User Reviews

This was the last Disney Silly Symphony and a very touching one to end the series on. In this one, a white duck that stands out in the crowd honks instead of quacks so his family instantly rejects him. After similar reactions from birds and a wooden mallard, he finally gets accepted by swans who all also honk. The end. Very touching from beginning to end and it's great to see such beautiful animation throughout. Especially good were those scenes of his reflections in the water the title character sees himself in that were suitably scored here. This is perhaps one of the most sentimental cartoons made by Walt Disney Productions during this time. So with all that said, I highly recommend The Ugly Duckling.

It is a short film °75 of Silly Symphony the last of all. It begins with the family of ducks where they anxiously await the arrival of their little ducklings, but in reality one of them seems to be a goose, which the duck claims why this has happened, then the mother leaves and goes with his children to continue swimming, but unfortunately they do not love the so-called "ugly duckling", they reject him and he desperately seeks to be accepted but he does not find true love, until he finds his true family and they leave happy. The great moral is that it doesn't matter if you're different, someone will love you for who you are and how you are. I loved how all the animation is very beautiful.

Apart from the Mickey Mouse works, Disney made a handful of animal-centered cartoons in the 1930s and many of them won Academy Awards. Another brilliant example would be "Lambert the Sheepish Lion", but the "Ugly Duckling" is still the finest of them all. It's a truly emotional piece and all about the heart in this story of where you really belong. There is one hilarious scene early on with Papa Duck thinking Mama Duck cheated on him when he spots the little duckling who looks so different compared to the others. The way the parents argue is pretty epic, the noise is great too.

Very early on, it starts already nicely with how we witness Father Duck so nervous when his offspring will come out off the egg and his happiness is highly infectious when it finally happens. Parents can certainly relate to this, especially those who tried for a long time and it just wouldn't work out until it finally did. Anyway, back to these wonderful 7 minutes here. The way the little duckling cries is truly heartbreaking on several occasions, especially when that wooden duck "rejected" him. He felt all alone on this planet. I also really liked the scenes in which he looked into the water and because of the distortion it looked to him as if he was really ugly and unlovable. But then the happy ending comes, thank God and it's so nice to see the little duckling proud again with his new family and it's so cute how he cuddle's with his new mother's soft feather.

The director here is Jack Cutting, actually not a very prolific one and he fabricated a truly mesmerizing piece of movie-making and one of the most deserving Oscar winners ever. By the way, Disney had another contender in the race that year, but that was basically every time the case during the 1930s. "Ugly Duckling" is actually not the first version of the story, but a remake. It's been too long since I saw the original, so I cannot comment, but I believe that this is one of the rare cases where the remake is actually superior. But it does not really matter anyway, for this 1939 version is as close as it gets to perfection. Apart from everything I already mentioned (let me say it again, this is so so touching), the music, sound effects and animation are truly outstanding as well. highly recommended.

Alright, I used to absolutely adore this when I was little, and I still find it great to this day. The music really takes me back... When I used to watch this back then it never really necessarily seemed a story about being ugly or not, but more a matter of wanting someone to love you. The tale is so classic and timeless: believing that you belong nowhere when in reality you belong to something grander and more beautiful than you ever thought possible. Some of the striking emotional images like the teary blue eyes and the final reunion between mother and child were clearly later used to just as great effect in the brief, but classic Dumbo. Considering that this is the last ever Silly Symphony, you could say that it is the series "swan song" in more ways than one! The background scenery, while being very picturesque and well done, also looks a little misty to me. There's also a weird abundance of toadstools that I don't really care for. Something that I do find pretty amazing is how realistic the splashing and rippling of the water looks. The animation of the duck decoy is also very impressive as it almost looks like a three- dimensional object. Now how the hell did they do that? When I was little that thing used to really scare me for some reason!:::2::: Love the comical bickering of the duck couple at the start. He's accusing her of cheating-my goodness, the stuff you fail to pick up on as a child! I love the way the animals are made so expressive that you immediately see them as people. Aww, that poor little guy! Everyone treats him so mean! It sure makes for a great emotional payoff, though. It's not really that he's "ugly" it's just that he doesn't look or sound the way they do. It's actually a pretty good reflection of how the world really is. If you're different, you're singled out. As wonderful as the little honker is, and he really does carry the entire short on his cute little shoulders, I think the design of the Ugly "Duckling" could have been made to look a little less toony. Not at all that he looks silly or anything, but he looks kinda gawky. His head is a little too big, and he really should have had a black beak and feet. The signature sound he makes does render it a bit hard not to give a guilty little chuckle when he's honking his little heart out in abject despair! Not to be too insensitive, but ya gotta admit it is pretty funny when he peers at his wavey, clownish reflection a second time and gives out one almighty honk-why me!!! In all seriousness though, that is such a heartbreaking little sequence-between when the decoy bonks him on the head and he gets discovered by his own kind. I honestly can't remember if it used to make me cry or laugh, but knowing myself,I'd have to opt for the latter. A whole lot of people out there cried when they watched this as children. I like how the duck family cheer him on at the end, but he ignores them, as he's now a bigshot! He's become the Smug-ly Duckling! Oh it's okay, they were mean!:::2:::It's such a strong and uplifting moment when the cygnet meets the mother swan. The feeling as she tenderly embraces him with her beautiful wings is simply priceless. It's the perfect antithesis to all the earlier harshness, and as they all swim away and the animation draws to a close, so does the series, and it does so on a very satisfying note indeed. A pure delight for the ages. Thank you.

. . . frame-by-frame, and noticed after a few minutes the startling admission from the producer that he "is the Fuhrer"? My circle detected this recently when we gamed access to one of the earliest digital releases for this Oscar-winning film. It would seem that UGLY DUCKLING (1939) is deserving of the gelded statuette for this historic confession, if nothing else. Certainly there's a possibility that this evidence was sold to the public without the realization that certain sticklers would unearth the terrible truth. Perhaps most copies of this mistakenly disseminated disk have been surreptitiously scarfed up and destroyed by now under the orders of the corporate honchos that be. Stay tuned.