''Flowers and Trees'' is a 1932 '' Silly Symphonies'' cartoon produced by

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

, directed by

Burt Gillett Burton F. Gillett (October 15, 1891 – December 28, 1971) was a director of animated films. He is noted for his Silly Symphonies work for Disney, particularly the 1932 short film ''Flowers and Trees'' and the 1933 short film ''Three Little Pi ...

, and released to theatres by

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stu ...

on July 30, 1932. It was the first commercially released film to be produced in the full-color three-strip

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

process after several years of two-color Technicolor films. The film was a commercial and critical success, winning the first Academy Award for Best Cartoon Short Subject. In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

During spring the flowers, mushrooms, and trees do their calisthenics. Some trees play a tune, using vines for harp strings and a chorus of robins. A fight breaks out between a waspish-looking hollow tree and a younger, healthier tree for the attention of a female tree. The young tree emerges victorious, but the hollow tree retaliates by starting a fire. The plants and animals try to extinguish or evade the blaze. By poking holes in clouds and making it rain, the birds manage to put out the fire, although the hollow tree perishes in the flames after getting caught up in them himself. The young tree then proposes to the female tree, with a caterpillar serving as a ring, and they embrace as a 12-color rainbow forms behind them.

Production

In May 1932, the first three-strip

camera was completed.

Herbert Kalmus Herbert Thomas Kalmus (November 9, 1881 – July 11, 1963) was an American scientist and engineer who played a significant role in developing color motion picture film. Kalmus was the co-founder and president of the Technicolor Motion Picture C ...

wanted to test it in the animation field, giving the company time to build enough cameras to offer the whole movie industry, but could not find any interested animators. Finally,

agreed to try it as an experiment on ''Flowers and Trees'', which was already in production in black-and-white, and ordered the cartoon redone in color. The color animation caused the production to run over budget, potentially ruining Disney financially, but the cartoon proved so popular that the profits made up for the budget overage.

Impact

As a result of the success of ''Flowers and Trees'', all future ''Silly Symphonies'' cartoons were produced in three-strip Technicolor. The added novelty of color helped to boost the series' previously disappointing returns. Disney's other cartoon series, the ''

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...

'' shorts, were deemed successful enough not to need the extra boost of color, remaining in black-and-white until '' The Band Concert'' (1935). Disney's exclusive contract with Technicolor, in effect until the end of 1935, forced other animation producers such as Ub Iwerks (Disney's former head animator and close friend) and

Max Fleischer Max Fleischer (born Majer Fleischer ; July 19, 1883 – September 25, 1972) was an American animator, inventor, film director and producer, and studio founder and owner. Born in Kraków, Fleischer immigrated to the United States where he becam ...

to use Technicolor's inferior two-color process or a competing two-color system such as

Cinecolor Cinecolor was an early subtractive color-model two-color motion picture process that was based upon the Prizma system of the 1910s and 1920s and the Multicolor system of the late 1920s and the 1930s. It was developed by William T. Crispinel and ...

Accolades

''Flowers and Trees'' was the first animated film to win an Academy award at the fifth Academy Awards in 1932. It won best "Short Subjects, Cartoons", a category first introduced that year.

Home media

The short was released on December 4, 2001 on '' Walt Disney Treasures: Silly Symphonies - The Historic Musical Animated Classics''.

References

External links

*
Flowers and Trees
i
The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts
* {{AcademyAwardBestAnimatedShortFilm 1932–1940 1932 films 1932 short films 1930s color films 1932 comedy films Best Animated Short Academy Award winners 1930s Disney animated short films Silly Symphonies 1932 animated films Films directed by Burt Gillett Films produced by Walt Disney Films about trees Animated films without speech United States National Film Registry films 1930s English-language films 1930s American films