Des arbres et des fleurs

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

One beautiful Spring morning, the FLOWERS AND TREES awake to rise & shine. Two young trees, swept away by leafy bliss, carry on an arboreal romance which is threatened by the arrival of an evil-hearted old stump...

This cartoon has a cute little story, but its significance lies in the fact that it was the first cartoon produced in Technicolor. Walt had cannily entered into an exclusive contract for the use of the procedure, only the latest of a string of risky innovations he would brave. Technicolor proved to be a sensation, and FLOWERS AND TREES pointed the way to the future. It would be three more years before Mickey Mouse took the Technicolor plunge - his films were so profitable he didn't need to abandon black & white just yet - but eventually virtually all cartoons would appear in one of a handful of competing color processes.

The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most fascinating of all animated series. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.

Disney's first Silly Symphonies cartoon made with three-strip Technicolor is a trippy bit of business that won the first Oscar for animated short. Basically the plot to the cartoon is that the trees, flowers, mushrooms, and forest creatures are all exercising and dancing and whatever when a fight breaks out between two male trees over a female tree. Yeah I just typed that. From there things get even weirder as we get arson, bird rainmakers, and a character burning to death! It's bizarre but in an awesome way. The animation is excellent for its time. The Technicolor pops as much today as I would imagine it did when it was first released. Disney has really done a marvelous job at maintaining and restoring their old cartoons. The music is upbeat and cheerful. It's a charming old short that's just offbeat enough to appeal even to today's audiences, I think. By the way, early in the short when the mushrooms first pop up through the ground, take notice of what they look like and tell me the animators didn't slide a little dirty joke in there.

This is worth watching - only if you are over 14. I do not recommend this cartoon for anyone under that age. It is slightly disturbing (especially for young people) and I do not think they would find it interesting anyhow.

People over 14, this is a delight to watch. This is basically a very old cartoon where there are trees and plants leaving their roots (literally) and moving around, creating a storyline. You will have to see at least a little snippet of this cartoon to understand what I mean. The animation and music is very beautiful, some of the storyline is very beautiful as well.

Basically the whole cartoon is about two trees falling in love. The girl tree resembles a 1930's posh "lady". There is a horrible, evil gnarled tree who tries to capture her, but the slightly dopey looking tree will not let him have her...

This is one of a great amount of cartoons called "Silly Symphonies". This is, almost beyond doubt, the most beautiful and heartwarming collection of cartoon shorts ever made (they were all made by Disney around the time this was made). I recommend you watch at least one of them, as far as I know they are all worth watching.

I recommend this to people who are interested in historical cartoons and who like something a little different (infact - a LOT different!). Enjoy "Flowers and Trees"! :-)

This is a beautifully done award-winning animation short, with cleverly done sequences such as the trees and flowers waking up to the day and the characters sounding off the alarm after an old, grumpy tree stump starts a forest fire in a fit of jealous rage.

Wonderful serene music, including some recognizable tunes, as well.

Grade A

This is one of many so-called "Silly Symphonies" that Walt Disney Pictures made in the 30s and they were very, very popular. Given how much cartoons have changed, this film wouldn't play nearly as well today as it did then. Cartoons in the 30s tended to be rather schmaltzy and lacked the insane humor and pacing of classic cartoons of the 40s and 50s. Remember that at the time this film was made, Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry (the MGM ones--not the earlier series by the same name) and Tex Avery's shenanigans were still in the future. So, while audiences in later years might have been a bit put off by the style of film that FLOWERS AND TREES represent, in its time it was big...real big. Big enough to earn an Oscar as Best Animated Short.

The film consists of classical style music accompanying scenes of anthropomorphic (people-like) trees and flowers dancing, frolicking and eventually being attacked by the dreaded fire. As I said, most of it very sappy but I did like the adorable mushrooms (Disney seemed to have a knack for this--see FANTASIA for more great mushrooms). However, the artwork is tops for the time and it is diverting. It's also the first three-color Technicolor short to win the Oscar--but it's also very old fashioned and will probably bore many viewers.