Meanwhile, Previously (1) And now something a little different. Occasionally, my local Disney+ adds an old cartoon to the library. I'll slot these into the series as little flashbacks whenever I get the opportunity. The following short was a re-released to theaters in 1947 along with Fun and Fancy Free.
Mickey Mouse: Brave Little Tailor (1938) Dir. Bill Roberts Star. Walt Disney, Marcellite Garner, Eddie Holden #26 in the 50 Greatest Cartoons Academy Award - NOM
This one is a classic. It was never my favorite personally, but I recognize the advances in character animation as well as the overall quality of the animation. There's a lot going on in the background. However, with more refined animation comes a more refined Mickey -- and as such, he loses his scrappy underdog appeal. This Mickey needs companions to contrast against. The giant in this story, funny as he is, is no match.
Animation Directors Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, Hamilton Luske Live-Action Director William Morgan Starring Cliff Edwards, Dinah Shore, Edgar Bergen, Luana Patten, Walt Disney, Clarence Nash, Pinto Colvig, Billy Gilbert, Anita Gordon
The latter half of the 1940s was a strange time at Disney. There was a drive to release new features quickly and cheaply, resulting in the production of several projects that had been shelved after Pearl Harbor, truncated to fit one half of a double bill feature. Let's see how that packs out in practice, in Fun and Fancy Free.
Bongo This story began life during the production of Dumbo, and shares many of the same talents and cartoony atmosphere. I know the story from the comic adaptation, beautifully drawn by Gil Turner. It is, arguably, better than the animation it adapts. None of the character speak, but Dinah Shore does the narration and sings a couple of songs. Bongo is a cute circus bear who rides on a unicycle. He runs/wheels away from his captive life to the forest, to find his inner bear. This is a promising start for a story. Predictably enough, the scenery is beautiful, but Bongo has some trouble adapting to his environment. He starts to get hungry, and doesn't know how to find food. You might expect the first life lessons to be kicking in now, but no. Instead, he meets Lulubelle the girl bear, they fall in love at first sight and all the troubles are pushed aside for a lengthy love ballad dream sequence. Has Bongo earned this? Does it have any bearing on what we know of his wants and needs so far? No, but here it is. Next, we are introduced to Lumpjaw, a big brutish bear who is so scary that all the other bears run away. When Lulubelle lovingly slaps Bongo twice and accidentally hits Lumpjaw on the third hit, Bongo goes off to have a sulk... and then we learn that slapping is bear-talk for showing love and affection. This comes absolutely out of nowhere, and is, I believe, a massive plot contrivance. Anyway, Bongo comes back and challenges Lumpjaw in a fight. The latter is presumably killed after falling over a waterfall, and the two live happily ever after. All this in... 31 minutes?! No, I don't like Bongo. It's long and superficial, coasting on clichés without ever justifying itself. Lumpjaw didn't deserve this ignoble end!
Back in the framing device, Jiminy Cricket is entering other people's houses while singing didactically about how you should take life. He's quickly turning into his 1950s self-satisfied substitute teacher persona, and I hate it. Naturally, he sneaks into a party Edgar Bergen and friends have organized for Luana Patten.
Mickey and the Beanstalk Our next story is narrated by Bergen, with comments from Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, his ventriloquist dummies. It's amazing that this act was the hottest thing on the wireless a decade earlier, but then again, Charlie is a big show-stealer in this segment. But something about that should have sent alarm bells ringing at Disney's: this feature's two guest performers are doing an awful lot of carrying... Anyway, the story. Happy Valley gets turned into Gruesome Gulch after a magic harp woman is stolen. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy feature as poor farmer going mad of hunger. This is part everyone remembers, and with reason. Anyway, Mickey trades their one cow for magic beans (because all you do with a cow is milking...?), the house gets carried into the clouds, and they find the giant's castle with a table full of giant food. They rescue the magic harp woman, escape Willie the Giant's wrath, and cut down the beanstalk. As a kid, I always wished the giant's world could have been explored in greater detail. It's a place ripe for fantastical imaginings of all kinds. I've also never really liked Willie all that much: turning stupidity into a character trait and giving it to your main antagonist smacks of narrative cheating. That said, I'm not sure Disney could have tackled a full-length Mickey and the Beanstalk epic at this stage. There was little demand for the dark and Gothic tones of Pinocchio and Morgan's Ghost in the immediate post-war years. In the end, it is what it is. A serviceable, but traditional fairy tale adaptation mainly remembered for a scene of a stark raving Donald Duck.
Fun and Fancy Free may be Disney's poorest show yet. One segment hardly justifies its length, the other gets upstaged by a dummy. Jiminy Cricket is annoyingly smug.
