The First Swallow

This is the greatest animated short ever made.I Love it.I have waited about 20 YEARS FOR THIS CARTOON TO SHOW UP AGAIN. My SON & I WATCHED This IN AM. BEFORE SCHOOL WHEN HE WAS SMALL.TCM SHOWED THIS ONE ON THE 20th of Aug,2007, but I only got to see about half of it .I recommend every one get to see it. I just hope it comes back on again or its put on VHS or DVD. TCM's has it.It is an MGM animated short,in pastel colors, very lovely. I actually sent to TCM for an entry form for a guest programmer, I sent them my list of movies that I would pick if I won.This animated short was at the end of the list.So they must have taken it from me to show it.If anyone has this, please let me know at suzannarose52@netzero.net. Rudolf Ising directed this one and many others.I wish they would put all of his animated shorts on VHS or DVD.

The narrator is a Franciscan padre who lives in the mission of San Juan Capistrano. The swallows would arrive every year and he recounts the story of the first swallow who found the mission. He is a small sickly one who stumbles upon the remote place with a small pepper tree. A padre would nurse him back to health in time to join his friends on their trip back north.

This is an MGM Rudolf Ising cartoon. It has the nice simple early animation style. It looks great. I always like this early hand-drawn style and the bird looks cute. There is a comfort to this type of traditional animation style.

After watching Tom and Jerry (my favorite cartoon) today, there were some other cartoons that came on. I started to turn the channel as I usually do when Tom and Jerry go off, but, for some reason, I decided to keep it on that channel. I had seen the other cartoons before. But there was this one cartoon that really caught my attention. Also, I had never seen it before. It was called "The First Swallow" by Rudolph Ising. When I saw his name, I immediately thought it was one of those sing-a-long cartoons. But it happened to be a cute, touching story about a little bird called a swallow that brought such joy to a man that was called a "padre" in the story. It was also such a welcome contrast to the previous cartoons shown.

Rudy Ising -- with co-director Jameson Brewer -- tells the story of how the swallows came to the mission at San Juan Capistrano. Pedro de Cordoba narrates.

I am not terribly fond of the more sentimental cartoons that Ising and partner Hugh Harman turned out.... or so I thought. Usually the sentiment is combined with a moral about how you should always listen to mother, and filled with twee characters. Here, however, it worked and made my eyes mist up a bit, and I had to gulp to get rid of the rising lump in my throat.

It's directed in the candybox style of illustration that the Harman-Ising cartoons favored. They had the budget for it, and wanted to make sure the audiences got their money's worth, at least visually.

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes, Tex Avery, Hanna Barbera, Studio Ghibli and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons. With significantly broader knowledge of different directors, animation styles and studios, actually appreciate and love it even more now. Rudolf Ising's cartoons are hit and miss, but have liked all of co-director Jameson Brewer's, as director, work. Had very fond memories of 'The First Swallow'.

Rewatching it, 'The First Swallow' was every bit as great as remembered and perhaps even better, also something of a breath of fresh air after a difficult week and my animation viewings being so up and down. It is a real shame that it is so underseen in general and underrated here (down to lack of votes and that not many have heard of it let alone seen it most likely), to me it is one of Ising's best easily (being one of the few cartoons of his to not fall into any of the traps that most of his others do) and my personal favourite of Brewer's work as director.

Admittedly, 'The First Swallow' is very slight in terms of story and takes a little time to get going, which was expected as that is true of both Ising's and Brewer's work (except not done anywhere near as badly as others).

Everything else is splendid. The animation is rich in detail for design and backgrounds, vibrant in colour and crisp. It is especially good with the backgrounds, and had a watercolour come to life effect. Composer for the prime-era 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons and regular Tex Avery composer Scott Bradley provides a lush and atmospheric music score, that not just adds to the action and mood but enhances it.

'The First Swallow' is a very cute cartoon, without being so much so that it becomes cloying or too sugary, and also immensely charming. It also delivers a lot on the emotion, in a way that's very sincere and never going too far on the sentiment, and told at a beautifully gentle pace. Some of it is also very uplifting.

It is important to have characters worth liking at least, unless there is a specific reason as to why they shouldn't be, and 'The First Swallow' delivers on having one of the most endearing titular characters seen in any animation in a long time. The padre is also very noble and the human design faring better than human designs from other studios and directors. The narration is suitably gentle.

Great cartoon overall and underrated. 9/10.