Watch The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics For Free

Strong and Moving!

Nice effects though.

How sad is this?

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Following the closing down of "Termite Terrace" – the true home of the beloved Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons – in 1963 and after completing a few more Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner shorts, animation legend Chuck Jones left Warner Brothers for an unfruitful stint at revamping Tom and Jerry at MGM. To counter this perhaps, he also turned his attention to some highbrow stuff on the side of which, the Oscar- winning short under review is one example and the feature-length fantasy THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH (1969) would be the culmination.What we have here is a series of colourful lines, one of which falls for a red dot, which in turn is infatuated with a doodle (here called "squiggle")! Despite the good counsel of its ilk, the line still mopes after the dot and literally bends itself out of shape to impress it. Before long, the 'jazzy' uncouthness of the squiggle dawns on the latter and it recognizes and starts admiring the 'square' qualities of the line. It must be said that rotund character actor Robert Morley's narration adds invaluable gravitas to the thin plot line. Apart from perhaps wishing kids to love their maths lessons, one could also take this as Jones' denigrating commentary on contemporaneous European abstract animators…not to mention the emerging hippie community!!

This short won an Academy Award and justly so. While others have said the scripted narration is not terribly good, I disagree. There are one or two excessively florid points, but Robert Morley's marvellous reading covers those and overall, the scripted narration is good. The animation succeeds in part because of the narration. Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble have every right to be well pleased with this cartoon. Why it isn't in print, I don't understand. Highly Recommended.

Yes: Amazing coincidence (and shades of the Blair Witch coincidence) Mr. Richard Wiley Jerome and I, Mr. Raymond Kenneth Petry, both of Sacramento CA USA at that time in Arden Junior High School, did Norton Juster's, The Dot And The Line, on his family's home movie camera - we called it, Planar-Vision - the camera had a single-frame feature, and with their tripod looking down on our display board, we pinned variously cloth cuttings of the Dot, velvet hemming for the Line (except when he looked thin and drawn and on-edge, we drew him, on-the-edge) and Squiggle was mohair yarn ... we shot the whole story. For voice we added his little sister, Jeanie, and for hours we re-recorded over our giggles and laughter, till we had it just right and well-timed: then we single-shot each scene straight-through by timings.In 1965-69, we went to Rio Americano High School, and showed our mathematics class, eventually: We were both scholars: Rich went on to be Salutatorian for Rio Americano in 1969, and matriculated at Stanford, and I took 1st Place in the Central Valleys Math Quiz (against the MAA perfect-top-scorer) in 1969, and matriculated at UCSD, for my BA in mathematics.The Dot and The Line is a most memorable story done in fun: We're delighted that Hollywood thought enough of it, too./rkp

In order to lure a cute dot away from a swingin' squiggle, a very conservative straight line learns to turn himself into exciting polygons and Spirograph designs.This cartoon unfortunately is more impressive than it is entertaining. The overwrought narration by Norton Juster is read by Robert Morley. This is the first collaboration between Juster and Jones who later worked together on "The Phantom Tollbooth" in 1969.In some ways, "The Dot and the Line" resembles a prototype for that later film since they are both less than the sums of their parts and are both better described than seen. In both cases, Jones is let down by Juster.This 1965 effort however is shorter, better, and less cute than their 1969 feature, and has sufficient charm and originality to be well worth your time.