Both segments got stuck in my memory, but Mickey and the Beanstalk is the one I remembered best, because I watched it in two different versions: in the original release on Fun and Fancy Free and another where Ludwig von Drake narrated it for a talking bug called Hermann.
The live-action segment in the first version was an odd experience, because as a kid, I didn't understand who those people and puppets were; they were supposed to be familiar guest stars, but I'd never seen or heard about them. Even weirder was Edgar Bergen making an amusingly fake performance with a hand puppet, even showing his lips moving. I suppose it was an ironic joke on him being a famous ventriloquist, but it was only after reading about it on a review that I finally got it. Before that, these segments made me feel clueless.
Now, I quite like Beanstalk; there's everything I could ask from a story with the Golden Disney trio. Mickey being a wide-eyed hero, Donald's temper getting the better of him (in a surprinsingly twisted way sometimes), Goofy being Goofy, and an exciting adventure to rescue the harp and restore the prosperity in Happy Valley. A few interesting changes to the original tale I like include making the harp more human-like, so we can see their journey as the rescue of a character rather than getting back an object, and also having the giant start the conflict, so that the journey is more justified: instead of robbing, the heroes are merely taking back what rightfully belongs to their home.
Willie the Giant is a curious case, in that when he appears he doesn't really feel like a bad guy; he's fun-loving, joyful and never really seems malicious. The only part where he acts like a villain (apart from when he abducts the Harp off-screen) is when he chases the trio as they escape his castle. No wonder Charlie McCarthy* (and Herrman in the version with Von Drake) cried for his apparent death: he seemed to be such a funny guy. Other parts that stand out are when the starvation in Happy Valley is shown and when Donald tries to kill the cow out of despair; once again Disney is successful in making truly depressing and nightmarish sequences so as to balance the light-hearted moments (interesting how the hopeful sequence where Donald and Goofy sing about his hopes for food and prosperity when Mickey comes back with money comes just after the disturbing sequence where Donald tried to commit bovinicide, probably as a means to not let the tone stay too heavy).
Maybe it's because most everything I watched as a kid got attached to my affective memory, including the less interesting Bongo segment, but for all its unevenness, I'm glad this movie was made. And watching it after learning the circumnstances under which this and other hit-and-miss productions of that time were made also make the experience a little more interesting.
The live-action segment in the first version was an odd experience, because as a kid, I didn't understand who those people and puppets were; they were supposed to be familiar guest stars, but I'd never seen or heard about them. Even weirder was Edgar Bergen making an amusingly fake performance with a hand puppet, even showing his lips moving. I suppose it was an ironic joke on him being a famous ventriloquist, but it was only after reading about it on a review that I finally got it. Before that, these segments made me feel clueless.
I know the feeling, having seen the movie before. People today don't know who Bergen is or why he's in it. I first read about his after watching One Hour in Wonderland, which is on the Alice in Wonderland Blu-Ray.
I think I read somewhere that Bergen could do an act with his mouth completely closed, but he had much more range this way. It's the rapid-fire quips that make the characters, especially on radio and with W. C. Fields as guest star. Bergen was adept enough to move Charlie while talking, to draw attention away from himself.
I like seeing them turn up on the edge of my pop culture radar from time to time. Bergen's radio show was the hottest thing on radio in 1938, drawing audiences away from Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre that was airing on another channel. Welles is said to have timed his War of the Worlds so that the first news bulletins about invading Martians would be broadcast just as the weekly orchestra on section on Bergen's show was starting, and audiences briefly changed channels. One of Charlie McCarthy's movies is briefly caricatured in the Donald Duck short The Autograph Hound. The puppets were a great inspiration to Jim Henson, who had a close relationship with Bergen in later life. He and his daughter Candice appeared in The Muppet Show, as well as a final cameo appearance as a beauty peagant judge in The Muppet Movie shortly before his death. (The movie also includes a cameo by another famous Muppet fan... Orson Welles!) I love these little nods from one performer to another.
Willie the Giant is a curious case, in that when he appears he doesn't really feel like a bad guy; he's fun-loving, joyful and never really seems malicious. The only part where he acts like a villain (apart from when he abducts the Harp off-screen) is when he chases the trio as they escape his castle. No wonder Charlie McCarthy (and Herrman in the version with Von Drake) cried for his apparent death: he seemed to be such a funny guy. Other parts that stand out are when the starvation in Happy Valley is shown and when Donald tries to kill the cow out of despair; once again Disney is successful in making truly depressing and nightmarish sequences so as to balance the light-hearted moments (interesting how the hopeful sequence where Donald and Goofy sing about his hopes for food and prosperity when Mickey comes back with money comes just after the disturbing sequence where Donald tried to commit bovinicide, probably as a means to not let the tone stay too heavy).
