The-art-of-walt-disney-from-mickey-mouse-to-the-magic-kingdoms.pdf 5a1g2y

ft renegotiate the contract with provisions for a modest increase of

income. He had kept in close with his distributor through George Winkler, Margaret's brother, who had made several visits to California, and there was no reason to suspect that anything was amiss.

When

Disney arrived

reasons for Winkler's

visits

in

New

became

Instead of offering an

York, however, the true

painfully obvious.

improved contract, Mintz actually

proposed one which would entail

of income for the Oswald had been very profitable. Obviously. Disney could not accept such a deal, and the reality of the situation became apparent. Mintz had decided to repossess Oswald. The character's name belonged to him. and his Studio. This

was

a reduction

clearly absurd, since

brother-in-law had persuaded several of Disney's best animators to take over production of the

Oswald

series.

The motive was. of

course, reduction of costs to the distributor. Mintz

many people hire

to

underestimate Disney.

away Disney's

best

He

was the

figured that

if

of

men, he would be getting the same product

reduced outlay.

for a

Disney was shocked and hurt by trusted

Mintz and he had trusted

his

this

revelation.

employees.

It is

as he

and

Lillian waited out the long,

He had

not hard to

imagine the kinds of thoughts that must have run through

24

first

he could

his

head

slow train ride back

to

Original art by

Hugh Harman and Carmen Maxwell

for

an Oswald poster

Margie Gav poses with. Ham Hamilton.

left to right.

Rov Disnev. Hugh Harman. Walt Disney. Rudy Ising. Ub Iwerks, and Walker Harman

California.

He was disgusted

but not, as the next few months would

prove, discouraged. His team was depleted but 1

it

still

included his

two most important associates— his brother Roy and

Ub

Iwerks

(who was, by then, a partner in the business). More important still. Walt Disney had faith in his own abilities. He had reached the age of twenty-six after touching

come

many

of the bases of hardship that had

seem archetypal of America in the first quarter of century. His personal creed must have included the notion to

success does not

come

easilv.

this

that

Mouse and

2 Mickey Silly

Symphonies that the birth of

Mickey Mouse— a creature of

mythic stature— should be shrouded

in legend. What we can be Mouse who made his debut in

It

seems appropriate

reasonably sure of is that the Mickey This photo of the production staff was taken

in 1932, after

Disney had won

an Academy Award-his first— for the creation of

Mickey Mouse

New York City in 1928 resulted from a collaborative effort between Disney and Ub Iwerks. It seems probable that Iwerks. easily the best animator of the day,

was largely responsible

for defining

Mickey's physical characteristics. Mickey did bear a family resemblance to Oswald, but Iwerks— either on his Disney's suggestion— made the figure

own

initiative or at

more compact. He was

constructed from two large circles, one for the trunk and one for the

head, to which were appended two smaller circles, representing

and rubber-hose arms and

ears,

hands (ungloved stability.

He was

legs

at this early stage)

also

which terminated

and large

feet

aft.

The

plump

tail

and short

circular

head was

equipped with a long, skinny

pants decorated with buttons fore and

in

which gave him

by the addition of a mischievous snout, a plum-shaped nose, and button eyes. He was designed for maximum ease of animation (it had been discovered that circular forms

made

expressive

to animate effectively) but, beyond that, Mickey's had a dimension which was quite new in cartoons. The gift of personality was probably Disney's own contribu-

were simpler identity

tion to

in

made

Mickey. Iwerks

skill as a

draftsman, but

it

the whole thing possible through his was Disney's control over the situations

which the Mouse found himself that allowed

this personality to

develop. Even at this early date, Disney had grasped the notion that

cartoon characters should seem to think for themselves. In some ways he may even have viewed Mickey as his alter ego. Certainly he

always maintained a special affection for the Mouse, a fact which suggests that he was intimately involved in every stage of

its

cre-

ation.

The Disney brothers had managed to save enough money to go first Mickey Mouse cartoons even without a distributor, and work began almost at once. This was carried out in secret at first, since the Oswald contract had not yet completely ahead with the

expired.

On

October

23,

1927, a

bombshell had

hit the

motion

Warner Brothers released The Jazz Singer and the became a reality. Lee DeForest had developed a

picture industry.

sound era practical

sound system

at least

four years earlier, but the Hol-

27

lywood production chiefs had fought sin of

Now

they had to confront

As was

the

this

new development.

it.

Mouse cartoons went into production, the industry One Disney cartoon. Plane Crazy, had been

first

in chaos.

still

completed, and another Gallopin^ Gaucho, was on the drawing

made— perhaps the most important He wanted Mickey to have real

boards before the decision was

decision that Disney ever made.

impact, and he saw that the future lay with sound.

mind was

a cartoon in

which music,

effects,

What he had

and action would

all

in

be

synchronized.

Wedding sound

animated drawings was

to

not. he realized,

something that could be approached casually. Where

live actors

might be enough

hear them

were concerned,

it

speak— that seemed fact that

just

audience

to

miracle after the decades of silence (the

sound pictures were quickly labeled "talkies" indicates public's interest lay)— but Disney did not have the

where the

ready-made had

like a

for the

stars to

whom

he could return the

gift

of speech.

come up with a more imaginative solution. Les Clark, who was party to these early experiments,

He

to

the system that

was devised

"We worked single

describes

as follows:

with an exposure sheet on which every line was a

We

frame of action.

could break

down

the

sound

effects so

frames we'd have an accent, or every sixteen

that every eight

frames, or every twelve frames. [Sound film runs through the projector at twenty-four frames a second.]

And on

that twelfth

drawing, say, we'd accent whatever was happening— a

head or a footstep or whatever In

Steamboat

Willie,

to feature a full) track.

1928, the

first

cartoon

sound

Micke) and Minnie transform

t

he-

cargo of a riverboat- including livestock

would

metronome

setting a

to

improvised his

to the

animation.

One

accompaniment could be

legendary evening. Disney and

co-workers presented a short sequence from Steamboat Wil-

lie—such was the

and

on the

correspond with the accents thus

established in the action, a rough sound

into an orchestra

hit

be. to synchronize to the

effect or the music."

By

synchronized sound

it

girlfriends.

window

(to

title of the new cartoon— to an audience of wives Roy Disney projected the film from outside a

eliminate motor noise), while his brother, along with

Iwcrks. Jackson, Clark,

and

accompaniment,

live,

in

carefully

beat

of the

to

the

a

few others, improvised their sound

another room-all of them

working

metronome. Jackson played

his

harmonica (the tune was probably "Steamboat Bill") while the others provided sound effects with cowbells, slide whistles, tin pans, and the like. This

audience by way of

The wives and

a

accompaniment was transmitted to the set up by Iwerks.

crude loudspeaker system

girlfriends

were only mildly impressed, but the

performers were convinced that they had

Disney went

to

New

York.

28

chain, to provide a

now found

the answer.

hired Carl Edouwards,

who had

Broadway Strand and worked for the band and conduct the recording session.

led the pit orchestra at the

Roxy

He

',

11

1

D.M 90a

I

t

sat.

fsiloi

•HIBlo

•nl of th» lltlo

•

oiM a

n "

flr»t

.

The

page of the Steamboat Willie continuity script. Disney kept this first

souvenir of his

first

major breakthrough

cono

1.

Toot of blue

in vcoloil

his office

';.'

-

•

;

I

;

on

.

loxithli

1

hit

On September

Walt wrote

14,

to

Roy and Ub: "'We are using a drummers and

seventeen-piece orchestra and three of the best trap effect

men

in

town.

will take three

today." Later in thirty-five

At

all

They

get ten dollars an hour for this work. It do it, plus the time the effect men put in the same letter he says that there would be about

hours

men on

events, the

to

the job. but this

team had developed

may have

included technicians.

recording session was a disaster. Disney's

first

a system of indicating-probably by flashes

on which the orchestra should play. Thus the film could be projected and serve the same function as a metrothe screen— the

tempo

nome. Unfortunately

to

system was a

little crude, and Edouwards tempo determined by such a coarse mechanical device. Disney was forced to cable California for more money and to try again. Roy sent out enough money to proceed

this

did not feel inclined to have his

with a second session.

