La Diosa de la Primavera

There may be no better example of emergence of cinematic genius than to watch this and then see "Snow White."

This is a study in human modelling, in the context of dwarfs and nature. Its after the style of the Betty Boop work that controlled expectations on the animated screen with a little bit more grace. But it still features thin figures with cartoon movements rather than human ones. It was done as a test for Snow White.

Almost nothing here was used in that later project and its a good thing. There is nothing attractive about it at all.

But I can still see a serious attempt at finding that vocabulary of movements that seems human but isn't, looks natural and warm but is abstract and seems to capture a version of womanhood without referencing sex. Its only hinted here and perfected in a way later. I'm not at all sure if we can know whether in Snow White Walt and company touched something we knew, or whether he created something that we grew into with our ideals and imagination. I believe it is the latter, which makes this experiment more interesting.

Suppose he would have stuck with what he had here. Would we have grown around it and adapted a wholly different vision of innocent perfection?

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Iprobably only saw this cartoon ONCE and I was probably under FIVE years old. Talk about making an impression, that would have been forty something years ago and I still remember a lot of it - Persephone picking flowers, Hades coming our oft ground on something like a spinning turn table, little devils dancing around singing "Hidey Hades" (maybe actually Mighty Hades?) , Persephony in tears pointing upwards, and Hades retuning her to the upper world on that turntable thing. It was a segment at the end of the Mickey Mouse Club TV show, they would open a drawer and pull out the title of that day's cartoon. I saw it once and though I wanted to see it again, I never did.

Years later I read Edith Hamilton's Mythology - one of my all time favorite books - and there was the story of Hades and Persephone!

I sure wish this would come out on DVD or something.

Disney would make a fortune with a vintage Disney Channel - run to old Mickey Mouse Series, the Silly Symphony cartoons, those fantastic serials like Spin and Marty, Boys of the Western Sea. I have to confess I have not seen the new cable but I would bet it is junk.

And Anettw Funichello can out Mousketeer Brittany Spears any day!!!!

I can't believe I didn't see "The Goddess of Spring" before now. It is truly wonderful and unique, and I would definitely would have liked it as a kid, as I adore animation and classical music. The animation here is stunning, the upper world is so tranquil and like a paradise. Even better are the hell sequences, with dark background contrasts and a somewhat creepy atmosphere. The music is absolutely outstanding, the lyricality of the classical music of the upper world, and the sinister, perhaps even distorted Cab Calloway-inspired jazz music of hell. Then the characters, the secondary characters are sweet and endearing, not with unique personalities like the Seven Dwarfs in "Snow White" but sweet enough. Persephone is so gorgeous and pure, and Hades? In a good way he is truly diabolical, with towering presence, sinister appearance and a resonant Wagnerian-like bass voice. Overall, I loved this Silly Symphony. 10/10 Bethany Cox

This entry in the Silly Symphonies adapts the story of Persephone (Proserpina in Latin). "The Goddess of Spring" depicts the title character in an idealistic setting until Hades (Pluto in Latin) kidnaps her. Since she can't be happy in Hell, they have to reach a settlement.

Obviously this is a loose adaptation. As in Disney's "Hercules", Hades gets depicted as a rendering of Satan; in Greek mythology, the underworld had no relation to the modern understanding of Hell.

It's an okay cartoon. I've always been more partial to Warner Bros.'s cartoons, since they had an irreverent side (in contrast to Disney's "nice" cartoons). Jessica Dragonette (the goddess) also voiced Princess Glory in Fleischer Studios' "Gulliver's Travels". Kenny Baker (the narrator) is not to be confused with the actor who played R2D2.

While charming on its own merits, this short really shows how far the Disney animators came in the three years between this and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The movements of the leading lady of The Goddess of Spring are awkward and somewhat grotesque; her limbs seem to flail about as she skips to her throne, and she does not seem to possess any bones or weight at all. As Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston said in their book "The Illusion of Life", there was no way she would have ever been able to carry an animated film.

But like I said, the short is cute. It's a decent retelling of Greek myth; it excludes Persephone's mother Demeter from the tale, but this is understandable as the story has to be compressed to keep a ten minute running time. Some of the music is in the operetta style, which I'm not too keen on, but there's a cool jazz number in the first underworld scene, where Hades' demons sing of "Mighty Hades". Overall, if you're an animation buff you're more likely to enjoy this than the casual viewer; while there is some entertainment value here, its mainly of historical interest only.