The Spider and the Fly (1931) Online

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

It's showdown time for THE SPIDER AND THE FLY when the ugly arachnid attacks a pair of insect lovers...

Good versus Evil in this early black & white cartoon. The Spider is one of the first Disney characters to show a hint of all the wonderfully wicked villains to come from the Studio in later years. Clever opening, with the swarm of flies frolicking on the upside down ceiling.

The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most interesting of series in the field of animation. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.

This is one of many black & white cartoons made by the Disney company that were marketed under their Silly Symphonies trademark. These films were true to their name and featured music--and the characters all moved about to the songs. In this case, you have a lot of cute bugs infesting a home and a nasty spider who is out to do evil...that is after he stops to play the web-harp. Once finished, he is eager to catch a cute bee for some cross-species romance (ick!) or to kill and eat her--you really don't get to find out which is the case. That's because the bees and all their other bug friends come to the rescue--delivering a healthy dose of comeuppance! All in all, an enjoyable little romp.

By the way, note that the spider has six legs. This was probably done just to make animating him easier. Also, I liked the horseflies--see them and see what I mean.

I had a hard time overcoming my hatred of houseflies. They seem to be running rampant in the house in this feature. As we all know, they are filthy creatures and spread disease. The spider was only interested in one of them, but in the cartoon world, he is the absolute villain. All kidding aside, it was interesting to see the rallying of forces against the arachnid. Perhaps a bit of overkill.

This is one of those sappy Silly Symphony cartoons featuring good-two-shoes characters going about their lives and banning together to defeat an adversity - in this case, a bunch of flies trying to rescue a damsel-in-distress from a spider.

A very predictable cartoon with no laughs and entertainment value.

Grade D--

This is an early short in the Silly Symphonies series produced by Disney. There will be spoilers ahead:

There's minimal plot to this one, which is par for the course with the early Silly Symphonies. This opens with a great opening shot on a whole flock of house flies enjoying themselves. A couple of flies are clearly enraptured with each other.

The couple are enjoying themselves. Enter the bad guy, er, spider, from behind a poison bottle. It goes up to his web and begins playing it like a harp, to try to attract something. The couple comes nearer and begin dancing, the girl spinning off and into the web.

The cartoon now becomes action-oriented, with the boy fly trying to free his companion, barely avoiding capture. Then, he calls out reinforcements-other house flies, horse flies and so on. It looks like a battle during World War I, with the rest of the insect kingdom ganging up on the fly. It's all very well animated and there's a happy ending (it is, after all, a Disney cartoon).

This short is available on the Disney Treasures More Silly Symphonies DVD set and this short and the set are well worth finding. Recommended.

While not one of my definitive favourites when it comes to Silly Symphonies, The Spider and the Fly is very interesting and fun, and I'd go to say it is one of Disney's best early efforts. What stuck out for me was that there were shorts of that time that there is lots of music and dancing, singing also as well as playful gags but not always a succinct story, truly memorable characters or signs of conflict. The Spider and the Fly is somewhat different though. The animation as always is crisp and beautiful, with some very cleverly done shots also in the opening involving the room being upside down and then rotated the opposite way. The music is energetic and characterful and not just enhances the action but also the story and characters in my opinion. The story is simple but there is definitely one(one of the clearest examples of good vs evil in a Disney shorts) and one that's told charmingly and there are some very inventive set pieces such as the Spider being attacked by pepper bombs, flies riding on horseflies and the exciting ending. The characters also help. The flies are appealing, surprising as I normally can't stand flies and the horseflies are well drawn and cute, but the most memorable character is easily the Spider, who right from his first appearance exudes menace. In conclusion, absolutely great, definitely worth seeing at least once. 10/10 Bethany Cox