It's Mortimer Snerd who cries for the cow's apparent death, isn't it? Anyway, it's odd how desentitized I've become to the scene, I've seen cartoon characters do much worse (including Donald on occasion), and I know the scene too well. It's a Mickey Mouse cartoon, not Bambi, so you know implicitly that certain lines aren't going to be crossed. (Though when Walt read the first draft, he reported howled with laughter, saying "You murdered my characters!")
Maybe it's because most everything I watched as a kid got attached to my affective memory, including the less interesting Bongo segment, but for all its unevenness, I'm glad this movie was made. And watching it after learning the circumnstances under which this and other hit-and-miss productions of that time were made also make the experience a little more interesting.
Oh, this isn't quite bottom-of-the-barrel yet. I don't think there's a single feature in the Disney animated canon that's not worth a watch. Well, maybe The Sword in the Stone, but I'll re-evaluate that one when I get there.
Production Supervisor Ben Sharpsteen Cartoon Directors Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Jack Kinney Starring Buddy Clark, Frances Langford, Dennis Day, The Andrews Sisters, Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians, Ethel Smith, Roy Rogers, Trigger
Disney's foray into American folklore continues in his third and most populist musical parade, Melody Time. Despite its reputation, I'd argue it's one of the neglected gems of the 1940s.
Once Upon a Wintertime This segment feels like a storybook come to life, with its eye-popping colors, well-designed characters, and classic 1940s Christmas song. I wish Disney would promote this one a little more! The story of two couples ice skating, before being trapped on an ice sheet on the way to a waterfall, is very reminiscent of the Mickey Mouse short On Ice. Interestingly, it's not the two male protagonists who end up saving the day as the girls face the ravine, but a motley band of animal sidekicks.
Bumble Boogie A boogie-woogie Flight of the Bumblebee accompanies a bee, feverishly pursued by a world of musical instruments closing in on him. Fantasia needed some of this, it's amazing.
Johnny Appleseed After that frenetic interlude, we get the legend of Johnny Appleseed, the tale of a 19th century American pioneer who travels west with apple seeds, a pan, and a Bible in hand. It's an unusually religious outing for Disney, although Johnny's work as a missionary is obscured in favor of a hermit type of character, who rarely interacts with anyone but his animal friends. It's an interesting subversion of the rugged frontiersman type, one that may have appealed to those who felt less need to interact with society, and preferred to work on their own. It's a very whimsical depiction of American folklore, including a harvest scene where frontierspeople and American Indians are dancing jigs together. I won't comment on the historical accuracy of that, as I'm woefully uninformed, but their presence of the latter is noted, a rare positive portrayal in the era of westward expansion. Also rare is Johnny's death scene, which bears similarities to that of Willie the Whale, but is much better placed here. In acknowledging the religious beliefs that drove Johnny to action, Disney honors its source material without proselytizing to the audience.
Little Toot The Andrews Sisters sing the story of Little Toot, a kiddie tugboat who interferes with his father's work, but gets to prove his own worth by rescuing an ocean liner during a dramatic storm. It's a cute story with a contemporary beat, but the story is reminiscent of that of Pedro, and I'm still not comfortable with anthropomorphic vehicles as protagonists. Honestly, this is one for the kids.
Trees This segment accompanies the recitation of a poem about trees. It's visually striking, but I'm struggling to see a narrative in it. I'm not quite sure for whom this was intended, but maybe that is a reflection of my relationship with poetry. Yup, these sure are trees, alright. Trees.
Blame It on the Samba This lone segment feels like a deleted scene from The Three Caballeros. It's always great to see José and the Aracuan again, and to hear the beats of the samba once more. It's a wild, fourth-wall breaking ride from start to finish, though on its own it feels less anchored than our previous Latin outings.
Pecos Bill We end the package with a tall tale from Texas. And boy, do those Texans know how to tell tall tales! Actually, this particular rendition is sung and yodeled by the decidedly non-Texan Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers, who make a bizarre live-action cameo alongside Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten. Anyway, if there were ever a story ripe for animation, it's this one. Raised by coyotes, taming hurricanes and creating the geography of an oversized Texas. Bill is joined by Slue Foot Sue, Sue is introduced riding a giant catfish down the Rio Grande, which is clearly one of the best entrances in anything, ever. Why Sue doesn't have more fans is beyond me. The visual humor in this short is noticeably more risqué than we're used to, but it works greatly to the story's advantage. It's pushing the edge for Disney in every direction, which is good exercise. Recent entries in the canon have been a little mawkish. On Bill and Sue's wedding day, Bill's horse Widowmaker finally has enough of his attention to her, and bounces her off his back. She lands on her bustle, and keeps bouncing all the way to the moon. And that's the story of why coyotes howl at the moon. I don't know about the bustle physics, but it's certainly a heck of a climax to this film.
