New Years Eve and a little girl, dressed only in rags, attempts to sell matches to the celebrating crowds. Ignored and ridiculed by them, she makes her way through the freezing streets to the slum backyards which are her home. Taking cover against a fence from the biting wind she lights matches to keep warm, dreaming she is transported to a 'heavenly place (for this is what it appears to be), she is dressed in lovely clothes and given a beautiful doll which looks like her.
Doves fly all around and a Christmas tree is full of decorations. This happy state of affairs is brought to an end by a sudden and violent storm. Freezing, the little girl struggles towards a lighted candle, the warm flame flickering in the wind, but as she reaches it, it blows out, and transforms into a burned out match - the little girl collapsing face down in the snow.
Her guardian angel comes down and takes her soul to the heaven that she dreamed of. This modern version of Hans Christian Andersons classic tale is regarded as the very best cartoon to comes from the Columbia studio - their animated products more often than not lacking that spark and style that its competitors had in their product.
This exception, produced by Charles Mintz, and largely animated by Emery Hawkins is a gem.
Possibly a little sentimental for many today it is in my opinion one of the best cartoons to be released on 8mm in a long time, and I would include it in my top twelve complete short cartoons. One or two of the scenes have a touch of 'Fantasia' to be made by the Disney studio a few years later.
BBC Television have shown many of the Columbia Screen Gems, indeed they transmitted 'The Little Match Girl' coupled with 'Presents From The Air' over the Christmas period, and this 8mm print compares very favourably with that transmission.
The definition is very good, and the colour apart from very slight lose of detail in the highlights, is very good indeed.
The sound is recorded at a reasonable level, just lacking that extra bit of punch required during the storm scenes, to be fair, the sound on the BBC print, although better, was not perfect in this respect, so it is obviously on the surviving masters.
Is it worth the £19-95 asking price? Yes! And the Widescreen Centre can hardly get enough of them so don't delay in ordering one if you are interested, along with all other imported goods, they can only get to be more expensive as the pound slips against the dollar.
Very highly recommended, with a style of animation not unlike that of the Fleischer studio - the opening sequence is very impressive.
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Distributed by: UK Widescreen Centre |
The above review was printed in |
This page was last updated 02 Dec 2002