The 'Teddy' Bears (1907) User Reviews

Goldie walks while bears take the fall in classic fairy tale.

[st-shot · 7/10 · 11 March 2008]

This century old film goes from cute to ugly in no time with its interpretation of the famous fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears as the larcenous Goldie leaves a trail of death and destruction around her.

The film opens with Baby Bear hanging out in the front yard. Something of an obstinate child he is disciplined for being disobedient by Mama and Papa bear before the family sets off for parts unknown. Goldilocks passes by and decides to commit a B&E. She eats their porridge and then looks through a knot hole where she views dancing and spinning stuffed teddy bears. She falls asleep in one of the beds when the Bear family returns to find her. Chasing the intruder from the house Goldi pulls the innocent little girl card and a near bye hunter guns down Mr. and Mrs. Bear. Baby Bear is captured and Goldie is allowed to take the stuffed teddy bears she viewed earlier. As for the orphaned Baby Bear, he's headed to the zoo or worse. From all evidence crime has truly paid off for the bad but cute Goldie.

If the Bear family had been a ferocious lot I might cut the film maker some slack for whacking them, but they're really a personified group of cuddly Chewbaca's not bothering anyone. Goldie is a criminal who ends up with all the marbles. It's as distressing a climax as Chinatown.

What does make the film worthwhile is the superb pixelation done with the stuffed teddy bears. The life the camera breathes into their acrobatics is remarkably smooth for its time and holds up well by even today's standards. I just don't see why they had to gun down Mama and Papa Bear.

An Odd Adaptation of Goldilocks

[Polaris_DiB · 7/10 · 14 September 2005]

Beyond just being a Goldilocks story, this film is something of a criticism of Roosevelt's imperialism.

We all know the Goldilocks story. She goes into the house and doesn't like the father's nor the mother's things, but Baby Bear's food is just right. However, this deviates a bit from the original story in pretty shocking ways. For one, it's really disturbing, the way the bears act and how they have stuffed bears all over the house. Secondly, there's this random stop-motion animation bit that's actually really interesting, but also kind of freakish and bizarre. Finally, a hunter is involved, and Mother Bear's death throes... let's just say this isn't for children.

It's a good film to watch, though, very entertaining and Edwin S. Porter is of historical significance. It's just rather pointedly dark in a way that's not to be expected. Also, the chase scene goes on a little bit too long, but that's a minor nitpicky thing.

--PolarisDiB

Roosevelt vs the 'Foreign Invaders'? Or is it an experimental film?

[Quinoa1984 · 7/10 · 27 November 2016]

This is a bizarre sit. It's supposed to be, from what YouTube told me in the video description, a 'satire', but of what? It's one of those tall tales around the great Theodore Roosevelt that he got his name 'Teddy', and in conjunction with this the 'Teddy' bear, because while he was hunting and killed a mother bear, he didn't shoot the bear cub. This is mixed in with the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, where Goldilocks breaks in, eats the Porridge, goes to bed, and then the three bears come home to get the little girl out and, you know, kill her.

It combines these two stories so what you get is 10 minutes of the Goldilocks tale told with some degree of competency - that is, you can follow it - with one rather surreal digression where Goldilocks looks through a room into where four or five or six teddy bears are doing dance movements in stop motion(!) And as others have noted, this is the best part of the short, and reminds me of the zany exuberance of something like Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' video, and for the time it holds up rather well. The people in the bear costumes... not so much. And then the last three minutes is this Roosevelt-bear story, only here he kills both the Mama Bear and Papa Bear and lets the Baby Bear live so... the Baby Bear is spared I guess.

I don't know what Edwin S Porter's politics were, but I'm suspecting this was *against* Roosevelt for some reason (was Porter pro-bank or something? Might make sense given the Great Train Robbery, though that proves nothing). I just didn't get the "satire" part of it; what does the Mama and Papa bear represent here, as far as them being shot and killed? Is it a satire on American imperialism, as the little girl is invading a foreign territory and yet the Americans end up killing the foreigners anyway after f***ing up their s***t? It might take a few drinks to really get into what the deeper meaning is here.

For now I'd say it's worth watching simply for the wild spectacle of seeing these actors in bear costumes and this girl peering in on these stop motion little bears. It's a nice dose of WTF that won't make sense without fuller context - and even then you may be confused!

840 hours of dedicated workmanship!

[uds3 · 28 October 2001]

I had the good fortune some fifteen years ago to catch a British television documentary (the name of which escapes me now) the subject matter of which was the pioneering years of animation. During the course of the programme were shown several frames from this early film. Whilst obviously jerky and completely devoid of modern animation techniques, I was particularly impressed by the innovation used here by Ed Porter.

Actually produced in 1906 and following on from the critical success of another chalk-board animation that same year, THE HUMOROUS PHASES OF FUNNY FACES, directed by Stuart Blackton, THE TEDDY BEARS was in fact a stop-frame production, using real stuffed teddy bears! In this respect, Porter was creating true "animation" but not a cartoon! It was in hindsight, the absolute ancestor of today's "Claymation." It took Ed Porter 56 hours work to complete just one minute of "moving" film.

Perhaps when viewing today such spectacular computer-generated animation as the recent DINOSAUR, the product of armies of programmers, artists and technical designers, you might spare a thought for pioneers like Ed Porter who sat alone in their studio crafting the framework for future generations with agonising slowness, but dedication.