One improvement was flashing device that had

that instead of sticking with the crude

been used

at the first session,

Disney had

had the film reprinted with the addition of a bouncing

ball system,

making it much easier for Fewer musicians were used at the second

to indicate the accents as well as the beat,

Edouwards

to follow.

29

session,

and everything went

now had

sound

a

oft" without a hitch. Steamboat Willie and Mickey Mouse was ready tor his

traek

debut.

Finding a distributor was not easy, however.

Disney took

his

Still in

sound cartoon from screening room

room, but the industry remained

in a state

New York.

to screening

of confusion and the

response he met was discouraging. Eventually, Harry Reichenbach. then managing Manhattan's Colony Theater, saw Steamboat Willie

and offered Disney a two-week run.

The Mickey Mouse who

movie houses

hit the

in the late twenties

was not quite the well-behaved character most of us are familiar with

today.

He was mischievous,

to

say

the

and even

least,

displayed a streak of cruelty (which soon disappeared), but from

A

germ of

the very beginning he

had

that

have remarked on, and

this

prevented him from seeming

little

real personality

we

scene from The Karnival Kid. 1929 to

be just

another callously cruel cartoon animal. At times— when confronted

by Pegleg Pete (the perennial

who

villain

co-starred

Steamboat Willie and Gallopin' Gauclw). or when forced

in

both

defend

to

Minnie's honor— he was even capable of heroic behavior. His heroism, however, was usually the heroism of the

little

man;

it

resembled the intermittent nobility of Charlie Chaplin's tramp.

undoubtedly provided Disney with one of

Chaplin

may

important models, and we

his

most

say that Mickey and his gang

provided for the sound era the kind of entertainment that Chaplin

and the Mack Sennett comedians had provided

for an earlier

generation. Since this was the sound era. Mickey had to have a voice.

Several people, mostly from the Studio, had a shot at

immortality as the Mouse's voice, but Disney was not satisfied with

A

scene from The Fire Fighters, 1930

any of them. He knew just the kind of squeaky should have, and the

Mouse

it

(he continued to

fill

after

Mickey

twenty years).

this role for

Minnie was with Mickey from the very Willie,

falsetto

soon became clear that only he could speak for

Pete has chased

riverboat on which he

is

Mickey from

employed

as a

In

first.

Steamboat

bridge of the

the

deck hand. Minnie

is

The ship is already moving downstream when Mickey manages to snag Minnie's discovered on shore, about to miss the boat.

patched panties with a boat hook and haul her aboard. Later, on the deck, they cavort with the cargo of livestock, using the various

animals as musical instruments on which

to

improvise "Turkey

in

the Straw."

This sequence it

is

by

contains the seeds of

a kind of

far the

much

humor Disney was

most interesting

that

was

later to

Mickey, for example, stretches a

to

come.

in

the

It is

30

misuse of its anatomy.

in that

marked by

abandon on grounds of taste. it becomes a

cat's tail so that

stringed instrument; the cat gives vocal expression to at this

movie

also

A good

its

displeasure

deal of music and laughter

is

An

Mickey Mouse model sheet which shows the basic simplicity of his design

early

^^9

s~^8sff~;

,^^

CH^>~^

g,.

^

m-*1

tj^3»1tf *£*£l

4>

Mickey Mouse

T-Js*

model n?i

milked out of a cow's udder

^.

vlT'

Hays Office was to insist that it was actively suggested form of apparel). Minnie cranks a

(later, the

Disney cows be udderless and, indeed,

some

that they find

goat's

tail,

suitable

transforming the unfortunate beast into a hurdy-gurdy,

while Mickey plays xylophone

riffs

was a much-used instrument

in the

shorts, providing

more

on

good opportunities

a cow's teeth (the

xylophone

sound tracks of these early for visual puns;

almost any

or less regular group of solid objects— the rib cage of a

skeleton, for

A number sporting

example— could double

of new Mickey

titles

Mouse

as a xylophone).

cartoons appeared in

1929,

such as The Karniva! Kid, Mickey's Choo Choo, and

The Jazz Fool

(this last a take-off

on Al Jolson). Mickey acquired,

within the space of a few months, gloves, shoes, and a

more

endearing manner. There were other developments too. The sound tracks

became

increasingly sophisticated,

and

in

most cases they

were now recorded before the animators began work. That once a story action;

it

line

was established,

a score

was prepared

was recorded and the animators worked

and accents contained

in the

sound

track. This

to the

is

to

to say, fit

the

rhythms

system allowed for

greater flexibility.

To handle

the music side of the business, Disney called in an

old acquaintance from Kansas City, Carl Stalling. Stalling had had

years of experience in the theater

pit,

providing music for silent

31

' |

|

.poloon.

statu*

'ilw

•a head and ahouldoru. a on

In his early films

as an entertainer.

This story sketch for The Grocery Boy shows how the scene

Mickey often appeared

The scene shown

here

out of scene ulth tur

is

be

to

is

laid out.

Different stages of the action are indicated in a single drawing

from Blue Rhythm, 1931

movies— a background which left him well equipped for his new Already the Disney team was becoming extremely adept at synchronizing sound and action, and several of the earliest Mickey

career.

Mouse pictures— The Opry House, for instance, and The Jazz as the main substance of the plot. This emphasis on music led in the same year, 1929, to quite a new kind of animated film-the Silly Symphonies. These were to be Fool— took music

not

merely

illustrated

songs,

animation were combined

name

Silly

on the

first

to

but

films

Symphonies was selected

for the series,

cats,

howling

disturbed at midnight by four skeletons

The

skeletons go through

sequences and then,

The whole

which

new

music and

experience.

The

and work began

of them. The Skeleton Dance.

The Skeleton Dance opens as graves.

in

provide a totally

thing

is

at

some

dawn, scurry back

set to suitable

in a

cemetery, are

who emerge from fairly

their

elaborate dance

to their resting places.

sepulchral music, a composition

of Stalling's which utilized elements from Grieg's "March of the

Dwarfs" (many film historians have erroneously reported that the music used is Saint-Saens' "Danse Macabre"). Despite the success

of the Mickey

Mouse

the reception that

shorts, theater

owners were

would be accorded

this

entertainment, and so The Skeleton Dance and released under the byline Silly

a little

nervous of

new kind of cartoon its

successors were

"Mickey Mouse Presents

a

Walt Disney

Symphony." These first Symphonies were received well enough

series to continue. Certainly they

now seem

were original

in

rather less interesting than the early

Mickey gave

his pictures a central core

for the

concept, but they

Mouse

shorts.

around which the action

could develop. The Symphonies had no such core. Each of them

•» yf->

In 1929.

he called

Disnev launched a new Silly Symphonies. The

Skeleton Dance

series of cartoons first

which

of these was The

the Silly Symphonies touched a wide and moods. Examples illustrated here are from The Merry Dwarfs, 1929, and Winter. 1930

From

the very

first,

variety of subjects

33

This

camera— adapted

twenties to shoot

in the late

animation— is in use

I

still

today

was constructed around a rather generalized theme— The Merrv Dwarfs, Winter, and Spring are typical early titles— which had to be stated before

it

could be explored; with the techniques available

1929 and 1930. this was quite a challenge. In a

however, you had only exactly

more

what

to catch

and

this

one glimpse of Mickey

allowed the animators

in

cartoon, to

to take

know much

for granted.

