The Calico Dragon Review

The Calico Dragon is a 1935 animated short from the Happy Harmonies series. It is one pretty strong Oscar nominee.

A little girl reads a fairy tale to her toys and falls asleep and then her toys enact the fairy tale themselves where they encounter a dragon. Obviously this is one of those shorts that are evidently influenced by Disney of its day as Silly Symphonies usually employed fairy tales in their stories. And although the film did not develop its characters properly and it took its time to get there, it eventually became quite endearing.

The second half is better than the first one as the scenes with the dragon are a lot of fun. The beginning and ending are typical, but solid. The characters are endearing and very well designed. The score is good and the pacing too, but what I particularly admired about this film is its evident craftsmanship when it comes to the visuals. The animation employed the cloth aesthetic as the plot happens on bed and that led to an incredibly inventive, authentic looking film with the character design, the dragon, the castle and all the buildings looking so interesting.

The Calico Dragon is not too original in terms of storytelling, but it’s authentic in its highly competent, fascinating visual style.