Slaughter of the Innocents

[JohnSeal · 7/10 · 30 December 2010]

This is surely one of the oddest films you're ever likely to see. A one-reel Edwin S. Porter adaptation of the classic children's story, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The 'Teddy' Bears features three human actors in bear costumes, an animated chorus line of toy bears, and a hunter who ends the film by murdering the two adult bears, who have had the temerity to chase the young girl who has broken into their house, stolen their porridge, and disturbed their linens. The bears seem to be casual nudists who only dress for sleep or outdoors activities, whilst Goldilocks seems a little long in the tooth to get worked up over stuffed animals and bowls of porridge. The film also features what seems to be an interminable chase scene, in which every character traipses across the screen from point A to point B. Even so, it's a thoroughly engaging oddity.

Goldilocks and the bears. And Theodore Roosevelt.

[peefyn · 6/10 · 10 November 2015]

The first part of this short is a nice adaptation of the fairy tale about Goldilock visiting the house of the the 3 bears when they are not home. They have added a sequence where Goldilock peeks into a room in the house, and sees some quite impressive acrobatics done by a group of teddy bears. The stop motion animation here is nice and smooth, including sequences where the bears jump through the air.

The story continues as it does in the fairy tale, up until the end, where Theodore Roosevelt is involved. Modern audiences might not recognize the character, but this movie was made not long after the bear hunting incident, which gave birth to the "Teddy bear" toy. The turn in the end is quite brutal, and might that the fun away from the movie for younger children. It might open up for some good discussions though. Maybe about the relationship between people and nature? The costumes and sets were all quite nice.

Horrible Lesson Here

[Hitchcoc · 4/10 · 16 May 2019]

The Goldilocks character invade the house of the bears. They are a happy family who have furniture, cook food, and love one another. This snot comes in and eats their food and sleeps in their beds. She takes the little toy bear belonging to the little bear. When they chase her a guy with a gun shoots and kills the mother and father, even though they are wearing human clothing. Then they arrest the little bear and give his toys to the little girl. I found this a horrible lesson.

Leave it to Tom Edison . . .

[cricket30 · 8/10 · 21 April 2013]

. . . to give final approval for a film project portraying a U.S. President as a PSYCHO-KILLER (Theodore Roosevelt, the war hero of "Rough Riders" fame; "walk softly, but carry a big stick;" broke up the Standard Oil and all the other "robber baron" monopolies, EXCEPT for his buddy Thomas Alva Edison's light bulb\phonograph record\movie-making litigation-crazed conglomerate and Henry Ford's 50%+ U.S. auto-making death camp with mobster Harry Bennet as commandant, presumably because these Michigan militia types were the early 1900s equivalent of today's National Rifle Association--NRA). In a clear case of both look-ism and species-ism, Roosevelt's character in THE 'TEDDY' BEARS comes upon an UNARMED group of citizens who have cornered a home-invading thief and GUNS DOWN THE CRIME VICTIMS!! What a great example for the youth of America! No wonder people are constantly shooting and bombing random strangers in American real life, with 120 years of subversive film examples such as THE 'TEDDY' BEARS, which ends with the enslavement by Mr. I'm-Third-from-the-Left-on-Mt.-Rushmore of the only non-murdered family member.

An Odd Mix of Material, With One Excellent Sequence

[Snow Leopard · 21 April 2005]

This Edwin S. Porter feature combines solid technique with an odd mixture of material that raises some interesting questions. One thing that is certain, though, is that it includes an excellent stop-motion sequence that is as enjoyable to watch as it is impressive in its technique.

The plot combines the familiar story of Goldilocks and the three bears with some chase sequences and some political commentary about then-President Theodore Roosevelt. Besides the unusual combination of topics, it also has a sudden and, in some respects, rather unsettling change of tone. The first part would work very well as family or children's entertainment, but the last part could well be distressing to some children, as it rejects or even contradicts the tone and atmosphere of the earlier part.

In itself, its portrayal of the Roosevelt figure could be somewhat ambiguous, and open to interpretation. But given the negative portrayal of Roosevelt in Porter's earlier feature "Terrible Teddy, the Grizzly King" (made in 1901, when Roosevelt had recently been elected Vice President), it is most probable that this one also was meant to satirize the President's sporting habits.

Regardless of the rest of it, the sequence of the dancing 'teddy' bears makes it more than worthwhile. It is a charming and entertaining scene, and it could only have been done through creative and painstaking work with the toy bears and the camera. It still looks very impressive and detailed. The rest of the movie does not come up to that level, but even overall it is certainly interesting and unusual in several respects.

A clear case of breaking and entering as well as destruction of property...throw the book at her!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 7 February 2019]

I was ready to give this silent film a score of 10....something I rarely do. But the ending was so awful and traumatic it undoes so much of the good.

The story is a retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. What made it so marvelous was that it was live action, so they created the most adorable bear costumes with clothing and sets. So, when you see these bears, you fall in love with them. And, you root for these wonderful bears. But here's where the trauma comes into it. When Goldilocks awakens and sees the bears, she runs away....meeting a guy with a gun who shoots Mama and Papa Bear...and they take Baby Bear prisoner!!!!! So, it goes from heartwarmingly cute to heartbreaking! What were they thinking?!

Plot summary misleading

[donnavarga · 27 March 2018]

The film is a scathing satire of Roosevelt. Yes, he saves Goldilocks, by point-blank shooting of Mama and Papa bear, as they attempt to return Goldilocks cape to her. He then ropes the Baby bear around the neck, drags him to the bear's house, then he and Goldilocks ransack it of his teddies.