For the

no

to expect,

Mouse

first

real focus.

year or two of their existence, the Symphonies had

But we must emphasize just

how

significant

Disney instituted them and then persisted with them when

it is it

that

would

far easier to exploit Mickey for all he was worth. Before Symphonies would have an invaluable role to play in the development of the art of animation. We should lay to rest, too, the idea that the classical music content of these cartoons showed

have been long, the

Disney displaying pretensions toward high culture the evidence suggests that he

in this series. All

saw himself as making motion picture

entertainment for the general public.

By

the

celebrity.

end of 1930, Mickey had become an international

Known

in Italy as

Mouse continued

the tion

by

fire

Topolino and as Miki Kuchi

his adventures,

and worse, confronting Pete

and performing

to

in

Japan,

saving Minnie from immolain

various exotic situations,

audiences of exuberant animals whose taste in

music ranged from ragtime

to violin concertos.

bloodhound made an appearance

in

a

A

simple-minded

1930 picture called The

Chain Gang and developed, before long, into Mickey's faithful companion Pluto. As Mickey's career unfolded in the thirties, other characters such as Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow began to

enjoy the status of co-stars, but their personalities offered

relatively

34

little

for the

animators to work with and. as the pictures

^

mas

Silly

Symphony

posters, 1932

became more

sophisticated, their roles

eventually vanished entirely.

And

became less significant and Mickey was important

in 1931,

for Time magazine to devote a feature article to him. By the end of 1931, Disney's demand for constant improve-

enough

ment had driven

the cost of a single cartoon to about $13,000.

The

Studio was barely breaking even and in 1932 another innovation

drove costs

Symphony

still

called

higher.

In

that year,

Flowers and Trees.

sensation in the industry.

It

was

Disney released a

Silly

This cartoon caused

a

in full color.

Technicolor had introduced a two-color system as early as

had been used sparingly by the major studios which, it had little more than novelty value (its chief limitation was that the color values were somewhat distorted). 1929, but

it

with good reason, thought

By

1932, however, Technicolor

had a

three-strip system ready

more accurate color reproduction, and Disney at once saw its advantages. Flowers and Trees had been partly made as a black-and-white fdm. This footage was scrapped and the whole thing was done again in color. It was premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood along with Irving Thalberg's which offered

far

production of Strange Interlude.

35

Flowers and Trees

X -J?^ This 1932 cartoon has a special place Ihe history of animation as the

made Sillv

in full color.

From

this

point on.

Symphonies were produced

Technicolor

in

first to

in

he all

By today's standards. Flowers and Trees is a strange mixture of charm and absurdity. A romance between two young trees is disrupted by a crabby tree stump who initiates a fire that threatens the

whole

forest. Birds

puncture clouds so that rain

and douses

falls

The stump is destroyed and the two young lovers are married, with a glowworm for a wedding ring, while neighboring flowers celebrate their nuptials. Whatever weaknesses or strengths the

fire.

this

cartoon

was

in color.

on,

all

may have had were overshadowed by the fact that it Color made it a valuable property and, from that point Symphonies were fully chromatic. Disney made an

Silly

advantageous deal with Technicolor which gave him exclusive rights to the three-color process, as far as

two

for the next

cartoons continued to

enough not

animation was concerned,

For the time being, the Mickey Mouse be in black and white— they were successful

years.

need the extra boost— but the Symphonies took

to

advantage of the new

full

Almost at once they became more inventive. Flowers and Trees was followed by King Neptune and Babes in the Woods, both of which display tighter structure and livelier action

One

than anything previously seen in this series.

factor

addition to the

which contributed

staff, in 1932,

he had learned the

From

possibilities.

art

to their inventiveness

of Albert Hurter.

of animation

at the

A

artist,

New

York.

Barre studio in

the very beginning of this association Hurter

special position at the Studio,

was the

Swiss-born

Disney realizing that

had a very was

his gift

for

producing what became known as "inspirational drawings." This to say that

projects

he spent

his

and improvising on themes which might

imaginations of story

men

imbued with dimension

He was

trained in

in

Babes

in the

Europe and

his

the spirit of the gothic fairy tale. This

to the native

American vigor of

the

Woods

reflect

drawings were

added another As more

the Disney product.

the Studio continued to evolve. Hurter's influence

and more

trigger

or animators. Neptune's court in King

Neptune and the gingerbread house his influence.

is

time developing visual ideas for future

was

felt

strongly.

In 1933,

Hurter designed the settings and main characters for

what turned out

to

be the greatest Disney success up to that

time— the famous Three

Little

Pigs.

It

is

hardly necessary to

recapitulate here either the plot or the success of

Frank Churchill's Bad Wolf?" The movie was a smash. Theaters retained it week after week and its impact reflects the fact that it went far beyond any of the earlier Symphonies in hit tune.

"Who's Afraid of

the Big

of plot and character development.

The following year. 1934. saw the production of several Symphonies including The Tortoise and the Hare, The Grasshopper and the Ants, and The Wise Little Hen— all of which were moral fables and showed just how proficient the Studio had become at structuring a story and establishing character. The excellent Silly

37

Three Little Pigs

In 1932,

Walt Disney

produced The Three Little Pigs— a cartoon which had an extraordinary impact on the

American public. "Who's Afraid of

Wolf" swept

Its hit

tune.

the Big

the nation

Bad

^x\\;

/i

1

111

It*

1

i ,

:

f

?y IV a-

if

* t

From

X *

1932 to 1934. the Silly Symphonies

evolved a

new range of subtleties. Shown

here are scenes from,

left

top to bottom.

Father Noah's Ark. The Tortoise and the Hare, and The Grasshopper and the A nts. Lullaby Land, 1933. top right, presents a

dream adventures in a landscape metamorphosed from the patchwork quilt

child's

that covers his bed.

Spring,

*,;'-

Below: The Goddess of from the following year

and

Tortoise

the

Hare put Aesop

into

modern

dress as the rakish

hare loses his race to the tortoise against a milky landscape that is typical of those early color cartoons. This milkiness resulted from the fact that Emil Flohri, the Studio's top a great deal of white

way

pigment with

artist,

mixed

rather than by thinning his paint with water. In The Grasshop-

per and the Ants, the grasshopper character (his theme song to

background

his colors, lightening tones this

the

voice

clown— was

talent

had had

his

fame

first

is

a particularly well-established

"The World Owes

Me a

Living") keyed

of Pinto Colvig.

Colvig— a former circus

member

of the gag team, but his

a musician

greatest claim to

is

is

and

a

that he provided the voice of Goofy,

ing role

in

a

who

1932 cartoon, Mickey's

Rente.

39

Jk

This layout drawing for The Wise Little

Hen. 1934,

illustrates the

Donald Duck made

scene in which

his debut.

He

is

discovered dancing a hornpipe on the

deck of a somewhat decrepit barge,

When him,

Wise

the

left,

Little

he feigns a

Hen

tummy

establishing himself as a

right.

asks a favor of ache,

The Wise

Little

the very outset of his career

new

voice talent and a

was, within a year, to challenge Mickey as Disney's

star attraction.

This character was, of course, Donald Duck, and the

somewhat

unreliable and disreputable character from

Hen introduced another

who

character

man who Until

provided him with a voice was Clarence "Ducky" Nash.

Disney discovered him. Nash had worked

company, entertaining children with

his

for

animal imitations.

a

milk

One

of

these imitations evolved into Donald's ill-tempered quack and

made

his voice

known

Donald Duck had

all

over the world.

a relatively

modest

role in his first screen

He debuts as a miserable creature, living on a ramshackle houseboat, who feigns a bellyache every time the Wise Little Hen asks him for assistance (in this first incarnation he was drawn by Art Babbitt and by Dick Huemer. who had ed the appearance.

