Crosby, Columbo, and Vallee: A strange walk in the woods

Is this worth your time?

Honestly, you probably only want to watch this if you’re a completionist for early musical oddities or just like feeling a bit confused. If you hate old-timey sound mixes or animals that look like they’ve seen things they shouldn't have, skip it. It’s barely a movie, really. It’s more of a bizarre artifact.

The whole thing starts with these kids singing and dancing, and it’s… well, it’s a lot. The forest feels less like a natural habitat and more like a stage set built by someone who had never actually seen a tree before. The animals show up, and they move with that jerky, unsettling energy you only get from very old animation.

There is this moment where the music swells, and you really start to wonder what the budget was for the background paintings. They have this flat, cardboard look to them that’s strangely charming in a 'did they draw this during their lunch break?' kind of way. 🐦

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Crosby, Columbo, and Vallee (1932) through its definitive frames.

The fire sequence

Then the plot happens, if you can call it that. A fire starts, and suddenly everyone is panicked about these baby birds. The shift in tone is jarring, mostly because the music doesn't seem to get the memo that a disaster is currently unfolding. It just keeps on chirping along, which makes the whole ordeal feel surreal.

It’s not as emotionally heavy as The Dawn of a Tomorrow, but it tries to hit those same dramatic beats with half the tools. The way the birds just sit there while the smoke rolls in is honestly a bit funny, even though I know I’m supposed to be worried.

I found myself comparing the pacing here to Faun, where everything just sort of drifts along without a real sense of urgency. You’re watching these kids sing, and you’re waiting for the point, but the point is just that they like singing. That’s it.

• The King's Men are doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
• The forest fire looks surprisingly like crumpled orange tissue paper.
• I’m still not entirely sure what the birds were thinking.

It’s a weirdly specific slice of history. You can almost smell the old film stock and the static in the audio tracks. It’s not great cinema, but it’s human in that clumsy way that makes you wonder what was going through the animators' heads back then. 🤷‍♂️