety of techniques for capturing these living animals. Techniques such as: chopping down the tree the animal is in (you could also have your man servant attempt this), chasing animals to & from trees, smashing animals into the ground, pulling animals out of the trees or water-boarding a bear. In all honesty, by the end, I was hoping one of those snakes would get a nice bite of Ross. Time eventually did.

-Celluloid Rehab

Not very politically correct....

[icehole4 · 2/10 · 22 January 2002]

This is a short film that definitely doesn't stand up to the test of time. I'm sure it was pretty exciting when it was first released in 1950. These days, it's seen as a man raping the environment. Ross goes around and catches some animals in the Florida everglades. The narrator's pretty obscenely cheerful as well.

Shameful entertainment

[martin-kooistra · 1/10 · 21 April 2018]

Horrifying mistreatment of animals on public display, given a light touch by the commentary, which makes it even more disturbing. A shocking indictment of attitudes towards animals in general, whose only grace is that it shows us how much those attitudes have improved since then.

Well, ya can't help but torture and disembowel defenseless animals, can ya ROSS?

[Pietro_Shakarian · 28 June 2003]

"Catching Trouble" sucks period. It features the cruel Ross who catches animals for zoos with his faithful Indian sidekick, "Ol' Sourpuss" or something like that. Ross adventures around to bring bear cubs, snakes, wild cats, and other animals back to the zoo in ways which would make the Animal Humane Society want to burn every existing copy of this.

I highly recommend watching the MST3k version of this stinker.

An easy target, but you can't say they didn't deserve heckling...

[lemon_magic · 4/10 · 20 May 2007]

It's easy for us to make fun of short little clips like "Catching Trouble" 50 years down the line, of course. Viewers watching our mainstream output 50 years from now will roll their eyes (or their cybernetic optic implants, whatever) at things like "American Idol", "Grey's Anatomy", "CSI" or "Law And Order" in the exact same way...and God only knows what they will make of "X Files." So the biggest problem is that this clip simply didn't age well.

Also part of the problem here is that "my boyfriend" Ross has no camera appeal at all and no one on the film crew seems to have coached him on how to read a line on camera. (They probably just wanted to shoot some footage and get the hell out of the swamp!) He's certainly intrepid enough as he matter-of-factly goes about catching wild animals that could easily wound, maim or kill him if they had the chance, and he doesn't seem to want to hurt or scare them. The animals are just a way of paying the bills. You don't see cattle farmers or pig farmers getting sentimental or sadistic about their "cash crops", do you? And neither does Ross.

Still, this is pretty grating to modern sensibilities, what with the patronizing narrator's comments about "Old Sourpuss", etc. Someone making a short like this today would be burned at the stake by the SPCA.

...

[lenlover-97703 · 1/10 · 19 January 2021]

This disgusting short is literally only watchable when i'm watching the MST3K version, as the riffs (plus the segment that follows, called Catching Ross) make it semi-tolerable.

I love this short

[Cicman69 · 10/10 · 30 September 2005]

We all saw this short movie via the vehicle of "MST3K" pure and simple. Their treatment of it was funny for the most part but consider that in 50 years, the prized liberal philosophy of "political correctness", (which I despise) will be mocked mercilessly by future generations of MST3K-like programs. And to be fair to Ross Allen, he was not a mindless animal hater, but a product of his time and in fact did scientific work which was recognized. Most of MST3K's work with shorts is very funny but you must also remember the era from which they came and in many cases the ideas presented were good ones, they were just taken to a crazy extreme.

A little cruel, but nothing to be offended by...

[loserbrett · 6/10 · 7 November 2009]

As a short documentary reel, Catching trouble is just as well made as any other. With the exception of a few questionable cuts (which are quite common with older films during the editing process) this short is as competent of other shorts of the day. Nothing special, but not bad.

It seems as though the largest problems that people have with this film have nothing to do with this film specifically, but with the time period it was shot and with the angle of the narration. I'm sure that if Ross Allen were portrayed as a horrible human being, it probably would've gotten a much higher rating.