Disney

staff of animators).

today, but he had the

same

Donald's voice, the

bill

was

same

a little longer than

sailor suit,

it is

and the same

temperament. He quickly made the jump to co-starring Mickey Mouse pictures such as Orphan's Benefit, irritating

irascible rules in

everyone on the screen but endearing himself animators found the Duck difficult

star.

40

to

work

audiences. with,

Many

but two

in

Lundy and Fred Spencer— had a way with him must be given much of the credit for developing him into a

particular— Dick

and they

to

-TT

r

h

i

M

mm

-•^»iii Walt looks on as Mary Moder. Pinto Colvig. and Dorothy

Compton

rehearse

"Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" Composer Frank Churchill is at the piano

A

theater

A

group photograph taken

at the

Studio

in

the mid-thirties, about the time that staff

expansion was picking up

momentum

marquee advertising Mickey Mouse

41

In Orphan's Benefit, 1934,

came a

into his

own. His

Donald Duck

efforts to entertain

group of children are frustrated by the

malicious behavior of the audience, which causes him to dissolve into helpless rage

jt

Mickey, meanwhile, had become virtually a national symbol,

and

as such he

was expected

to

behave properly

at all times. If

he

number of letters would arrive and organizations who felt that the

occasionally stepped out of line, any at

the Studio

from citizens

nation's moral well-being

harder and harder not give offense in

to find

some

into the role of straight

eroded the core of

was

in

their hands.

comic situations

for

quarter. Eventually he

42

was becoming that

would

would be pressured

man. but the gradual change had not yet

his personality,

and the Mouse cartoons of the

mid-thirties were consistently inventive while ingly sophisticated.

It

Mickey

becoming

increas-

3 Six Cartoon Classics Once Hollywood had come the industry

began

with the challenge of sound,

to

to explore the

avenues that had been opened up.

The filmed musical, for instance, offered possibilities that had been totally beyond the grasp of silent cinema, and this new genre presented the theater-goer with varied and novel experiences.

There were,

example, the Warner Brothers' musicals— tinseled

for

and Foot light Parade—with Busby

epics like Forty-Second Street

Berkeley's spectacular choreographic symmetries punctuating the

show-business careers of such stars as James Cagney, Joan

fictional

and Ruby Keeler. Maurice Chevalier sang in Rouben Mamoulian's quasi-

Blondell, Dick Powell, his

way

into

French high society

Me

operatic Love

Tonight;

the

movie fan could

indulge

also

himself, by proxy, in the silk-hat sophistication of Fred Astaire. all

helped keep the Depression

What

is

incredible

eminence— matching a

that, in this

is

in the

motion

to reach a position

of high

time of plenty

Walt Disney was able

picture industry,

It

at bay.

and producers— with none of which ran for longer

that of the greatest stars

modest output of animated

films,

than eight minutes!

Nowhere apparent than a simple it.

And

is

Disney's talent as a great story editor

in the shorts

of the mid-thirties.

gag situation and squeeze every

then he would find a

last

way of topping

even funnier than the one preceding

more

He knew how to take drop of humor out of that with a situation

it.

For practical reasons, an animated cartoon is usually broken into very short segments (different animators being assigned each of these), so that the effect, on the screen, is of very rapid

down to

cuts

from one character

advantage of

men,

to another.

Disney learned how

this as a storytelling device.

his layout

men, and

tion that every cut

had

to

his

He badgered

to take

his story

animation directors into the realiza-

be meaningful, that each short segment of

must contribute to its overall pace. No decision was implemented without his approval, and he was constantly on hand with fresh ideas to spur flagging imaginations. Each cartoon was the film

planned down

to the last detail.

Dozens of people might be involved in this, but the entire process was controlled by Disney himself. By the time segments of action were assigned to individual animators, Disney had an almost

43

complete knowledge of how the screen. itself.

The one

Here he had

him and, by During

to rely

product would look on the

on the

talents he

was the animation

had gathered around

were quite considerable.

1935, they

1935.

Disney released eighteen cartoons. At

of them are gems. survived from

final

factor that he could not control

A

good deal of valuable

this period,

and

this

chapter

continuity drawings and other art

work

is

least half

visual material has illustrated with story

relating to six of these

movies. Four of them (The Cookie Carnival, Music Land,

Who

Cock Robin? and Broken Toys) are Silly Symphonies. Mickey's Service Station was the last Mouse cartoon to be produced in black and white; The Band Concert was the first to be made in Killed

color.

WIio Killed Cock Robin? Disney gives the old nursery rhyme a new twist. Robin, it turns out. is not dead, but has merely been

wounded bv Cupid's

arrow.

The triumph of the cartoon is Jenny Wren, the object of Robin's ion, who is

a thinly disguised caricature of

I

44

1

Mae West

/

Broken Toys

—£2.

^sSL

r

The main

plot of this cartoon involves a

sailor doll

who performs an emergency

operation to restore the sight of a dainty little

creature

who

neatly constructed

has

lost

little

her eyes.

film,

it

is

of Disney productions during the mid-thirties

46

A

typica

Music Land

on the

In this twist

of Jazz

falls in

Romeo and

Juliet story, the

love with the daughter of the

Symphony. There

son of the King of the

Queen of

the

Isle

Land of

bad feeling between the two monarchs. and while on a sweetheart, the Prince of Jazz is captured and imprisoned. War breaks out and the Prince escapes and takes to the Sea of Discord, accompanied by his love. When both monarchs realize that their offspring are in danger of drowning, thev call a cease-fire and set off to the rescue. All ends happily. The Prince and Princess are soon ed in a double wedding. A Bridge of Harmony unites the reconciled kingdoms.

clandestine

is

visit to his

In this cartoon the characters speak with the voices of musical

instruments.

The Land of Symphony

Overture, blowing holes in the rococo

blasts

its

rival

with Tchaikovsky's 1812

saxophone skyscrapers

(see also overleaf)

A -~»«

I

I

<*—

!

jmp.mm

!!*

-V

Music Land

-J

:

yv

I,

llAAu

;TtfJ

1

f"!

.7

.1

r423®

H

l;

;'f

1

^

'_---'<""

"

,"'''"''

Mickey's Service Station This was the be

made

in

last

Mickey Mouse cartoon

to

black-and-white. Pegleg Pete,

the perennial villain, brings his car in for a

check-up because he has been hearing a squeak. Mickey. Donald, and Goofy rip the car apart looking for the source of the

offending noise.

It

turns out to be a cricket

which has concealed

itself in the vehicle,

but our heroes do not discover this until the car has been reduced to wreckage

r

51

The Band Concert

One

of the classics of Disney animation. The Band Concert was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon to be made in Technicolor. Mickey is discovered the park of a small Midwestern town, directing an orchestra in a spirited

in

rendition of the William Tell Overture, but several factors conspire to

A

disrupt the performance.

worse

still,

Donald Duck,

roving bee creates an irritating distraction, and.

in the

guise of a street vendor, again and again

leads the orchestra astray bv playing

succession of

fifes

"Turkev

in the

Straw" on an unending

concealed about his person.

As the orchestra approaches the storm section of the Overture,

a

tornado approaches the town. The twister picks up the entire orchestra— along with Donald, a farm house, and assorted vegetation.

Mickey doggedly continues

to

are tossed about like leaves. will

conduct

He

his musicians,

power, and the piece comes to a rousing finale, with musicians hanging

from

trees

and anything

ruined, however,

when

else that has

a file

been

left

standing. Mickey's triumph

appears from a fallen tuba and the film ends

on Donald's impertinent rendition of "Turkey

52

even as he and they

holds the performance together b\ sheer

in the

Straw"

is

C2

-W^**'*^

.

'

J

\

53

4 Hyperion Days On

January

12, 1936.

