April 7, 1939 – The Final Silly Symphony, The Ugly Duckling, is Released to Theaters
On April 7, 1939, the final Silly Symphony, The Ugly Duckling, was released to theaters. It is a color remake of the 1931 Silly Symphony, originally directed by Wilfred Jackson. Both shorts were based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen. The 1939 short film won an Academy Award for Best Cartoon at the 12th Academy Awards. It was directed by Jack Cutting.
A father duck is nervously pacing the ground as he waits for his wife’s eggs to hatch. He tries to console her as she sits in the nest, bored with waiting, while the father duck paces so much he creates a hole in the ground. The sound of sudden quacking alerts him, and he is delighted to see his offspring. He gathers the ducklings into his arms and kisses them excitedly, then kisses his wife. Much to their surprise, there’s another egg in the nest that is about to hatch, and when it does, the ducks are surprised to see a strange looking and sounding “duckling” emerge from the shell.
Father and mother duck look at their strange duckling with suspicion
The father looks at his wife accusingly, and the two argue before the mother slaps the father. He leaves angrily, and the mother has her ducklings follow her into the pond. The ugly duckling follows the ducks, but the mother wants nothing to do with him. She viciously quacks at him, and he looks at his own reflection in the pond, confused as to why he looks so different and is so unwanted. He begins to cry and wanders away, trying to find where he belongs. He stumbles upon a cuckoo bird’s nest, but is immediately chased away by the mother cuckoo as he tries to eat their food.
He soon runs into a duck decoy in another pond, and takes to it as if it were his mother. Unfortunately, the duck decoy hits him on the head, making him believe that it also does not like him. He wanders away and cries loudly. His cries are soon overheard by a mother swan and her cygnets. The cygnets try to cheer him up, and he is amazed to see birds that look like himself. The mother then calls her babies over, and he is sad once again, thinking he needs to leave, but the mother swan takes him under her wing, welcoming him to his new family. The swan family sails away, and he soon spies the duckling family, who calls him over, but he swims away, perfectly content being a swan.
disneydetail 