Hello and welcome back to Classic Shorts Showcase. Today, we continue our back to back look at The Ugly Duckling shorts as I look at the 1939 short. Now I should mention that this short was the very last Silly Symphony made and after watching it, I have to say, what a short to go out on? You'll find out what I mean soon enough but I'll tease ya by using my favorite phrase for shorts like this: beautifully simple. You'll being see throughout this review a lot.
The Plot
Unlike our last short, this one stays truer to the actual tale. We followed The Ugly Duckling. Y'know what, I'm going to call him just Duckling from now on because he isn't ugly at all. The short is simple in that we open with the short focusing on a duck family where a mother is about to hatch eggs and when we see them hatch, we see little ducklings and then we see the last egg hatch and it is actually a swan. He was rejected by the ducks because he was different and he was trying to find his place in the world by finding a new family. He starts by going to another bird family who again rejects him and then he finds a wooden bird that he thinks has finally accepted him until he thinks that the bird hurt him and he just breaks down and cries. My heart broke at seeing the little guy crying but that didn't last for long as a swan family and accepted him. I love love loved this short. It was so cute and gorgeous. I love seeing the Duckling's interactions with everyone else and my heart just sank in that he felt as though he'd never be accepted. Oh, I forgot to mention that the mother bird and father bird got into a fight after our main character was hatched. Here's a pic of them fighting.
Character
The Duckling
The Duckling was such a cute character and I loved him throughout the entire short. Unlike the last short, where I laughed at that Duckling because he was funny, here while I would laugh at his actions, he wasn't a funny character but rather a character that felt out of place in the world. I'm happy that I've taken look at this short because I love stories like this as should be clear with Dumbo being my favorite film. He was a simple character but that's because he is just a child and he was just trying to find his place in this world. It was so much fun watching her interactions with the others and I was overjoyed when the swan family took him in. Here are some pictures of those.
The Plot
Unlike our last short, this one stays truer to the actual tale. We followed The Ugly Duckling. Y'know what, I'm going to call him just Duckling from now on because he isn't ugly at all. The short is simple in that we open with the short focusing on a duck family where a mother is about to hatch eggs and when we see them hatch, we see little ducklings and then we see the last egg hatch and it is actually a swan. He was rejected by the ducks because he was different and he was trying to find his place in the world by finding a new family. He starts by going to another bird family who again rejects him and then he finds a wooden bird that he thinks has finally accepted him until he thinks that the bird hurt him and he just breaks down and cries. My heart broke at seeing the little guy crying but that didn't last for long as a swan family and accepted him. I love love loved this short. It was so cute and gorgeous. I love seeing the Duckling's interactions with everyone else and my heart just sank in that he felt as though he'd never be accepted. Oh, I forgot to mention that the mother bird and father bird got into a fight after our main character was hatched. Here's a pic of them fighting.
Character
The Duckling
The Duckling was such a cute character and I loved him throughout the entire short. Unlike the last short, where I laughed at that Duckling because he was funny, here while I would laugh at his actions, he wasn't a funny character but rather a character that felt out of place in the world. I'm happy that I've taken look at this short because I love stories like this as should be clear with Dumbo being my favorite film. He was a simple character but that's because he is just a child and he was just trying to find his place in this world. It was so much fun watching her interactions with the others and I was overjoyed when the swan family took him in. Here are some pictures of those.
My Final Thoughts
Honestly folks, my review did not do this short justice. It's impossible to give a short of this caliber the justice it deserves on this review. The only way you can understand the beauty of this short is by watching it yourselves. Again this as I said at the beginning of the review, this short falls into the category of being beautifully simple.
I loved this old short and one of the many things to bug me about the Disney Channel was their use of old shorts like this cut all apart with other Disney music as music videos. Every time I'd see one I'd just annoyingly sigh and wish they play the original once in a while instead of teasing me with clips of them.
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling, thankfully though I got to watch this short in it's entirety.
Delete