Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "The Worm Turns" is an American cartoon from 1937, so this one had its 80th anniversary last year already. The director is 2-time Academy Award winner Ben Sharpsteen, then not yet an Oscar winner though, and don't worry if this name doesn't say too much to you, but if you read the names of Colvig, Bletcher and eventually Disney, then you will certainly know that what we have here is another Disney cartoon. This one's in color and runs for slightly under 8 minutes and it features Micky and finally Pluto too at the center of it. Seeing Mickey as a slightly mad perhaps scientist was a bit unusual for sure but as his potion works he is a bit of a genius. You could divide this short film in several very short films I guess depending on who takes the David and Goliath path in these segments before the next segment starts and usually we see some Mickey in these intermissions. Nonetheless, it did never feel really funny and the wit is also hurt by this one having a bit of a repetitive tendency fairly quickly. The hydrant ending was nothing special either. Looks-wise, it is of course once more top-notch for its time, but that is almost the only positive thing I can say here. This one does not really need to be seen and there is a lot of better cartoon material from that time. Watch one of the others instead.

OllieSuave-007 This is a pretty fun little cartoon starring Mickey Mouse in a mad scientist type of role, where he creates a potion that makes characters beat up on their enemies: fly vs. spider, mouse vs. cat, cat vs. Pluto and Pluto vs. dogcatcher. It's like the cycle of life running backwards.Not much of a plot here, and not much of a story. It's just lots of crazy action.The animation was great, though, and I like the classical number used for the music score soundtrack.Overall, it's not a bad cartoon short. You might get a few laughs out of it.Grade B-

TheLittleSongbird I do have many favourites from the Disney shorts, and The Worm Turns is almost certainly among them. Here is some of the most inventive animation of any Disney short from the late 30s. It is colourful and fluid, and I loved most of all the facial expressions(cat's faces splitting in two, eyes bulging out until longer than body and heads getting squashed into the neck) and reactions of the characters especially with Pete when he is attacked by Pluto. The setting change from the barnyard is interesting too. The music, as I've said so many times that I'm starting to sound like a broken record, has always been a large part of the success of these shorts, and the music is really excellent in The Worm Turns. The gags are simply great, some are the same gag but done in clever variations right from what happens between the fly and spider, the cat and Pluto and Pluto and Pete(which is classic). The gag is simple, but not overly-so, and always involving. The characters are wonderful and each and every one of them show their comedic chops in some way or another. Mickey is more the bystander than the hero, but due to the fact that he is made into a mad scientist sort of character he is far from bland either. Pluto is the hero here strictly speaking and he is still the cute and energetic dog that we know and love and he also provides the funniest moments. Pete is as ever the antagonist, and the part where he got his well-deserved comeuppance from Pluto is the highlight of The Worm Turns. All in all, fantastic, though for a while I wasn't sure about the meaning of the title. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Spleen Look at the effects animation. Mickey pours just a drop of "bravo pronto" into his test tube, and it fizzes, bubbles, explodes, sputters, changes from one vivid colour to another - with each drop of the potion separately drawn and travelling in a convincing arc. Or look at the scenes in which the background moves and (in effect) EVERYTHING within the frame is animated - all without computers or even, in this case, rotoscoping.Mickey plays a small part in this cartoon: he's just the brewer of a courage potion, which enables a fly to turn the tables on a spider, a mouse on a cat, the cat on Pluto, and Pluto on a dog catcher. His lack of screen time might strike the uninformed as good news. It IS, for this particular story, good news, since it means that Disney was quite content to assign his star character a supporting role without artificially expanding it - but remember that this cartoon dates from the days when Mickey was vital and energetic, rather than insipid.The charm of this cartoons others like it is hard to explain. It's amusing at times, but certainly not laugh-out-loud hilarious; it's cute, but not particularly sentimental or deeply moving; the art direction is detailed and convincing, but shaky here and there; the story has a pleasing shape ... but it's not THAT great, is it? Yet the overall result is undeniably the equal of later cartoons that ARE hilarious, moving, exquisitely designed, brilliantly plotted. What does this have that so many other cartoons (including a number of Disney cartoons from the 1930s, although if you search you'll also find many that are just as inspired as this one) lack? Thoroughness? Sincerity? Something else I'm missing? Probably all three.