Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is fourth in a line of posts happily reviewing the contents disgorged from auction box purchased in a British sale a few weeks ago. This handkerchief helped seal the deal as I have never seen the likes of it before. It is small, only a 9.5″ square – a pocket square of sorts. It has faded and grayed with time and is of a very inexpensive fabric. I have not attempted to further clean it.

There do not seem to be comparables of any kind online. In the 1990’s a line of nicely done Felix hankies and scarves were produced and those come up on a search. There are a wonderful line of embroidered ones and I featured one of those I was lucky enough to get in a post here.

Like the tiny enamel pins (that post can be found here) this is credited to the Pathé Film Company in the lower left corner and appears to be some sort of premium. (I do wonder – you got to go to the theater and see Felix cartoons and they gave you nifty premiums? Pins and hankies!) It is hard to see, but it seems to be a special Felix logo with a pointy Felix with Pathé written across him. Around it appears to read, Pathe Presents in Full Everybody’s Film Review. Below that there is REG* which I assume is like a copyright notice.

These Felix-es are a wonderful morph between the blockiest or squarest way he was drawn and an early rounded version. He romps and torments an outsized mouse in each quarter of the hanky. (The way proportions between cat and mouse are made to work in cartoons has always fascinated me. By necessity the mouse has to be quite large and we generally just accept it as a visual trope.)

After some study, it could starting in the lower left corner where this Felix who I thought was sporting a nice bow (but maybe that is something else?) smiles mischievously – oh Felix! What are you planning? In the next quarter he has tied the oversized Mouse onto a string – Mouse looks mildly accepting and Felix has his slightly hunched over walk in a squared-off design profile.

Felix one and Mouse make eye contact! (I have always found it fascinating that the trope of the utterly huge mouse, necessary when animating cat and mouse, is one that our mind’s eye has come to accept.) Mouse seems mildly accepting. He appears to wear a tiny mouse harness which is not evident in the other images of him.

The upper left has Felix holding a kite – weirdly I thought it was a paddle toy at first with the mouse as the ball – do you remember those from being a kid? I finally realized that there was a tail on the kite. In part, I figured this out because Felix in the top right is holding kite string. Is the thing over his shoulder a bow like the Felix on the bottom? Mouse is looking a bit less entertained! However, Mouse does romp in the middle as well, first with a ball and then dancing with a horn so at the end of the day we will assume all’s well that end’s well here.