Bingeing Disney Animation 2

The next slate of films from the Disney studio came out during and just after World War II.

 

Bambi (1942) - Bambi is infamous for the shooting of Bambi's mother, so I was surprised at how long she's in the movie. She was much more of a vital character than I thought she would be. I was also surprised that Bambi's deadbeat Dad takes him away afterwards. As far as the quality of animation, Disney had been playing with depth by filming down through multiple plates of painted glass. The effect is used here in the initial shots of Bambi's forest and it's pretty spectacular. One fun note, the casting director yelled at an auditioning kid for being terrible, but the producers liked him so much they created the character of Thumper just for him.

Saludos Amigos (1943) - Disney's shortest animated feature at 42 minutes, this film was the result of a South American goodwill tour by the Disney animators, sent by the U.S. government during the war to foster relations. The movie is comprised of four segments with Donald Duck, Goofy, and a new character, the Brazilian parrot, Jose Carioca. It's light fun and the South American setting is interesting. Today, you can still see elements of Disney's love for South America throughout the theme parks.

Victory through Air Power (1943) - Disney happened to be making a movie about the development of flight when approached by the United States government. What resulted is a funny film about airplanes, and a live action propaganda segment featuring a Soviet defector who advocates for carpet-bombing the German population to end the war. It's really fascinating, but only available on YouTube.

The Three Caballeros (1945) - The second Latin American themed film inspired by the goodwill tour. This finds Donald Duck joined by Jose Carioca and a new character, Panchito, celebrating Donald's tenth birthday. Seven segments in all, it mixes animation and live action for a tour of Central and South America. The water ride in Epcot's Mexico pavilion is themed on this movie. Alas, the ride is scheduled to be rethemed to Pixar's Coco.

Make Mine Music (1946) - Basically, early music videos featuring animation set to a variety of songs performed by then-popular musicians, like Benny Goodman and Nelson Eddy. Most famous for the segment, Casey at the Bat. The Peter & the Wolf segment was originally narrated by Sterling Halloway, but the only version available now was narrated by David Bowie and does not perfectly match the video. Weird.

Only one real classic in this batch, Bambi, but these films definitely represent an interesting period of Disney animation.