Catching Trouble

1936
1.6| 0h10m| en| More Info
Released: 08 May 1936 Released
Producted By: Paramount
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

This short follows a day of work for an Everglades wildlife trapper catching animals for zoos around America. In this film, his assignment is to go out into the swamp with his Indian assistant and find a bobcat, 2 black bear cubs and six rattlesnakes.

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Reviews

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring
Blucher One of the worst movies I've ever seen
Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
TheExpatriate700 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.
CelluloidRehab 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 You understand it's his way & not malicious, but it's still a bit outdated and un-PC.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
lemon_magic 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.
icehole4 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.