This short documentary contains scenes of animal cruelty (at least, what counts as animal cruelty now) and that's pretty much it. I don't see how any previous reviewers found anything racist about this film. The only way that race could have been an issue with this film would have to do with Allen's Seminole Indian guide. The narration introduced him as Allen's "Faithful Seminole Indian guide" exactly. I see nothing racist in that statement because it most likely wasn't racist at all. The narrator introduced him as such in the same context as "his partner" or "his companion"-- it was not a statement about ownership and anyone that thinks otherwise needs to stop abusing the race card because it's doing more harm to their own credibility than good.

The most controversial part of this short, however, is the subject matter itself-- capturing animals. While it may seem cruel, it wouldn't make any sense for Allen to actually cause any real harm to the animal. He made a living from wild animals and I'm pretty sure that a zoo would frown upon receiving a wounded animal because it makes them look bad. Not to mention that his methods were simply the methods of the time. One needs to stop and think if it would've been any less cruel to use the extremely harsh and dangerous tranquilizers that would've most likely been used. I think it would be a hell of a lot less cruel to catch a wildcat in a bag than to use a tranquilizer dart that would most likely have been filled with a dangerous and addictive substance like heroin.

The only part of this short that I actually found myself cringing at was the bear cubs that Allen was capturing. While the very thought of that struck me as despicable, the blood-curdling cry of the cubs as Allen was attempting to bag them was heartbreaking. This was the only part of the film that I found difficult to watch. I managed to sit through it after reminding myself that at least the cubs were going somewhere that they would be taken great care of. With that in mind, the only truly offensive part of this film is the thought that those cubs most likely never saw their mother again, which is heartbreaking, but it happens. During that time, the narration does strike some color commentary that comes across as quite insensitive, but I'm sure that this was done because the footage seemed shocking, and it would be a good idea to keep the audience from being too appalled.

It was a pretty good documentary, and the MST3K version of it is pretty damned hilarious. This documentary will most likely only be shocking to those that don't realize that there was worse happening to animals at that time, and there still is much worse happening to them now, so save your PETA-induced shock for actions that really ARE cruel. Ignore any claims of racism with this one as well, because the ones that make this claim are so naive that they think any mention of anyone's heritage and occupation is racist-- not every mention of race is racist and the reaction to this documentary is a perfect example of the overreaction that makes white people paranoid and all others roll their eyes in disbelief that white people chastise themselves when it's not even necessary.

Dated and Disturbing

[TheExpatriate700 · 21 July 2011]

Catching Trouble is now mostly known for its appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is a short film documenting the activities of Ross,who works for the Chicago Zoo as an animal catcher. What ensues is some of the more harrowing animal cruelty you'll find in a film outside Cannibal Holocaust.

Over the course of ten minutes, Ross captures bob cats, bear cubs, and rattlesnakes. Only the rattlesnake sequence isn't cringe inducing. Ross cuts down trees and drags around screaming baby animals. The scene with the bear cubs is particularly disgusting, particularly when one considers that back in the old days, zoos frequently obtained baby animals by killing their mothers.

Best watched either for dark comedy, as in the case of MST3K, or as a document of attitudes toward animals during the 1930s.

Quit applying your 21st century sensibilities to 1936

[brienmalone · 8/10 · 13 July 2009]

I am a huge MST3k fan... In fact, what sent me here tonight was a 2am viewing of Teenage Caveman, the episode which contains this short subject. I almost always hate reading the comments of MST source material because 90% are filled with people who regurgitate the mst jokes and try to pass the viewpoints of the mst crew as their own.

