Studio: Walt Disney Productions
Distributor: United Artists
Short Synopsis
It is spring in the forest. Flowers, mushrooms and trees wake up and do their morning exercises; trees use vines as harp strings while a chorus of robins sings. A young, healthy tree falls for a slender female tree and courts her. A gnarled, hollow old tree, sour and spiteful, wants her for himself and tries to carry her off. The young tree fights him and wins. In revenge, the old tree rubs two sticks together and starts a forest fire. The flames spread quickly, taking on frightening, grasping shapes, and the plants and animals try to beat them back or flee. The birds fly up, puncture the clouds with their beaks and let the rain pour down, and the fire is put out; the old tree has burned to death in his own blaze. The young couple are married in a celebration of blossoms.
Why It Matters
- The colour is the point. The fire scenes, with red and orange flames sweeping across a green forest, and the soft pastel blossoms of the finale were the first chance audiences had to see full-colour animation, and the film still looks luminous.
- It was the first commercially released film made in the full three-strip Technicolor process, and it won the first Academy Award for Best Cartoon Short Subject. After it, every Silly Symphony was made in Technicolor, and Disney's exclusive deal with Technicolor until 1935 forced rival studios to use poorer two-colour systems. It was added to the National Film Registry in 2021.
Notes and Trivia
- The film was already in production in black and white when Disney agreed to test Technicolor's new camera. He ordered it redone in colour, and the cost went well over budget.
- Technicolor's Herbert Kalmus had struggled to find an animator willing to try the process.
- The Mickey Mouse cartoons stayed black and white until The Band Concert (1935).
- See also: The Band Concert (1935), Three Little Pigs (1933).