The

headlined "H.G. Wells

New

York Times published an interview-

Close Up." The author of The Invisible

in

Man and The History of Mr. Polly had a few comments to make about the film industry. "Many do not realize that all Hollywood studios are so busy that they keep very

much

to

themselves.

Consequently, Chaplin never visited the Disney studios. Imagine. Charlie and Walt Disney, those two geniuses, never met!

I

took

Charlie there. Disney has the most marvelous machinery and does the

most interesting experiments. Like Chaplin he

good

a

is

psychologist and both do the only thing in film today that remains international."

Four days

after the

reported by the

movies

figures in the

Disney. "The reason interference.

They

attend to their

Times

New York

own

at that is,"

story,

on January

16,

Rene

Clair was

Journal as saying that the outstanding time were Charlie Chaplin and Walt

he explained, "that they have no outside

act as their stories

own

producer, director, and even

and musical

scores. Their artistry

is

sub-

lime."

On May

25, the

New York

Journal carried some outspoken

opinions expressed by the composer Jerome Kern. "Cartoonist

Walt Disney," said Kern, "has made the 20th century's only important contribution to music. Disney has language.

In

made

use of music as

synchronization of humorous episodes with

the

humorous music, he has unquestionably given us the outstanding I would go so far as to say it is the

contribution of our time. In fact

only real contribution."

Harper's Bazaar, dated

an

article

titled

known

(better

"Boom as

November

of that same year, printed

"Genet"— Paris correspondent

that studio exclusively

devoted

for

the

New

Hollywood," she observed,

Yorker). "Certainly the sanest spot in "is

1

Shot of Hollywood" by Janet Flanner

to

the creation of delicate

deliriums and lovely lunacies— the fun factory of Mickey Mouse,

Miss Minnie and Mr. Walt Disney, Incorporated. Visitors are rarely itted.

Withdrawn

to a safe distance

movie maelstrom, the Disney plant

is

from the

remotely located

rest

of the

in

one of

those endless suburban settings of Barcelona bungalows, pink roses

and red esque.

54

filling stations that

The

makes southern California

so pictur-

studio looks like a small municipal kindergarten with

Thru the Mirror, 1936,

is

a witty

improvisation on one of the Lewis Carroll

themes that had fascinated Disney since the time of the Alice Comedies

green grass for the children to keep off of and. on the roof, a

—

gigantic glorious figure of Mickey to show them the best way With hysteria the seeming law for movie making, it's a wonder Mickey and Silly Symphonies succeed in this world at all, since the place where they're made is as sensible as a post office. Law and

order reign there, without seeming unattractive, side by side with

Minnie.

Clara Cluck, Donald Duck and Elmer the Rabelaisian in spots but solidly moral at heart,

Madam

Elephant who,

all

are doubtless easier to get along with than the other big stars in the

movie game." Disney, then, did not lack for influential irers, and the list could easily be extended. Toscanini, for example, saw The Band

producer

to visit Italy. Sergei

Eisenstein, the greatest of Soviet directors,

pronounced Mickey

Concert six times and invited

Mouse America's most

its

original contribution to culture.

still a star, was rapidly becoming a symbol, some concept of comedy that was to all appearances In 1934 Harold Butcher, New York correspondent for

Mickey, though representing universal.

the

Herald, had written, "After a quick trip around

London Daily

the world ...

have returned

I

Mouse has been and China,

at

with

me most

to

New York On

of the way.

to

say that Mickey

the Pacific, in Japan

Manchouli-suspended precariously between Siberia

and Manchukuo.

." .

.

From England,

in 1935,

came

the report that the

Queen and

as gifts the Duchess of York had selected Mickey Mouse chinaware cartoons for six hundred children. That same year, Mickey Mouse were used to test RCA's television system and the League of

Nations voted

its

approval of Mickey.

55

'

•

H

—

1

1

r:

..".

.'

C_

J._

(

y^H>')

Moving Day, 1936, provides Goof) with

some of

moments, pitting him mind of its own. This sequence, animated by Art Babbitt. is a sustained and inspired piece of Ins finest

against a piano with a

nonsense

Donald was by now seriously challenging Mickey's preeminence

when

and.

the Studio

announced

Times devoted a serious editorial

his first birthday, the to the

New

York

growing popularity of the

wondering if he might not replace Mickey in our Dozens of other papers echoed the question. As for Disney himself, he was learning to field the questions that come with fame. Always he was suitably modest. "I do not draw, write music or contribute most of the gags and ideas seen in our pictures today." he told the Times. "My work is largely to irascible duck,

affections.

and shape material,

supervise, to select efforts

of our

Another reporter asked Disney how feels fine."

coordinate and direct the

to

staff." it

felt to

be a celebrity.

"It

he replied, "when being a celebrity helps get a choice

reservation for a football game. ...

As

far as

I

can , being

me make a good picture, or a good shot command the obedience of my daughter, or

a celebrity has never helped

polo game, or

in a

impress

my

wife.

It

doesn't even

seem

to

help keep fleas off our

being a celebrity won't give one an advantage over a

dogs and.

if

couple of

fleas,

then

I

guess there can't be that

much

in

being a

celebrity after all."

So much

How

for

Disney the public

figure, but

what of Disney the man?

did his colleagues see him?

Jack Cutting,

who

ed the organization in 1929. recalls that

Disney seemed mature beyond

"The people who worked

stimulated by his enthusiasm. creative

mood and

his years and. at times, very serious.

best with .

.

.

Walt were those who were

More than

once,

when he was

ideas were popping out like skyrockets.

suddenly seen him look as

if

he had been

hit in the face

I

in a

have

with a

bucket of cold water. The eyebrow would go up and suddenly reality

was the mood

tune with the creative

was

56

difficult to

in the spirit

room. Someone

in

the group

was out of

he was generating. Then he would say

work with so-and-so."

it

*-k

*

Moose Hunters,

1937, presents Mickey, Donald,

and Goofy

in a series

of typically disastrous confrontations with wildlife

Mickey's Amateurs, 1937. offers a blend of entertainment and near catastrophe

MCO<Se >&«)S

&£-«

F&P-

f^S^CCJ? ATTAeJf.

These creative moods were often exercised sessions

which were so

projection

rooms

at

at the

"sweatbox"

essential a part of the Studio routine (the

Hyperion Avenue were not air-conditioned—

hence the name sweatbox). As soon as a sequence was animated

and shot

as a pencil test,

men, the

director,

would be run

it

rooms. Disney would be

in

one of these projection

attendance along with animators, story

in

and anyone

else directly

concerned (sometimes

people from outside the production team would be invited give a layman's opinion).

be subjected to an intensive analysis in an effort to see

improved

in

in to

The sequence under consideration would

any way before

it

was sent off

if

painting department. Sometimes, instead of pencil

could be

it

inking and

to the

tests,

it

would

be a "Leica reel" that would be under consideration. The Leica reel (another Disney innovation) provided a

way of

projecting story

continuity drawings in synchronization with whatever part of the

sound track had been prerecorded, thus giving of

how

the final

at least a

movie might look and sound.

In

rough idea

any case, Disney

would always lead these discussions and generally had valuable contributions to make.

Marc Davis emphasized

his

is

one of the many Disney

artists

who

has

employer's readiness to gamble everything on an

idea as one of the key factors in the growth of the Studio.

Young

artists

ing the Studio usually started by learning to

do in-between drawings. Ward Kimball re that the Studio was still in a small place in those days. "The in-betweening We called it the department was down in the semibasement. .

A

scene from

For

.

.

A Gentleman's Gentleman.

a brief period

was given ears

during the early

that

worked

1941.

forties.

in perspective

Mickey

., # Studying penguins as an aid to animation: standing, left to right, Walt Disney, Albert Hurter, Leigh Harline. Frenchy

de Tremaudan. Clyde Geronimi. Paul Hopkins (behind Geronimi).