Let's take a step back from our hypersensitivity to political correctness and go back in time 80+ years to the spring/summer of 1936. The Baseball hall of fame opened with it's first inductees including Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. Ferdinand Porche's new Volkswagen hit the streets. Jesse Owens set the 100 meter record. "Gone With the Wind" is first published. The Nazis run the Olympic torch through the US in preparation for the 1936 Summer Olympics. Hitler violates the treaty of Versailles by invading Rhineland. Cars were in the cities, but in rural America, people rode horses, used outhouses and read by candlelight. Women had only been voting for 18 years by this point, but race restrictions would remain for another 10. The elderly were children during the civil war and had first hand knowledge of slavery. TV was only a few years old. Most listened to the radio for entertainment. For an American male, seeing another country probably meant that you fought in the great war 20 years ago. The way most people saw the world, or even distant parts of the country like the Everglades, was by watching short subjects like this in a movie theater.

The point of this history lesson is that the world was a different place.

In 1936, kids played cowboys and Indians. Husing introduced Ross and "his faithful Seminole Indian guide", which he later abbreviated to "his Semanole" in a bid to play into the cool factor of the guy being a "real" American Indian. For the period, that wasn't a racist remark any more than "my boyfriend Ross" was a homosexual remark.

So, please, park your white guilt and just take this short for what it is. An interesting slice of the 1930s that didn't age well.

Everything repellent about the '50s in one 10 minute film!

[heckles · 7 March 2004]

For those who think the '50s are something we should get back to, who don't like the concepts supposedly described in the shapeless term "political correctness," well here's a movie to love and cherish.

No one has yet noticed the racial aspects of this short. Let's talk about the Seminole - he doesn't apparently have a name, he is known as "Old Sourpuss" or worse, "his (Ross's) Seminole." Excuse me, "HIS SEMINOLE?" I guess the idea that possessing a person of another race is not admirable thing to do hadn't filtered down to southern Florida at the time. Anyway, Old Sourpuss goes around the swamp in his tribal costume, which to be honest looks more like a woman's dress than a Scottish kilt does. I suspect the Seminoles are aware of this, and save the outfit for ceremonial occasions. But the director probably said, "Hey, Sourpuss! Why don't you put on your traditional dress -er costume! That will really show our audience the white guy is in charge!"

Ross captures a cougar, and upon reaching his little facility puts it into a glass-sided box about the size of a cat carrier. "Home sweet home," the narrator says. Yes, I'm sure wild cougars feel so safe and comforted in a small box that smells of the last abducted animal that was thrown in there.

Then something else no one seems to have noticed. Ross is shown hauling away twin bear cubs, whose pitiful cries should have even the most animal-apathetic wanting to throw something large and heavy at Ross. May I be the one to ask the obvious question: WHERE IS THE MOTHER BEAR? And don't tell me the cubs were orphaned by a forest fire just before the movie. We must assume there is more to the incident that wasn't filmed, that *really* makes Ross look despicable and which even this thick as a brick filmmaker realized audiences would not enjoy watching.

And let's not mention the obviously staged escape attempt of one of the cubs.

Yes, brutality against wildlife and unmistakable assertions of a racial caste presented for light viewing. The '50s, you can keep them.

excellent entertainment

[jay-1086 · 10/10 · 16 August 2008]

a rare gem of filmography, this peek into the -not to distance past -shows what life was like in the wilderness of America's coastal swamps.Ross is a role model for todays youth on how to enjoy the outdoors like a real American should.his courage and skill is second to none when it comes to animal capture and handling techniques.as a zoo capture team Ross and Ole sourpuss fill the bill for many of a big city zoos. in short Ross is one tough sob. doing all this and filming it too; if you liked this film check out IMDb for his other work also view" hatari" or "jacare"or " naked prey"or any films by osa and martin johnson.hope you enjoy" catching trouble" as much as i did .well gotta go feed my seminole.

Hateful and stupid!

[Jordan_Haelend · 18 April 2003]

A look at the wonderful occupation of taking animals out of their natural habitat so that they could be imprisoned in cages in the abysmal zoos of the era for no other reason than personal profit. This was probably made to convince kids that doing his would be a great way to live "close to Nature."

Incidentally, only a total imbecile would wade around in a swamp like the Everglades in a pair of skimpy shorts. Considering the snakes, leeches and other things, this guy is asking for trouble.