The Song of the Birds
About The Song of the Birds
Birds are teaching their chicks to fly. A boy with an air rifle shoots up the house, then the garden, then a chick out of the sky. The parents cannot revive it. The sky goes dark. The birds hold a funeral, with pallbearers and a grave. The boy watches from his window, cries, and kneels to pray. Rain starts as they lower the chick. The chick comes back to life, the birds sing, and the sky clears. Dave Fleischer directed the Color Classics cartoon.
Cast & crew
More about The Song of the Birds
Max Fleischer produced it. Sammy Timberg wrote the music. Seymour Kneitel and Roland Crandall animated it. Paramount released it on 27 February 1935. Wikipedia times it at 9 minutes. A Commons file is an Ogg, The Song Of The Birds (1935).
Themes
Making
Fleischer Studios made it as a Color Classics short for Paramount, with Kneitel and Crandall on the animation.
Music
Sammy Timberg wrote the music under the birds’ song and the funeral.
Preservation
The cartoon survives. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- The funeral includes pallbearers and someone digging the grave.
- The chick stirs in the rain, not in the boy’s arms.
- Famous Studios later made a Little Audrey cartoon under a close title, Song of the Birds (1949).
- Leslie Cabarga’s The Fleischer Story says the idea came to Dave Fleischer in a dream.
Scenes
- The boy shoots a chick out of the sky.
- The birds carry it to a grave while the sky darkens.
- Rain falls and the chick moves.
Influenced
- Song of the Birds (1949)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Song Of The Birds (1935).ogv)