I got to know "Once upon a Wintertime" from the videocassette "A Walt Disney Christmas"...my copy also has an uncensored version of "Santa's Workshop"! Though later editions of the video with that title had the censored version of Santa's Workshop, so you don't know which you'll get if you order one on eBay. I agree that "Once Upon a Wintertime" is lovely and charming.
And "Johnny Appleseed" is certainly an example of how it *can* be satisfying to end with the hero going to heaven! When he's very old, and when he gets to continue his favorite work in heaven....And unusually, I don't mind the representation of Christian faith here. The "clouds are apple blossoms" is dorky, but I particularly like the lyrics at the end and the picture they give of heaven: "And someday there'll be apples there/for everyone in the world to share." Very Isaiah 25. And reminds me of a fine picture book, An Apple for Harriet Tubman, which tells how she was viciously whipped in childhood for eating one of the apples she had to harvest, and how after the Civil War she bought land in New York where she planted apple trees...and when the apples were ripe, after she had harvested what she wanted for herself, she would invite all the villagers to come and take apples, "a symbol of freedom for all to share."
I don't think your reaction to "Trees" shows that you can't appreciate poetry...just that you can't appreciate *bad* poetry. The vocalizing during the storm reminds me of damned spirits wailing in some version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I think, but I have no idea which one of the many versions has that sound effect. And speaking of things being more explicitly Christian than usual for Disney--I find the tree-turned-into-a-cross at the end annoyingly heavy-handed. Even less subtle than the poem, and that poem hits you over the head with its message.
In "Pecos Bill," the part about the origin of the Painted Hills leaves a bad taste in one's mouth, "redskins" and their "make-up" and all. And Bill's willingness to start shooting at people who are minding their own business and not hurting anyone. But I agree that Slue-Foot Sue's entrance can't be beat. I particularly like her fancy work with the lasso.
Post by TheMidgetMoose on Aug 21, 2020 17:16:39 GMT
Melody Time contains so many great shorts. I'm glad to see that you feel mostly the same way based on the "neglected gems" comment, That Duckfan. I enjoyed every single short contained in it to varying degrees save perhaps Little Toot. It's not terrible, but I just didn't get invested in it or enchanted by it in the slightest. I actually like Pedro and find it superior to Little Toot, perhaps because Pedro's narrator doesn't sing through the whole thing and the setting of Pedro, as well as its villain, Mt. Aconcagua, is much more appealing to me. Other than Little Toot, the most disappointing part of Melody Time was the fact that Johnny Appleseed was a short instead of a feature film in its own right. I really, really love that short. My favorite part of the whole film, with Bumble Boogie as my second favorite segment.
Honestly, this entire era of Disney films is somewhat disappointing because of how much lost potential there is. I think Bongo was initially supposed to be a feature film, and I think it could have been a great film. I still like it as it stands currently, but it could have been so much better with a bigger budget and runtime to allow for more voice actors, more dialogue, and more depth. I think that Johnny Appleseed could have been a great feature film, and I feel the same way about both The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The Wind in the Willows, which I'm sure will be discussed more thoroughly on this thread later. At any rate, let me not leave the impression that I think the package films are terrible. I like them. I'm even more keen on Fun and Fancy Free than you seem to be, Duckfan, but I still like to imagine what it would have looked like if we could have had "normal" Disney movies during this time instead of compilations of shorts.
No matter what I say or do, know that Jesus loves you.
Melody Time contains so many great shorts. I'm glad to see that you feel mostly the same way based on the "neglected gems" comment, That Duckfan.
Format contraints sometimes limit what I can talk about with these package features, but yes. The general consensus on Melody Time seems to be "no, not another one", and that hasn't changed much since 1948. Comparatively, think it blows Make Mine Music out of the water, save perhaps for All the Cats Join In. But even box office figures disagreed.
Both Make Mine Music and Melody Time have made me go back and re-evaluate the merits of Fantasia, which broke Disney in a pretty fundamental way. It's a shame I don't get to write era-specific wrap-up pieces, since I've decided that periodization is too narrow, but you can see how the style of 1940s Disney (starting with Dumbo and The Reluctant Dragon) reacts against the excesses of 1930s Disney (specifically, the triple-whammy of Bambi, Pinocchio, and Fantasia). It's fundamentally different, but through the decade it develops a cheaper style of animation without necessarily compromising on the quality. Once Upon a Wintertime is still a piece of art.