Hugh Hennesy, Ferguson, and

Dick

Art Babbitt,

Bill

Norm

Roberts. Seated,

Huemer and Wilfred Jackson

A

pastel

A

scene from Cock of the Walk, 1935. a Silly

drawing

for

Water Babies, 1935

Symphony which

includes clever parodies of

Hollywood dance routines

A background

painting for

Mickey's Fire Brigade, 1935

analyses of the personalities of Mickey. Donald, Goofy, and Pluto.

The

following, written by Sears,

"Mickey

is

is

a typical

not a clown ... he

is

example:

neither

silly

nor dumb.

"His comedy depends entirely upon the situation he

is

placed

in.

"His age varies with the situation is

that of a

young boy, and

picture, he appears quite

"Mickey

.

.

grown

up.

.

most amusing when

When Mickey

working under

is

.

.

.

sometimes

his character

other times, as in the adventure type of .

in a serious

accomplish some purpose under

to .

is

at

predicament trying

difficulties, or against time.

difficulties, the

the climax of each small incident or action.

laughs occur at

They depend

largely

upon Mickey's expression, position, attitude, state of mind, etc., and the graphic way that these things are shown." Moore added some suggestions to be kept in mind when drawing Minnie:

"Minnie seems cuter with her

skirts

high on her

body— show-

ing a large expanse of her lace panties. This skirt should be starched

and not hang

loose.

.

.

.

and maybe never open

Her mouth could be smaller than Mickey's into so

wide

a smile, take, expression, etc.

61

Layout drawings for Mickey's Garden,

left,

and from Thru the Mirror,

Her

eyelids

right

and eyelashes could help very much

feminine as well as the

skirt

keeping her

in

swaying from the body on different

poses, displaying pants. Carrying the

little

finger in an extended

position also helps."

The following aimed

at

animators

are extracts from

who worked on

some of Disney's comments Symphony. Cock of

a 1935 Silly

the Walk. "I

would suggest

that

you concentrate more on

caricature, with

merely the drawing of a character

not

action;

to

look

like

something, but giving your character the movements and action of the person

you are trying

to put over.

, every

should be based on what that character represents.

"Something was striving for. This

unable

to do.

I

is

started in this scene

doing things

mean

the pullet

juggling from side to side, but

it

in the

on the

which

.

is

.

action

.

what we are

dance which humans are rooster's muscles

and the

was ed over before we had

a

up into anything funny." Seen today. Cock of the Walk, with its brilliant parodies of Busby Berkeley dance routines, seems one of the best cartoons of its period. In view of this, the severity of Disney's remarks seems extraordinary, but we must keep in mind the fact that he was trying

chance

to

to build

it

make each one of

pushing

his

these films into a

little

jewel.

He

animators as far as he would push himself.

note, too, that he

was by 1935 deeply involved

in

believed in

We

should

planning Snow

White and was. therefore, very concerned with establishing the standards that would be required to

animated feature.

62

make

a success of his first

Clock Cleaners

Mickey, Donald, and Goofy worked against

this

type of spectacular background in a 1937 short. Clock Cleaners

63

i

hi

ro right: background paintings for a 1937

cartoon Pluto's Quinpupleis, for a 1939 release

Donald's Lucky Day. and for Pluto's

Dream House, 1940

Three Blind Mouseketeers

\

/

Pan shots— takes in which the action moves across a panoramic background— necessitated elongated paintings for Three Blind Mouseketeers, 1936

like this

one

,..,22.

(

I

Goofy

Some

idea of the complexity of

making an animated

in

Mickey's Amateurs, 1937

film

can be gathered from these "bar sheets." which govern the entire

sound track of a movie, showing exactly where fall. At different times they have

every accent should

taken different forms, but

this

example

is

quite

representative.

Above each

bar. the film footage

a convenient general reference.

staves— El, E2,

E3— are devoted

The

is

noted, providing

three upper

to instructions for the

below these— Dl and words to be spoken on the

three effects tracks. Immediately

D2— are

staves carrying the

two dialogue tracks. A description of the action that will be seen on screen occupies the center section, along with scene numbers and other material, while the music transcribed onto the lower half of each bar sheet

66

After a cartoon was completed, drawings

were stapled into books. This group from Fire Chief, 1940, gives a marvelous sense of

movement is

2. Feotune cuiimatton

• • •

SnowWhite:

5

The First Feature The

success of

initial

Mickey Mouse and

the Silly

Symphonies did

not satisfy Disney for long, and as early as 1934 he began to think

about making a feature-length animated

seriously

important considerations prompted him to

was

a question of simple economics,

namely

that

often

did— but

One

no matter how

make

successful the short cartoons were, they could never

much money. They might

Two

film.

of thought.

this line

very

share billing with the main feature— they

was determined by running time, not would always be

film rental

popularity, so the revenue from these shorts

limited. Beyond this. Disney was anxious for an opportunity to work within an expanded format— a structure that would allow for more elaborate and leisurely character development, that would

give

him

chance

a

naturalism.

to

evolve more complex plot ideas and greater

He had no

intention of merely extending his estab-

lished gag routines into a larger format; he fairy story

that

and bring

it

to the

As everyone knows,

the story Disney chose for his

project as the "Feature Silly

important part

structure. But

in

its

by the summer of 1934 into production,

his ideas

it

extent

was

it

No

about Snow White, but

were beginning

of the suggestions they made. As ideas

previously suggested possibilities): Sleepy,

model sheets were prepared

some

to take

concrete

form.

artists

to clarify,

feature

was much more besides.

to think

tics

began

to

first

he referred to his

concept, music playing an

were asked how thev thought the dwarfs might look and behave. These sketches are representative Disney

first

Symphony." and

Symphony

an extension of the

one can say just when Disney began As Snow While went

to take a

was beyond the reach of live-action movies.

was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. At

new

was planning

screen with a kind of magical realism

An

early manuscript outlines

some of the

dwarfs' characteris-

and gives them names (narrowed down from some forty-odd

Hoppy-Jumpy,

Bashful,

Happy, Sneezy-Wheezy— Gaspy, Biggy-Wiggy— Biggo-Ego, and Awful. These concepts and names were probably dictated by Disney. Early manuscripts also the film— including that a

"Some Day

list

a

number of

possible songs for

My Prince Will Come"— indicating

good deal of thought had already been devoted

to this aspect

of the subject. Early outlines differ from the final version

number of ways

so that, for example.

Snow White

is

in a

envisaged

ing through a whole sequence of enchanted places before the woodland animals lead her to the dwarfs' cottage. These include the Morass of Monsters and the Valley of the Dragons, which are

69

Upsidedownland or Backwardland

self-explanatory, as well as

(where birds

fly tail first

and

Sleepy Valley ("vast poppy

soughing through the

have

trees

fields,

their roots in the air)

and

slumbrous music from the wind

The Queen is described as being way of a Benda mask." We are told that Only in her emotional climaxes does she

trees").

"stately, beautiful in the

she

cool and serene.

is

erupt to

An

fury (a note in parentheses urges study of Charles

full

Laughton

The Barretts of Wimpole

in

outline, this

breakdown of

one dated October

Street).

22, 1934, includes a

the cast of characters.

We

complete

this how "snow white: Janet Doug Fairbanks type— 18

can see from

quickly things were beginning to develop:

Gaynor type— 14 years

old.

the prince:

years old. the queen:

A mixture of Lady

Wolf— Her beauty

sinister,

is

Macbeth and the Big Bad

mature, plenty of curves— She be-

comes ugly and menacing when scheming and mixing her poisons—Magic fluids transform her into an old witchlike hag— Her dialogue and action are overdramatic, verging on the ridiculous.

the huntsman:

A minor

old— The Queen's

trusted

an innocent

girl.

.

.

