A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.
A gawky UGLY DUCKLING, only moments after birth, is hectored & harried from the family of ducks he was born into. Will he ever find happiness & learn his true destiny?
This is a pleasant cartoon, with the plucky personality of the protagonist firmly front & center; the by-play between the duck parents is also amusing. Based on the Hans Christian Andersen classic, it is a remake of a 1931 black & white Symphony. The SILLY SYMPHONIES ended with this film, but they went out with a bang - like 6 of its predecessors, THE UGLY DUCKLING was awarded an Oscar for Best Animation.
The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most fascinating of all animated series. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.