I enjoyed every single short contained in it to varying degrees save perhaps Little Toot. It's not terrible, but I just didn't get invested in it or enchanted by it in the slightest. I actually like Pedro and find it superior to Little Toot, perhaps because Pedro's narrator doesn't sing through the whole thing and the setting of Pedro, as well as its villain, Mt. Aconcagua, is much more appealing to me.
My main problem with Little Toot is that his return to the fold is disproportionate to the amount of damage he does earlier in the short. As for the narrator, I don't know. Anything with the Andrews Sisters gets a pass from me.
Other than Little Toot, the most disappointing part of Melody Time was the fact that Johnny Appleseed was a short instead of a feature film in its own right. I really, really love that short. My favorite part of the whole film, with Bumble Boogie as my second favorite segment.
Did you just change your signature to reflect that? I don't know about Johnny Appleseed, I'm more than a little wary of Great White Man history. I think it's a good sign that some shorts leave you wanting more. I've certainly felt the same, but in many cases there was probably not much more to tell.
I really should have ranked all the segments of the package era over the past couple weeks. There was some stellar stuff in it: Baby Weems, Pecos Bill, large parts of The Three Caballeros, Meet the Soundtrack.
Honestly, this entire era of Disney films is somewhat disappointing because of how much lost potential there is. I think Bongo was initially supposed to be a feature film, and I think it could have been a great film. I still like it as it stands currently, but it could have been so much better with a bigger budget and runtime to allow for more voice actors, more dialogue, and more depth. I think that Johnny Appleseed could have been a great feature film, and I feel the same way about both The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The Wind in the Willows, which I'm sure will be discussed more thoroughly on this thread later. At any rate, let me not leave the impression that I think the package films are terrible. I like them. I'm even more keen on Fun and Fancy Free than you seem to be, Duckfan, but I still like to imagine what it would have looked like if we could have had "normal" Disney movies during this time instead of compilations of shorts.
Wait, did you get your wires crossed? I was hugely disappointed by Fun and Fancy Free, especially Bongo, I'm glad I never had to sit through the equivalent of Dumbo 2! But I agree with your general point. In fact I would go further. The features of the late '40s have a lightness to them that makes it difficult to take them seriously. Those first four productions --- Snow White, Bambi, Pinocchio, and Fantasia --- they really carried some weight. They were Big Artistic Masterpieces to be reckoned with. Sometimes this didn't work --- I will argue that Fantasia was too big for its own good --- but it makes them very hard to dismiss. Whereas something like Melody Time has the opposite problem; it's too easy to dismiss. Anyone watching Disney's career is just waiting for the studio to return to form with a big feature film story at this point. I've seen reviewers simply skip this bit.
For me, combining the animated features with the animated shorts was a stroke of good fortune. Fantasia is the successor to the Silly Symphonies in every sense of the word, and through Make Mine Music and Melody Time, you see Disney's off-brand animation develop toward the 1950s shorts we'll be discussing later. The evolution doesn't stop. In fact, you'll remember that in my Snow White review, I argued that Disney's feature projects were only made possible through the advances made in the shorts. They play a vital developmental role, and I'm curious to see how the lack of short animations after 1960 plays into the visual stagnation we see in the Xerox era. I'm especially keen to juxtapose Sleeping Beauty and The Black Cauldron, two dark fantasy features at either end of the so-called Dark Age, that share similar designs and color palettes despite being released 26 years apart.
Melody Time contains so many great shorts. I'm glad to see that you feel mostly the same way based on the "neglected gems" comment, That Duckfan.
Format contraints sometimes limit what I can talk about with these package features, but yes. The general consensus on Melody Time seems to be "no, not another one", and that hasn't changed much since 1948. Comparatively, think it blows Make Mine Music out of the water, save perhaps for All the Cats Join In. But even box office figures disagreed.
Both Make Mine Music and Melody Time have made me go back and re-evaluate the merits of Fantasia, which broke Disney in a pretty fundamental way. It's a shame I don't get to write era-specific wrap-up pieces, since I've decided that periodization is too narrow, but you can see how the style of 1940s Disney (starting with Dumbo and The Reluctant Dragon) reacts against the excesses of 1930s Disney (specifically, the triple-whammy of Bambi, Pinocchio, and Fantasia). It's fundamentally different, but through the decade it develops a cheaper style of animation without necessarily compromising on the quality. Once Upon a Wintertime is still a piece of art.
I enjoyed every single short contained in it to varying degrees save perhaps Little Toot. It's not terrible, but I just didn't get invested in it or enchanted by it in the slightest. I actually like Pedro and find it superior to Little Toot, perhaps because Pedro's narrator doesn't sing through the whole thing and the setting of Pedro, as well as its villain, Mt. Aconcagua, is much more appealing to me.
