Ugly Duckling (1939) was the final film released under the "Silly Symphonies" banner. By the late 1930s, Disney was lavishing more time and money on the series and these final films are among the richest and most beautiful of the run. This is no exception. Ostensibly a color remake of an earlier black-and-white animated short, the 1939 short is actually a more sophisticated version of the story in what appears to be a simpler format.
The Hans Christian Andersen story is reduced to its essential elements: the gawky, oddball child in a brood of ducklings is abandoned by its mother and snubbed by its siblings and goes off in search of family that will accept him. There's no dialogue, just the gentle quacking of the little yellow ducklings and the comic honk of the white gosling, and of course the music that gives the series its title. And while there are comic gags, they are in service to a miniature odyssey, both physical and emotional. In the original 1931 short, the duckling sees its reflection distorted in the rippling water and gives himself a razzberry. In this version the moment is not played for humor but pathos. The wide-eyed expression of the character is more vulnerable, a realization that he looks different from his siblings, and he melts into sobs. It's a feeling that any child or adult who ever felt different or isolated can relate to. And unlike the 1931 short, this ending remains true to Andersen's fairy tale, though it is condensed into a running time of under nine minutes.
Ugly Duckling carries no creative credits other than Disney's name, as was the practice with his animated shorts, but according to studio records the directors were veteran studio animators Jack Cutting and Ham Luske. Luske went on to direct some of Disney's most beloved animated shorts and features, including Cinderella (1950) and Alice in Wonderland (1951). Milt Kahl, the animator responsible for the delightful sequence involving a wooden decoy duck, became an important animation director for the studio, taking charge of such classics as Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp (1955), and The Jungle Book (1967), among many others, in a career that spanned over 50 years at Walt Disney Studios.
Disney held the film back for almost a year to premiere it over Easter week at Radio City Music Hall in 1939, playing in front of The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In many ways the "Silly Symphony" line, with its emphasis on creative imagery, atmospheric storytelling, and the encouragement to try out new ideas and experiment with new techniques and technologies, led directly to the more ambitious Disney animated features while the animated short subjects became the domain of the studio's signature characters: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and friends. But for a decade the "Silly Symphony" banner was the Disney mark of quality. Ugly Duckling won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject, the eighth win in a row for Disney since the inception of the category. All eight winners were produced as "Silly Symphony" releases.
Sources:
Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies, Russel Merritt and J.B. Kaufman. La Cineteca del Friuli, 2006.
Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, Neal Gabler. Knopf, 2006.
IMDb
By Sean Axmaker
