I don't remember much about the other six surprizes except that I found them entertaining, but when I was a kid I'd always seek this movie out on TV because of that last short.
It's about two guys who are the best of neighbors, until the day a beautiful flower springs up right on the boundary between their two yards. One guy builds a picket fence that puts the flower on his property, the other guy moves the fence so that the flower belongs to him, and they eventually get into a life-or-death battle over it.
The thing that made it so fascinating to me as a kid was the fact that this is the first time I ever saw stop-motion animation using human subjects. One part in particular shows the two men zipping all over the place while floating around off the ground, and the only way I can imagine that it was done was for the actors to jump up and down repeatedly, kicking their heels back each time--and then the frames of their feet touching the ground were excised, leaving only the airborne bits to run together. It creates a incredibly cool effect.
The film gets almost scary at the end as the battle for the flower turns grisly. I haven't seen SEVEN SURPRIZES for several decades but that last short still stays in my memory.
It's about two guys who are the best of neighbors, until the day a beautiful flower springs up right on the boundary between their two yards. One guy builds a picket fence that puts the flower on his property, the other guy moves the fence so that the flower belongs to him, and they eventually get into a life-or-death battle over it.
The thing that made it so fascinating to me as a kid was the fact that this is the first time I ever saw stop-motion animation using human subjects. One part in particular shows the two men zipping all over the place while floating around off the ground, and the only way I can imagine that it was done was for the actors to jump up and down repeatedly, kicking their heels back each time--and then the frames of their feet touching the ground were excised, leaving only the airborne bits to run together. It creates a incredibly cool effect.
The film gets almost scary at the end as the battle for the flower turns grisly. I haven't seen SEVEN SURPRIZES for several decades but that last short still stays in my memory.