My main problem with Little Toot is that his return to the fold is disproportionate to the amount of damage he does earlier in the short. As for the narrator, I don't know. Anything with the Andrews Sisters gets a pass from me.
Other than Little Toot, the most disappointing part of Melody Time was the fact that Johnny Appleseed was a short instead of a feature film in its own right. I really, really love that short. My favorite part of the whole film, with Bumble Boogie as my second favorite segment.
Did you just change your signature to reflect that? I don't know about Johnny Appleseed, I'm more than a little wary of Great White Man history. I think it's a good sign that some shorts leave you wanting more. I've certainly felt the same, but in many cases there was probably not much more to tell.
I really should have ranked all the segments of the package era over the past couple weeks. There was some stellar stuff in it: Baby Weems, Pecos Bill, large parts of The Three Caballeros, Meet the Soundtrack.
Honestly, this entire era of Disney films is somewhat disappointing because of how much lost potential there is. I think Bongo was initially supposed to be a feature film, and I think it could have been a great film. I still like it as it stands currently, but it could have been so much better with a bigger budget and runtime to allow for more voice actors, more dialogue, and more depth. I think that Johnny Appleseed could have been a great feature film, and I feel the same way about both The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The Wind in the Willows, which I'm sure will be discussed more thoroughly on this thread later. At any rate, let me not leave the impression that I think the package films are terrible. I like them. I'm even more keen on Fun and Fancy Free than you seem to be, Duckfan, but I still like to imagine what it would have looked like if we could have had "normal" Disney movies during this time instead of compilations of shorts.
Wait, did you get your wires crossed? I was hugely disappointed by Fun and Fancy Free, especially Bongo, I'm glad I never had to sit through the equivalent of Dumbo 2! But I agree with your general point. In fact I would go further. The features of the late '40s have a lightness to them that makes it difficult to take them seriously. Those first four productions --- Snow White, Bambi, Pinocchio, and Fantasia --- they really carried some weight. They were Big Artistic Masterpieces to be reckoned with. Sometimes this didn't work --- I will argue that Fantasia was too big for its own good --- but it makes them very hard to dismiss. Whereas something like Melody Time has the opposite problem; it's too easy to dismiss. Anyone watching Disney's career is just waiting for the studio to return to form with a big feature film story at this point. I've seen reviewers simply skip this bit.
For me, combining the animated features with the animated shorts was a stroke of good fortune. Fantasia is the successor to the Silly Symphonies in every sense of the word, and through Make Mine Music and Melody Time, you see Disney's off-brand animation develop toward the 1950s shorts we'll be discussing later. The evolution doesn't stop. In fact, you'll remember that in my Snow White review, I argued that Disney's feature projects were only made possible through the advances made in the shorts. They play a vital developmental role, and I'm curious to see how the lack of short animations after 1960 plays into the visual stagnation we see in the Xerox era. I'm especially keen to juxtapose Sleeping Beauty and The Black Cauldron, two dark fantasy features at either end of the so-called Dark Age, that share similar designs and color palettes despite being released 26 years apart.
No. I changed it a while back. At any rate, it's not just the Christian aspects of Johnny Appleseed which appeal to me. Forest settings is just really appealing to me in general, as can probably be inferred from my enjoyment of Bambi and Morris the Midget Moose. The backgrounds really look do tremendous in Appleseed. Perhaps not as grand as Bambi's, but beautiful nonetheless. I mean it really looks good. I also like some of the background music and just the general atmosphere of it. I didn't go into all of these details earlier since this thread is, I assume, more for commenting on your engaging reviews than publishing our own detailed analyses.
I also did remember that you didn't care much for Fun and Fancy Free. I thought about commenting on your initial review of it to express disagreement, but I figured it wasn't worth it since it really is just a matter of taste. I can see the reasons for disliking Fun and Fancy Free, and a huge part of my enjoyment of it might just be nostalgia. I don't see it as a top tier Disney film by any means, but it's a nice way to pass the time away if there's nothing better to do. I also love Dumbo, so Dumbo II doesn't sound like a bad idea to me as long as it's done well.
No. I changed it a while back. At any rate, it's not just the Christian aspects of Johnny Appleseed which appeal to me. Forest settings is just really appealing to me in general, as can probably be inferred from my enjoyment of Bambi and Morris the Midget Moose. The backgrounds really look do tremendous in Appleseed. Perhaps not as grand as Bambi's, but beautiful nonetheless. I mean it really looks good. I also like some of the background music and just the general atmosphere of it. I didn't go into all of these details earlier since this thread is, I assume, more for commenting on your engaging reviews than publishing our own detailed analyses.
