Little Hiawatha (1937)

Little Hiawatha Review

Little Hiawatha is a 1937 Disney short film in the Silly Symphony series. It is a charming little film that has its many problems.

I found Little Hiawatha very endearing. Not just the movie, but also the titular character. He is a fun, sympathetic little guy and is a great protagonist here. The plot is also phenomenal. I really loved how the animals helped him with the bear at the end and the ending itself is very sweet and almost poetic in nature. The score, sound as well as the animation are all top-notch and the film looks very polished.

However, despite it having all of those aspects done right, it is far from a great Silly Symphony owing to some really annoying qualities to it. One is the running time. There is just no need for this plot to last nine minutes and it should have been done in the regular seven minutes. The bear sequence, although important, is still prolonged and I didn’t get why and how the bear managed to chase him for that long. And the biggest flaw is its running gag where Hiawatha constantly loses his pants. I just really do not get Disney’s obsession with kids’ butts during this time and here it is particularly annoying.

Little Hiawatha is very endearing and it has a great plot as well as the animation, but the running gag is annoying and the film is overlong.

My Rating – 3.8