Studio: Ub Iwerks Studio (ComiColor Cartoons)
Distributor: Celebrity Productions
Produced by: Ub Iwerks
Short Synopsis
Old Man Winter, the white-bearded tyrant of the Iwerks studio's Jack Frost of the year before, is not ready to leave the forest. Spring arrives in the person of a young spirit who wakes the flowers, thaws the brook and sets the animals dancing, and Old Man Winter fights back, blowing frost over the blossoms, freezing the pond in the middle of a frog's dance, and snowing on the picnic. The forest is a battleground between the two seasons, with the animals as the civilians, until Summer comes in strength, the sun beats down, and Old Man Winter, melting and shrinking, is driven back to the north with his bag of snow, and the forest enjoys its summertime at last.
Why It Matters
- It is a sequel to Jack Frost, an original story rather than a fairy tale, and one of the few ComiColors with a continuing character; the battle of the seasons, with frost spreading over flowers in mid-dance, gives the Cinecolor process a chance to show its two colours against each other, blue-green winter and orange summer.
- The film is in the public domain in the United States, its copyright never renewed, and it has been widely circulated; its subject puts it in the line of Disney's seasonal Silly Symphonies, which Iwerks had directed before leaving, and it is a fair measure of what he could do with the formula on his own smaller budget.
Notes and Trivia
- Jack Frost, the 1934 original, is the better known of the two films and the more often shown.
- Iwerks's studio was by now using his home-built multiplane camera for forest depth.
- See also: Jack Frost (1934), Old Mother Hubbard (1935), Springtime (1929).
