The first must-see film of the year.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Always loved the 1939 color version, but this version is also cute and lovable to watch. It's a bit different even from the source material, the Hans Christian Andersen fable.It begins in a hen-house, with a chicken that hatches 6 chicks and a duckling. When he discovers the duckling, he marginalisez it. But when a tornado comes, almost destroying the farm, the duckling saves the chicks and then mother chicken accepts him in his family.The animation is quite good for 1931 standards, as is still in black-and-white, but still likable, especially in the tornado sequence, and all the animals here are very cute, especially the chicks and the duckling. Also the music is quite good. And the duckling is so unlucky that you will root for him! Recommended to all fans of old animated shorts.

"The Ugly Duckling" is a 1931 black-and-white cartoon, so this one is already over 85 years old now. Wow. It is based on a tale by the legendary Hans Christian Andersen, who had already been dead for over half a century when this was released. It runs for 6.5 minutes only and is one of the many many works by one of Disney's finest Wilfred Jackson, who was only in his mid-20s when he worked on this one. And even if this Silly Symphony cartoon is far from forgotten today, it is nowhere near as famous as the 1939 version and I personally think it should be this way as the one from almost a decade later is superior in almost every regard, but most of all story-telling, the key differences and there are many. I will get to that later. And the visual component, i.e. the animation also improved so drastically during that time. The one thing I liked the least is that it's about the duckling becoming a hero in order to be excepted by his admittedly pretty shallow "mother". Then again, it is just what would have happened in reality too that she would have neglected him right? The parts with the duckling leaving and trying unsuccessfully to find solace from other animals is not half as effective as it could have been. The entire things comes pretty short in terms of emotion and that meets the eye immediately as this is the exact area where the later, Oscar-winning, slightly longer version (also by Disney) I mentioned earlier already succeeds the most. But still this one here may not be a great watch, but it somehow succeeds in its own right, even if nothing stands out in terms of greatness. It's fine though as for its time, it is definitely a solid achievement and among the better if not best cartoon works from the early 1930s. As an individual achievement, I give this one a thumbs-up and recommend checking it out, especially to old cartoon lovers.

This is a short in the Silly Symphonies series produced by Disney. There will be spoilers ahead:This is the first of two Ugly Duckling cartoons done by Disney. The 1939 version is a masterpiece and one of the finest shorts Disney ever did. This one is no slouch and is one of the better early Silly Symphonies.The basic plot is more plot than a lot of the early Silly Symphonies had and also a moral of sorts. The short starts with eggs hatching and a nervous hen awaiting the results. Six chicks and one duck come out of their shells. The hen immediately shuns the duckling as different and unacceptable.The early part of the short has the duckling trying for acceptance and being rejected repeatedly. There are some nice interludes with a cow, a dog and a frog. Then comes a tornado, with some excellent gags with the tornado and its aftermath.The duckling manages to warn the hen and her chicks of the tornado, they make for shelter, with the duckling once again an afterthought. Naturally, problems occur, with the chicks placed in danger and the hen helpless. The duckling is not helpless and jumps into action. He saves the chicks and is finally accepted.This short is available on the Disney Treasures Silly Symphonies DVD set and it and the set are well worth tracking down. Most recommended.

During the ten-year period when Disney animators produced their delightful Silly Symphony series, Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling" was the only story they chose to dramatize twice. The studio released two quite different versions of the story in 1931 and 1939, at the beginning of the series' history and at the end. The later adaptation displays all the sophisticated techniques the crew had developed during that eventful era: it's in glorious Technicolor, the draftsmanship and character animation are superb, and the storytelling is clear, concise, and funny. And yet there's something to be said for the comparatively primitive black & white version of 1931. For one thing, and whatever the animators' intentions may have been, it appears to be a deliberate condemnation of racial prejudice in the form of a parable.That might sound like a stretch, but the evidence is there, first in the design of the characters and second in their behavior. When the film begins we see a mother hen sitting on her eggs, and when they begin to hatch several identical chubby chicks appear; because the film lacks color, the chicks are solid white. Then the duckling hatches, and we are startled to find he resembles a caricature of a 19th century minstrel performer: his body is grayish but his head is solid black, except for his eyes and his large white bill. While his sibling chicks emit high-pitched peeps, his voice is an earthy sounding honk, rather like a jazz trumpeter. Instantly the mother hen is horrified at the sight of him, and ushers her chicks away. The duckling is dismayed at this rejection, and from then on strives to prove himself worthy of acceptance.In the studio's later adaptation this element of prejudice can be found as well -- it's inherent in Andersen's story -- but somehow it's less pronounced there, perhaps because by the late '30s the animators' facility with character design had become so much more sophisticated. In the later rendition the duckling is different from his siblings (i.e. darker) and is rejected, but we still perceive him as a cute Disney character in his own right, while in the earlier version he's presented as grotesque. And there's a more significant contrast: in the 1931 version the duckling succeeds in earning the respect of his mother and siblings through an act of resourceful heroism, whereas in the later version he comes to find that he's happier with ducklings of his own kind.Hmm . . . Sounds like the official Disney line on integration turned reactionary with the passage of time.In any case, Disney buffs will find other elements of interest in this cartoon. The tornado sequence looks like a rehearsal of sorts for the big storm in the studio's later masterpiece, The Band Concert. And at one point during the storm there's a gag involving a woolly dog whose fur is blown off by the wind, causing him to resemble a character who hadn't been introduced just yet, Pluto. But the most intriguing aspect of the 1931 Ugly Duckling, as far as I'm concerned, is the unmistakable message that no one should be judged by appearance, nor should the "other" be rejected without a hearing. Sadly, it would be a long time before the Hollywood studios would find the courage to offer comparable messages in their mainstream features.