This thread is whatever its contributors make of it. I provide the opening salvo, but if you feel like a hot debate I'm all up for it.
I really should have ranked all the segments of the package era over the past couple weeks. There was some stellar stuff in it: Baby Weems, Pecos Bill, large parts of The Three Caballeros, Meet the Soundtrack.
Yes! Never too late! Rank all the segments, I'd be interested to see your choices.
Personally, I own the DVDs of Three Caballeros and Melody Time, but not Fun and Fancy Free. I wanted to own Melody Time for two reasons: for Johnny Appleseed, and to be able to watch Blame It on the Samba whenever I watch Three Caballeros! I do think of Samba as a piece left out of Three Caballeros by mistake.
I agree with The Moose that the forest backgrounds of Appleseed are really beautiful. It also does a good job of making Johnny both admirable and odd. The ending conversation between him and the angel avoids getting saccharine or overly sad with just the right humorous tone, showing Johnny's crotchetiness and even his shock at the realization that he's dead.
It doesn't feel so much to me like Great White Man history as it does a paean to an individual artist, one whose artistic vision was about transforming the landscape rather than about making paintings or sculpture or the like. He was a quirky hermit, and his life achievement doesn't suit contemporary understandings of environmental stewardship, but his life does speak to children in some very direct ways as an appealing path, ignoring the expectations of adult society to go his own way with the plants and animals. The documentary that most reminds me of this short is A Man Named Pearl, about a self-taught African American artist whose art is a form of abstract topiary. Check it out, it's great! The story of Pearl Fryar also has a deep spiritual dimension.
I really should have ranked all the segments of the package era over the past couple weeks. There was some stellar stuff in it: Baby Weems, Pecos Bill, large parts of The Three Caballeros, Meet the Soundtrack.
Yes! Never too late! Rank all the segments, I'd be interested to see your choices.
Alright, I will. Report will follow after next week's Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.
Just one question: for reviewing purposes, I didn't treat the animated segments in Song of the South as separate. Should I do it now? I'm leaning toward yes.
(Also, pro tip: I always write my posts in the BBCode header. It takes some getting used to, but I'm so tired of random quotation blocks appearing in my posts.)
Personally, I own the DVDs of Three Caballeros and Melody Time, but not Fun and Fancy Free. I wanted to own Melody Time for two reasons: for Johnny Appleseed, and to be able to watch Blame It on the Samba whenever I watch Three Caballeros! I do think of Samba as a piece left out of Three Caballeros by mistake.
My DVD collection isn't much. I never had the money and drive to keep it up, the endless varieties of home releases were frustrated, and I'm glad that era has come to an end. I'll keep whatever is likely to stay off-grid, but I might part with some DVDs in the future.
I agree with The Moose that the forest backgrounds of Appleseed are really beautiful. It also does a good job of making Johnny both admirable and odd. The ending conversation between him and the angel avoids getting saccharine or overly sad with just the right humorous tone, showing Johnny's crotchetiness and even his shock at the realization that he's dead.
See, you're all fawning over Appleseed while I can't get over how pretty Wintertime looks! The guardian angel angle put me in mind of Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life. It and Miracle on 34th Street are my best understanding of how Hollywood was treating the subject of religion at that time. But don't worry, we'll discuss that in greater detail after So Dear to My Heart.
The death of Johnny Appleseed, particularly the visuals of it, put me in mind of none other than Fergus McDuck! I wonder if Rosa had it in mind, or if the imagery had become stock-in-trade by then.
It doesn't feel so much to me like Great White Man history as it does a paean to an individual artist, one whose artistic vision was about transforming the landscape rather than about making paintings or sculpture or the like. He was a quirky hermit, and his life achievement doesn't suit contemporary understandings of environmental stewardship, but his life does speak to children in some very direct ways as an appealing path, ignoring the expectations of adult society to go his own way with the plants and animals. The documentary that most reminds me of this short is A Man Named Pearl, about a self-taught African American artist whose art is a form of abstract topiary. Check it out, it's great! The story of Pearl Fryar also has a deep spiritual dimension.
Well, Johnny Appleseed is still placed in the tradition of America's Manifest Destiny to trek west and convert the Natives to Christianity. Of course, the segment shows that Johnny is not like the other pioneers, but his lone impact on the geography of the West is made pretty clear in the story. Sure, he was an eccentric, but he was still a man of his time.
Hey, I already said that I agree that Once Upon a Wintertime is really lovely to look at! The only reason it didn't contribute to my decision to buy the DVD of Melody Time is that I already had it on VHS, which I had transferred to DVD. The better to have a non-censored version of "Santa's Workshop" on DVD. Not that I would show that version to a child, incidentally.
