February 3, 1931 – Silly Symphony Birds of a Feather is Released to Theaters
Directed by Burt Gillett, the Silly Symphony Birds of a Feather was released to theaters on February 3, 1931. A black and white short, the story is of several types of birds and how they react around each other, especially when a hawk steals a chick, and a brave group of crows decides to fight back to rescue it.
The short opens on a rather idyllic river scene, where three white swans are gliding down a river. They are followed by a black swan, which has two babies as passengers on its back. After the babies decide to swim away, the black swan dives into the water for something to eat, and devours a worm. When it dives again, instead of a worm, it has found a shoelace still attached to a boot, which then lands on its head. The next bird we see is a peacock, preening alongside the water’s edge. After spreading its tail feathers and admiring itself, a duck enters the picture. After observing the narcissistic peacock for a second, the duck sticks its tongue out at the bird, thoroughly distracting it before sailing away.
The swan that accidentally eats a shoelace
The scene then moves to two birds who appear to have harps for tails, beginning the symphony part of this Silly Symphony. The audience travels up a tree, stopping at certain moments to observe the musical habits of the occupants. First, there are several birds chirping the cheerful melody begun by the harp-tailed birds, and above them is a mother bird watching her three eggs hatching. Four hummingbirds buzz around the flowers above them, gathering nectar. The scene travels up a little more, where two birds are trying to continue the melody, but are interrupted by a cuckoo bird, who pops out of several different openings in the tree.
In another tree, a woodpecker tries to peck for food, disturbing a caterpillar that lives in the tree. Annoyed, the caterpillar knocks on the woodpecker’s head, which begins the woodpecker’s pursuit of its possible snack. The woodpecker wins the chase, eating the caterpillar segment by segment.
The woodpecker trying to find food. Little does he know that food is annoyed with his pecking.
A crow flies into the picture, observing another bird giving food to her babies. After the mother bird flies away, the crow climbs into the nest and steals the baby birds’ food, a worm, and flies back to her own nest in the backside of a scarecrow. Her baby crows fight over the worm, which escapes down the leg of the scarecrow and scampers away, only to be pursued by a chicken and her chicks. There are many great gags here, including the worm trying to throw the chickens off by crawling under boots, a pipe, and a can, only to have the hen lift them up with her head and have them land on her chicks. Eventually, the worm crawls into a hole, and the chickens pace and wait, but eventually give up and walk away, except for one chick, who grabs the worm by the end, only to have it crawl up through another hole and bite it on the tail.
While the chickens look for food, the hen notices the shadow of a hawk circling around them. She desperately gathers her chicks together for safety, but misses the one chick who was still after the worm, who is caught by the hawk. After a crow notices what happens, he calls together his friends, who go after the hawk in formation, dive bombing and attacking it to save the chick.
The formation of crows dive bombing the hawk
Overall, the short isn’t that memorable of all the Silly Symphonies, but there are a few good gags that make it a good short to watch. If you watch them in chronological order, you’re able to see how the animation was improving, but this short still has the more cartoony style that was present in the earlier shorts.
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