The Skeleton Dance (1929)

good back-story, and good acting

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

So much animation; so many skeletons. This is a film about what happens at midnight when all the skeletons of the dead pop up and start to have a good time. They create multi legged creatures. The do hoop rolls. They play the old xylophone thing with the spine of someone. This, of course, has been done a million times. The neat thing here is that this is very cleverly done with all kinds of creativity. There is still something eerie about the fact that what we are seeing is inside each of us. This also has a fun soundtrack that allows the skeletons to do dance routines and participate in the making of the music. A very well done early cartoon that has been copied a number of times.

Skeleton Dance, The (1929) *** 1/2 (out of 4) A Disney Silly Symphony short has four skeletons getting out of their graves to dance, which scares the fur off two black cats. This is a very imaginative short that features some wonderful animation. Disney is credited with the direction duties but having seen a few shorts by Iwerks it really seems that he is directing it. The movie runs at an extremely fast pace as there's never a dry moment or a moment where something isn't going on. The highlight is without a doubt the scene where the cats loose their hair after seeing the skeleton. From what I've read it appears people in 1929 thought this was too ghoulish for children and I guess they were somewhat right for their time.

This is a very old cartoon, only one year older than the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. It was made with sound, but not colour (the first colour cartoon would not appear for roughly three more years). I personally quite like this cartoon, although it is surprisingly disturbing. Walt Disney seemed happy enough producing spooky cartoons like this. I like the music, the animation and the theme of the episode is quite clever and the makers present it well. In this short, a bunch of skeletons dance around in fun ways, with a slight Disney touch. I note that at the beginning, to put you in the mood of the short, there are a few animals beside a graveyard such as an owl and two cats. Personally I think these animals at the beginning are more spooky than the skeletons, who are supposed (as it seems) to be the spookiest thing in the cartoon. I recommend this to people who like weird and spooky Halloween cartoons and to people who are interested in finding out about historical cartoons. Enjoy! :-)P.S ***WARNING***: Anyone under the age of 12 watching this are very likely to be scared stiff, as well as people who are scared by anything, really.7 and a half out of ten.

The night promises to be a scary one. Lightning flashes. The wind howls. A tree branch in the shape of a hand seems to grab for a frightened owl that spins its head around like a top. The clock on the church tower strikes midnight, sending the bats flying out of the belfry. Two cats on gravestones fight by pulling and stretching each other's noses like taffy. A skeleton rises from behind a gravestone, frightening the fur off the cats. But an owl's hooting scares it, and it retaliates by throwing its skull and knocking the bird's feathers off. It's time for the skeletons to dance; and they perform as no living creatures could.Less than ten years after this crude black and white cartoon, Walt Disney made "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Disney may have quickly surpassed this film in technical virtuosity, but no one has surpassed it in artistry. "The Skeleton Dance," with its spooky charm and ineffable strangeness, is one of the great animated cartoons.