.

character— Big and tough— 40 years

henchman but

hasn't the heart to

murder

prince's horse: This gallant white charger

Tom Mix's horse Tony— The magic mirror: The Queen's unwilling slave— Its appears when invoked— It speaks in weird voice."

understands but cannot talk— like Prince's pal.

masklike face

This outline also includes another set of descriptions of the

names have

dwarfs— not dissimilar

to the earlier

become more

Already they include Happy. Sleepy, Doc,

Bashful,

settled.

that the

and Grumpy. Sneezy has been temporarily ousted by

Jumpy, and Dopey has yet By the

fall

be christened.

to

of 1934. then, the cast was already pretty well

established in Disney's mind.

we may presume to

one except

that Albert

A

story

team was being

built up,

and

Hurter and Joe Grant were beginning

work on character design. Very soon more detailed outlines

began

to

circulate— mimeographed sheets that dealt with specific

scenes and situations. These kept everyone in touch with progress

and doubled

submit ideas and gags that would

as invitations to

contribute to the development of the plot; within a matter of three or four months. stage

deal

Snow White had developed from

and was beginning

to take

the

embryonic

shape as a viable endeavor.

The story at least was taking form. There was, however, a great more than story involved in a pioneering project of this kind.

The Disney

artists

would be dealing with problems

that neither

they nor anyone else had confronted before.

There were,

to start off with, several purely technical

up

lems. All animation drawings sheets of paper measuring 9

grounds also being geared

70

1

/:

to this point

by

to these

12

prob-

had been made on

inches— layouts and back-

dimensions. The drawings were

Albert Hurler's studies— as in this one of the

Queen

after she has

herself into a

transformed

hag— were

vital to the

concept of the story that began to emerge

then traced and painted onto "eels"— celluloid sheets of the same

size— and sent to the camera department, along with the appropriate backgrounds.

The camera could be adjusted

the entire setup — minus the

margins— or

to

photograph

a small part of

it

if a

The area to be photographed was designated as the "field" (rectangles drawn on many of the layouts illustrated in this book are indications of field size). The size of the close-up effect were required.

animation paper determined the largest possible

was known

as "five field."

underway,

it

quate for

became evident

much

White was

extremely a

that this field size

A

which

White got

would be inade-

scene in which

seven dwarfs, or with

fifty

Snow

animals,

paper— mean that each making the animator's if not impossible. To overcome this size— "six-and-a-half— was introduced,

stuck with the old animation

character had to be

problem,

all

field size,

as production of Snow

of the animation involved.

appear with

to

would— if they task

As soon

drawn on

difficult,

new

field

a

minute

which meant that a complete new sliding eel boards, checking boards,

scale,

series

of animation boards,

and inking and painting boards

71

feu

I

The Wicked Queen consults her Magic Mirror

Snow White

is

introduced

in

one of the

film's

The Huntsman

falls to his

knees before

opening scenes scrubbing the courtyard of her stepmother's palac

Snow White

^^^^25

had

to

had

to

be designed, be adapted

trucking shots the screen at

inadequate

to

built,

and

shoot this

to

installed;

new

and animation cameras

field size.

Even

long

so, certain

demanded characters who would appear so small on some point that even this modification would be the animator's needs. To get around this, a method of

reducing drawings photographically was devised— a mechanical

work on a convenient

solution that allowed the artist to

Another limitation produce

inability to

into a setup flat

that

of depth.

a real illusion

which consisted of a painted

eel held tightly against a

background, scale distortions were inevitable. Take, for ex-

mountains

in the

creatures lead

Snow White wood

background. In

meadow

in a

become

remain about the same

because they are so far away.

in

on

size

and the mountains

the character

bigger, but the

a flat representation

mountains

will

When

the

of the same scene, both

appear

will

with

one approaches that

reality, as

character he will appear to

camera moves The woodland

its

When a camera moved

ample, a situation where a character stands

dwarfs' cottase in a clearing in the

scale.

animation had run up against was

to increase in size at

to the

same rate. In the short cartoons this had not presented a serious problem because such situations seldom arose, and when a little distortion did creep in it was not really noticeable in the exactly the

context of quick-fire gags that were sweeping the audience along:

much

but feature films required a Flat

backgrounds might

still

greater regard for naturalism.

be adequate for most scenes, but from

time to time a real illusion of depth would be necessary. William Garity. head of the

camera department, was given

the job of

developing a multiplane camera— one that could shoot simultaneously several layers of action and background, layers that were

way

separated in such a

as to

produce an accurate sense of depth.

Layout also presented new problems and the layout team,

headed by Hugh Hennesy and Charles determine the spaces

in

found

Philippi.

confronted with a considerable challenge. Layout

artists

itself

not only

which an animator must work, they are also

deciding how the film will look when it They take on many of the tasks which in a movie would be handled by the art director, the director

in a sense responsible for

reaches the screen. live-action

of photography, and the film editor. effect,

be edited

cannot afford

determined

to

at

An animated

advance, since animation

in

film must, in

so costly that

one

shoot a single bit of extra footage. Every cut layout stage (with

the

determined

Camera

in layout, as are final

the character of the setting in art direction aspect

is

the collaboration of the

director and, sometimes, the story team). lighting are also

is

which the action

was especially important

is

in

angles and

decisions about

to take place.

Snow

This

White, where

was necessary to maintain an atmosphere of fairy-tale quaintness. Most of the preliminary work to this end was done by Albert

it

Hurter

the

stance—but

74

bizarre it

furnishings in

was the layout

artists'

the dwarfs' cottage,

responsibility to

for in-

make

these

inventions work within the final context of the film. Color was an

important consideration. In the interiors, it was keyed down to give them an aged look (Gustaf Tenggren's elegant watercolor studies had an important influence on their eventual appearance). Everything had to be carefully designed so that the characters would read clearly against their backgrounds.

By

Snow White was

the spring of 1936, production of

in full swing.

Story conferences were being held almost every day and each scene

was discussed and analyzed down

to the last detail. Live actors

were

The problem with animating that everyone instinctively knows how a man or a woman that the least inaccuracy in the way they are drawn is

also filmed as an aid to animation.

humans

is

moves, so

Nobody

immediately apparent.

Mouse, or even the Prince

Years

Max

known

results as a

(the

method of filming

guide for

his animators.

live

This

and mannerisms

as rotoscoping, yielded gestures

that could never be invented.

Avenue fame as

a different kind of challenge.

Fleischer had devised a

and using the

system,

has ever seen a real-life Mickey Dopey. Snow White, however— as well as

and the Queen— presented

earlier.

actors

a real-life

Now actors were brought to Hyperion

young lady cast as Snow White went on to achieve Marge Champion), and they would act out a

the dancer

piece of "business"

in

front of the

cameras— often under the would then be

direction of the animators themselves. This action

transferred to a series of photostats which the animator could use for reference.

figures

The

artist

could, in fact, have simply traced the

from the photostats, but

this

was seldom done because

the

characters had to be adapted in order to be consistent with the

remainder of the animation. Instead, a kind of gentle caricature was employed, so that gestures and poses became

slightly exaggerated.

This system served the animators well, and they continued to use The animals help Snow White appalling disorder

in

to clean

up the

the dwarfs' cottage

in later

it

movies.

Although much of the production work on Snow White was

jammed

into the final ten or twelve

more than

months,

was the

it

result

of

three years of concentrated effort by Disney himself—

three years in which he faced

new problems almost

daily.

whole venture was an enormous gamble from the very industry was convinced that he had bitten off

first.

more than he could

chew, and hints of impending disaster were commonplace the trade papers

and

the national press.

The The

During

in

both

this period, the

many of whom Some names have

Studio staff expanded to more than one thousand,

were directly involved been mentioned, but cians were

involved

backgrounds

make

in the feature project.

literally in

all

hundreds of other

to devising special effects.

a painted

stream look

artists

and techni-

kinds of capacities, from painting

(How,

for

like a stream, or a rain

example, do you storm look

like a

rain storm?)

