A Unicorn in the Garden

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Hand-Drawn Animation Satire Supernatural Fantasy Animation Comedy Fantasy Short

A henpecked husband sees a unicorn outside his window--or does he?A henpecked husband sees a unicorn outside his window--or does he?A henpecked husband sees a unicorn outside his window--or does he?

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

800

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
- 1 nomination total

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John Brown

Narrator
(uncredited)
…

Colleen Collins

Wife
(uncredited)

Director
- William T. Hurtz
Writer
- James Thurber
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Featured reviews

8Stompgal_87

Straightforward yet inspirational for one of my animation projects

I found this cartoon on YouTube while I was doing some research on cel-animated dialogues as part of a university assignment. Although everything about this cartoon is simple (the character designs, lip-sync and colour scheme especially), the unicorn is cute and the garden is beautifully designed. The animation is also straightforward yet impressive since it uses basic principles such as exaggeration (when the man's arm stretches to close the blinds), squash and stretch (the woman stretching upwards and the psychiatrist squashing downwards) and staging (in particular the arrangement of the policemen, women and psychiatrist sitting down when the woman reports what her husband saw). I also thought the background music was pleasant and the moral was decent.

All in all this is a rare gem that was well worth the search, in spite of its somewhat repetitive dialogue, and reminiscent of classic Aesop's fables. 8/10.

7CinemaSerf

A Unicorn in the Garden

This starts off as a cheery and colourful animation that sees a gent sitting at his breakfast table who glances out the window and sees a unicorn feeding on his roses! Astonished, he runs to fetch his rather over-bearing wife to tell her, but she's uninterested and thinks he's flipped his lid. It's there next time he goes to his garden and he even starts to bond with the creature. This time, his wife is convinced he's lost the plot so sends for the men in the little white coats! Thing is, her shrink "Dr. I. Ego" has other ideas as to who said what to whom and next thing, well you have to watch and see. It's of it's time, remember, so some of the 1950s language is a little inappropriate, but the twist at the end is well worth watching it for.

10guenzeld

delightful

A simple story told simply and well.

Director Bill Hurtz, who would later in his distinguished career go on to work on the brilliant and funny Jay Ward cartoons, does grand work here in tying the story together with great visuals and taught story-telling.

Alas as one of the reviews shows us there are thin-skinned people who will feign outrage because of Mr Thurber's desire to be simply humorous. While enjoying the film these people feel the inner need to throw out cant words like "misogyny" in order to boldly ride the righteous horse. Don't be put off the cartoon by observations like these. Just sit back and enjoy it.

And don't be mortally offended if someone tries to kid you a little.

Michael_Elliott

Husband, Wife, Unicorn

The Unicorn in the Garden (1953)

*** (out of 4)

Charming and at times funny short from UPA has a husband seeing a unicorn eating flowers in his garden so he tells his wife who basically tells him to shut up and go on. The husband then sees the unicorn again and once again his mean wife pushes him away. After the second time the wife decides to call a mental hospital to report her husband. I'm not going to spoil where the film goes from here but there's no question that this animated short is very funny and the twist at the end is certainly good enough to make the film worth sitting through. Once again I can see how some might not enjoy the visual look of UPA but I think it really works well here and especially the scenes with the unicorn and the bright yellow background. I also thought the husband character was very charming and a perfect mix for the mean and dark wife. The animation fits the material quite well and I think fans of the genre should really enjoy it.

10cyberknight

True Spirit of A Unicorn

Very few movies can truly capture the spirit of its subject. "The Last Unicorn" literally changed my life, my way of seeing the world, of understanding why people do what they do, and what is my role in it. But, before that, there was "The Unicorn in The Garden". It is not an ordinary movie, it is "sincere", like very few artworks turn out to be, mainly nowadays. It's not that computer generated graphics and super surround sounds are not a wonder to see and hear, but if you don't have a good story to hold everything in place, all you get are some minutes of entertainment that you will just forget after you watch the next movie. The opposite is not true, though. If you have a good story, and you know how to tell it, then it doesn't matter how your graphics look, or that the sound doesn't shake your guts every time something explodes on the screen, and the makers knew that. "The Unicorn in The Garden" has a wonderful story, it is extremely well told, with a good "timing", and even the graphics, that may seem "drafty", at first, have their purpose, they enhance the focus on the story and not in the action (no, it is not an excuse, it's easy to see that watching other U.P.A. productions of the same time). A must-see to all Unicorn lovers...

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Trivia
Included in the 3-disc DVD set "UPA: The Jolly Frolics Collection," released 15 March 2012 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Quotes
Henpecked milquetost husband: [nudging his wife awake, causing her to impatiently roll over to face him] There's a unicorn in the garden - - eating the flowers.
Shrewish overbearing wife: [irritably, in a loud contemptuous dramatically-paused "read my lips" tone] A UNICORN - - is a MYTHICAL - - CREATURE!
[huffily rolls back over and wraps the blanket tightly around her head]
Henpecked milquetost husband: [goes back outside and peers into the unicorn's enormous blinky liquid-blue eyes again, then reaches up with his forefinger and momentarily touches the tip of the unicorn's horn in astonishment before racing back into the house and nudging his wife again] The unicorn has a golden horn - - growing out of the middle of its forehead.
Shrewish overbearing wife: [in a scoffing tone] Go away...! I SAID - - a unicorn is just a mythical creature!
[flops back over with a fuming sigh and covers up her face with the sheets again]
Henpecked milquetost husband: [trots back out to the garden again, where he observes a still-standing white lily that the unicorn has not noticed yet. He picks the lily and offers it to the unicorn, who turns its head and blinks its huge expressive eyelids at him again before turning its attention to the crispy-looking flower being proffered. The man assures the hesitating creature that the lily is tasty and good, so the unicorn obligingly reaches out its muzzle and takes the lily in its huge exquisite soft-rubbery lips, chomping it pensively and finding it to indeed be to its liking. The man hurries back inside the house and nudges his wife awake for a third time] The unicorn ate a lily!
Shrewish overbearing wife: [leering in sardonic disgust] YOU - - are a BOOBY... and I'll have you sent to the BOOBY HATCH!
Shrink: [arriving and finding the ordinary-looking man standing quietly and meekly by, while the wierd-faced wife is hotly fussing and fluttering about; he'd been told that there was "a crazy person in the house", but he thinks that if anyone there looks a bit loopy, its the wife, not the husband, and so he tells his white-coated aides to bind up the steaming woman in white cloth bandages from head to toe, then addresses the husband in a somewhat weary emotionless "I've been in the raving-insanity business a long time, and so nothing surprises me anymore" tone] This woman claims that you said you saw a UNICORN in the GARDEN! Is that true?
Henpecked milquetost husband: [not wanting to be carted off to the funny farm himself] Whyever would I say that? A unicorn is a mythical creature.
Shrink: [turning away with a disgusted "I figured as much" facial genture, and ignoring the furious wife's struggling and frantic muffled protesting mews from inside the tightly-wrapped surgical restraints] That's all ah wanted t' know.
[yawns]
Shrink: Take her away.
Ending message: [appearing on the screen after the outraged woman is carried out the door, still struggling and protesting] Moral: Don't count your boobies before they're hatched.