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"A Silly Symphony"
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Released by United Artists Pictures
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"When I saw those three rich, true colors on one film, I wanted to shout." - Walt Disney
Having added sound to animated cartoons, Disney now looked towards another frontier : color.
Once again,though, other animators had already beat him to the punch. Max Fleischer had already experimented with the two-strip Cinecolor process and made some modest inroads. Walter Lantz had also produced a short two-strip Technicolor animation for the Paul Whiteman film "The King of Jazz." Disney, however, was looking for full color and thought he had found it in the new three-strip Technicolor process.
Disney also had an ulterior motive in promoting color animation. The Silly Symphony series, while moderately successful, was being overshadowed by the popularity of Mickey Mouse. He needed something extra to get theater owners interested in booking the symphonies as well.
Three-Strip Technicolor was still in it's trial stage at that time and was proving to be difficult for use in live-action filming. The main reason was that for three strips, you needed three cameras, and the motor noise interferred with the live sound recording. Since animation was filmed one frame at a time with the sound track added later, the noise problem was eliminated. The filmmaker could also use a single camera by filming alternating red green and blue frames and then mechanically sorting them out later.
Disney had other problems, though. The main problem was the old bugaboo that had haunted him from the beginning : money. And Technicolor was an expensive process. Roy Disney used this problem as leverage that persuaded Technicolor to give them a two-year exclusive rights to the process. He was also concerned whether colored inks would stick to the cel surface; fears that would soon be realized. Disney went on to formulate a new type of ink that would stick without chipping or peeling.
"Flowers and Trees" was already in production as a black and white short. Production was stopped, backgrounds were repainted and the entire short was redone in color. It premiered at Sid Graummann's Chinese Theater (opening for a Clark gable film "Strange Interlude") and was every bit the hit that Disney thought it would be.
Disney did not immediately begin using Technicolor for all his shorts since it was still very expensive. The regular Mickey shorts, being extremely popular already, didn't need the extra boost that color added. But from here on in, all future Silly Symphonies would be in color.
"Flowers and Trees" was not the first color cartoon. That honor belongs to "The Debut Of Thomas Cat" made by Earl Hurd for the Bray Studios in 1920 and shot in the Brewster color Process. In fact color photography in animation during the 1920's is more prevalent than previously believed. Another example is the "Ebenezer Ebony" series, produced by the Sering D. Wilson and Co. Studio in 1925 in which the entire series (which included a short called "The Flying Elephant"; sound familiar?) was shot in the Kelly color process. However, because of limitations, both technical and economic, these forays into color cinematography were short lived. It was Disney's decision to produce the entire Silly Symphony series, not just "Flowers and Trees" in three-strip Technicolor that had a profound effect on the rest of the industry. By the end of 1932, all of the studios (with the exception of Terry-Moser) were laying plans to produce color shorts.
Because Disney had an exclusive lock on the three-strip system, the other studios had to use either the two-strip Technicolor process or Cinecolor. The first of Disney's rivals to produce color shorts was Ted Esbaugh, whose color cartoons bagan to be shown in 1933. The following year color cartoons were being produced by Warner's, MGM (through Harmon-Ising), Iwerks, Mintz, The Fleischer Studios, and even Universal (through Walter Lantz) dabbled in it briefly, From that point on, there was no looking back.
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From Jerry Edwards : Two young trees in love are threatened by a jealous old stump who attempts to win the affections of the female tree by defeating the young male tree in combat. When the stump uses fire to try to destroy the young male tree, the fire consumes the stump instead. Although the forest is set afire, birds help put out the fire by boring holes through the clouds, causing it to rain. The forest revives and celebrates the wedding. Excellent job of giving human characteristics to the flowers and trees. The old stump even has a snake as a tongue to give him the extra aura of evil. It is a bit weird to see vultures circling the burned corpse of the old stump, though.
From Ryan : I used to have this short on video back when I was younger. We donated it to the library where my mom used to work. It has been quite a long time since I've seen this cartoon. I remember when my grandpa was watching this short with me, he liked the scene where the flower was brushing its teeth (He probably saw this cartoon when it first came out). People were probably quite amazed to see color in a cartoon for the first time ever.
From Gijs Grob : Although now appearing rather silly and old fashioned, "Flowers and Trees" contains some good visual jokes (flowers brush their teeth, a pine is portrayed as a hen) and fine drama, when the wood is set on fire. The colours are not only used as a novelty, but add to the drama, as do quotes from Schubert's "Erlkönig."
From Chris Purdue : I give this short a 10. Awesome! I love the Silly Symphonies series, especially the later ones in color. Even though I am legally blind, I can see the beautiful colors. Very good animation for this time period.
From Chris Purdue : My first favourite cartoon I remember seeing as a child. Thanks for making this website. I remembered all my favourite disney cartoons.
From Baruch Weiss : This is one of the best Disney cartoons, I really loved it. It was the first cartoon to win an Academy Award for Best Short Subject because an Award for the Short Subject field simply didn't exist until this cartoon!
From Bill I. : Although I have seen most of the Silly Symphonies, I never thought they were in the same league as the Mickey shorts. However, "Flowers And Trees" is top-notch. I have seen it over and over and am still amazed how Walt gave all the forest denizens human-like qualities. The trees waking up in the morning, the girl and boy tree falling in love and even the evil qualities of the jealous dead tree were very well done. The human aspect of revenge is perfectly shown when the dead tree can't have his way; he tries to burn down the forest. The whole short was filled with great animation. and like any good ending, he gets his just desserts and everyone lives happily ever after. The fact that this was the first 3 color process for Disney made it even better. A Solid 10.
From Rich : What better way to firmly establish Disney as the King of Animation in addition to the creation of Mickey Mouse? Historians have noted that this began as a black and white film, and to me it plays out as a black and white film that just happens to have color and very little else. It's primitive, but still very entertaining.
My biggest beef with the colors in this film is that they don't seem to be bright enough. Maybe Natalie Kalmus ran her mouth too much. I can understand though why they didn't take more time with this than they did and that was because they were waaaay behind schedule having tossed the black and white footage, but not the artwork.
I think the Technicolor process was better established in "King Neptune" than it is here, however as all of us animation buffs know, it is personality and not novelty that sells a picture as proved by "Three Little Pigs", where color, by that time, was just a backdrop. Then came "Disney's Folly"...
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