Photoplay Director Harold Schuster Cartoon Director Hamilton Luske Starring Bobby Driscoll, Luana Patten, Burl Ives, Beulah Bondi, Harry Carey, Bob Stanton, Ken Carson, John Beal Academy Juvenile Award for Bobby Driscoll - WIN Academy Award for Best Original Song - NOM
The 20th century was a time of many interesting developments. At the start of the century, most people lived in isolated rural communities. By the earrly 21st century, half of the world population was living in cities. One person who witnessed development first-hand was Walt Disney, who grew up in rural Missouri and Kansas City, and moved to Los Angeles in his mid-20s. But as he grew dissatisfied with the animation industry, Walt would often return to the imagery of his childhood, as in So Dear To My Heart.
So Dear To My Heart We find ourselves in the realm of the scrapbook, an atmosphere laced with sentimentality and nostalgia. Walt's mid-life crisis appears to be in full swing.
For Disney, a studio known for its highly imaginitive and fantastical animations, a plot consisting of Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten's characters getting into scrapes in rural locales isn't all that thrilling. But there's a reason for this. As the narrator's middle-aged voice reminds us, rural 1903 was still very much in living memory when this film was released. There's a certain realism, a versimilitude behind the rose-tinted glasses. The stakes are low, the characters are tame, and everything is sort of boring. As someone who grew up in a small town with family members living in villages, it feels fairly true to life. None of the characters or parties are portrayed as excessively dim or malicious, and the stakes are not arbitrarily raised for dramatic purposes. If that makes for a boring film, then so be it.
The main conflict-driving force in So Dear To My Heart is generational misunderstanding. On the one hand, we have Granny Kincaid, a woman who has internalized Christian agricultural values such as hard work and prudent finance. The wisdom she relies on is backed by several decades of hard experience. On the other hand, we have Jeremiah, a young boy growing up at the beginning of a new century. He has a lot of passion and a lot of drive, but he hasn't yet found something through which he can express it. Danny, a black lamb born at their farm, comes to embody the friction between the two. Jeremiah wants to care for it, Granny thinks it best to sell it. When conflicted, young Jeremiah returns to his scrapbook, where Professor Owl teaches him a moral or two.
It's Whatcha Do With Whatcha Got One such moral is that most people are not born winners, but you can try your best with what you have. It's solid advice.
Many of the values espoused in the film are explicitly religious. This is an unusual move for Disney, but true to life, and handled with great taste. When Jeremiah prays for money for tickets to the county fair in a moment of desperation, Granny scolds him, saying that prayer is for spiritual needs only, not for material wishes. I adore this passage for how it affirms a different understanding of religion in America, before mass commercialism and fundamentalism gained the upper hand. Granny reminds me of my own grandfather, who did some small-scale farming as a hobby and sang in the local church choir. He was one of the last people I know who held on to that old-fashioned rural mentality.
Stick-to-it-ivity Speaking of old-fashioned, I'm saddened to see this film perpetuate all the wrong myths about Columbus. Few segments have dated as badly as this one. I suppose it was unavoidable. Can't speak for Robert Bruce and the spider, though.
Prayer also makes an appearance at the climax of the film, when Danny has ran away and Jeremiah has gone missing trying to find him. In this ordeal, Jeremiah has learned the importance of sacrifice, having promised God that he wouldn't go to the county fair if he found Danny alive and well. Granny, meanwhile, promised God that they would go to the county fair if she found Jeremiah alive and well, having finally acquiesced in her stubbornness. It's a very elegant resolution, one in which both characters grow. And when we do get to the county fair, it feels like a reward well-earned.
County Fair A joyous little song eases over the transition.
In the end, Danny does not win the Blue Ribbon at the fair, but Jeremiah gets a special award for showing what you can do with a black sheep without a pedigree. Oh, these Lost Generation whippersnappers and their participation trophies...
Disney's next live-action feature, Treasure Island, is the first to be released without any animation. As such, So Dear To My Heart represents a fork in the road. Although the live-action unit represents a non-negligible part of Disney history, I will continue along the animated path, following the end of the package features and exploring that which lies beyond...
Mickey Mouse: Mickey and the Seal (1948) Director Charles Nichols Starring James MacDonald, Pinto Colvig Academy Award - NOM
Mickey inadvertently brings home a baby seal from the zoo. Despite Pluto's warnings, Mickey only finds out when he's having a bath. This is a cute short, with very expressive and appealing animation. The story is nothing new, but it's a lot lighter than Lend a Paw, which I always thought was a little overly dramatic. This is just simple fun.