75

Finally, at a cost of close to $1,500,000.

Backgrounds were painted in to emphasize the

completed. Four days before Christmas. 1937.

antique character of the cottage.

the

low-keyed colors

Snow White was the only feature which transparent colors were employed for the background paintings. Later,

in

gouache became

studded with celebrities.

justifying all of Disney's

that the

Queen (who has

used magic to transform herself into

an old hag) has reached her victim, the dwarfs set off to the rescue.

They

are too late to save

White,

who

Snow

has already bitten the

poisoned apple, but they pursue the

Queen up

into the mountains,

a storm

raging

is

where

was premiered

at

Hollywood. The audience was

was the kind of opening of which Disney

itself

hopes

for

it.

was an overnight success-

on the imagination of the Western world.

Snow White is distinguished by two seemingly opposed characeconomy of construction and extravagance of invention. As we have already observed, Disney's training in the field of cartoon shorts had taught him how to tell a story without wasting a single foot of film. There is nothing in Snow White that does not contribute either to developing character or to moving plot. (Two scenes— the dwarfs eating soup and building a bed for Snow White— were deleted at the last moment.) Yet this does not lead to a feeling of spareness, because crammed into this framework is a teristics:

Warned

It

in

Snow While was

had always dreamed. The reviews were sensational. Snow White, impressing

medium

the usual

Carthay Circle Theater

it

The dwarfs

body of Snow White and sadly place it She remains there through a full cycle of the seasons

return to the lifeless

in a crystal casket. until, finally, the

Prince arrives to

wake her with

a kiss

is almost overwhelming. The fruits of three work by hundreds of talents are compressed into eighty-three

profusion of detail that years'

minutes of action, imagery, music, and dialogue.

The songs are memorable and, like everything else, contribute movement of the storv. As for the animation, the character of each dwarf is firmly established— each is a distinct individual. The development of the Queen is excellent, both before and after her transformation into the witchlike crone. The Huntsman is effective and the birds and animals function well as a kind of Greek chorus. Snow White occasionally seems a little too much like a twentiethcentury co-ed, but she has great charm and easily wins our sympathy. The only real failure is the Prince, who seems wooden and lacks character (Snow White deserves a better consort). Above all, the entire movie manages to sustain the ambiance of timelessto the

ness which

78

is

so essential to the fairy-tale senre.

6 Pinocchio Snow White may have provided Disney with Pinocchio that

is

made

probably

the

his greatest film.

It

his finest

shares in

moment, but the qualities

and adds

feature such a success,

first

all

to

them

a

been sured. stunningly effective shot— the camera

technical brilliance which has never

Pinocchio opens with a

pulling back from a large white star, panning across the tiled roofs

of a sleepy European village, then closing of Geppetto's cottage.

It is

in

on the lighted window

the kind of shot that has

become

familiar

movies since the advent of power-operated zoom lenses, but taken within the context of its own period, and within the history of animation, it is innovative and spectacular.

enough

in live-action

Nor is

just a piece of flashy

it

showmanship.

It

serves to capture our

imagination and draw us into the atmosphere of the story before a single

word has been spoken.

Disney's early success had resulted from his grasp of the potentials of the

Many models were made

to

auide the animators

sound

film.

By the time of these

first

feature films,

he had evolved a method of storytelling which relied primarily on visual

means. Next

ed his team with

make

to

animation

itself,

camera movements provid-

chief narrative devices. Disney continued to

its

expert use of music and sound, but his greatest achievement

was the creation of and extremely

a visual

language that was

totally

convincing

flexible.

As we have seen, Snow White developed gradually. Now to have felt that with the experience of one feature

Disney seems

behind him, he need not be quite so cautious, and production of Pinocchio was put into top gear. Things did not work out according however, and after six months he called a halt to the project and put everyone on new assignments until the problems had been to plan,

ironed out.

The primary dilemma centered on

the character of Pinocchio

himself. Should he be treated as a puppet or as a small boy? Until this issue

was

settled,

the story tended to

very

little

could be done. Book illustrations of

show Pinocchio

as essentially puppet-like,

and

have influenced the animators' first efforts. Frank Thomas. Milt Kahl. and Ollie Johnston were assigned to the character, and they animated about 150 feet of film, using the this

seems

to

speeded-up voice of Ted Sears as a sound

happy with the

results.

track.

Disney was not

After further experimentation, they went

74

This panoramic

background was painted for the opening of Pinocchio

One of Gustav Tenggren's watercolor studies for Pinocchio

Geppetto's workshop

ahead with a more boylike version of Pinocchio (except in the animated by Thomas, where he is still on strings), and found

scenes,

a child's voice

which

fitted

with this interpretation.

A

further snag

was Jiminy Cricket's personality, which became more and more important as the story developed, until he had usurped

many

of the

functions intended for Pinocchio.

Jiminy Cricket, animated by Ward Kimball. Woolie Reitherman, and Don Towsley, presented another kind of challenge. Being a very small character (his physical size contrasts with the impor-

made him

tance of his role in the film)

The animators

in close-ups.

difficult to deal with except

rose to the challenge,

expansive a character that he seems larger than the Cricket stands

one of the

villains

gesture this

is

who

a threat. Tytla

was an

fills

this

was an exceptionally

Fox and

It is

is

an enormous,

gifted animator,

and

probable that no one else

same point of menace.

character to the

camp nonetheless, who are slyly determined to lead Pinocchio fast buck. Animated by Norm Ferguson and

Perhaps more likable, but are the

Tytla,

Bill

the screen with his infamy. His every

ideal assignment for him.

could have built

In contrast to

of the piece, the puppet master

Stromboli. Stromboli. animated by

muscular presence

making him so

life.

in the villains'

the Cat,

astray for the sake of a

John Lounsbery, these characters— like Stromboli— seem constant motion, but

it

is

motion

to

be

in

governed by rage. The

less

cunning of the Fox and the stupidity of the Cat turn them into

a

kind of vaudeville team that keeps moving to hold the attention of

The Fox knows just when

the audience.

and the Cat

is

to

throw a knowing glance

a malicious innocent with an instinct for mischief.

Geppetto. handled largely by Art Babbitt, ing of the

main

characters.

He

is

asked

fundamentally sentimental emotional

animator with very

^

little

is

the least interest-

to function

Moore was

challenge. Fred

on

a single,

thus presenting the

level,

luckier in his

assignment, treating Lampwick, the cocky street kid, as something

of a self-caricature. Monstro the whale

suitably fearsome

is

and two

smaller creatures, Figaro the kitten and Cleo the goldfish, add a Geppelto, delighted with his new son, sends Pinocchio off to school. Before he gets there, however, Pinocchio

touch of charm to the proceedings. Live-action footage was shot as

an

assist to the

who

Fairy,

whose

Once

persuade him that the theater offers more

glamour

animation of several characters, notably the Blue

is

sidetracked by the Fox and the Cat,

both

in

brief appearances are very effective.

again, Hurter's influence

felt

is

of character design and

throughout the

in the

film,

profusion of quaint

crowds the background of almost every scene. Gustav Tenggren contributed many line-and-wash studies which greatly affect the look of the movie. The multiplane camera and the visual detail that

complexity of the film as a whole presented the layout team with great opportunities which they eagerly seized.

of Charles Philippi and tions

by Ken Anderson, the

of inventiveness.

84

Hugh Hennesy.

Many

art

Under

the direction

with important contribu-

of layout was carried to new heights

of the layout drawings are extremely

in a wooden The Blue Fairy rescues him, but not

Stromboli shuts Pinocchio cage.

before he

tells

her a series of lies— only to

discover that, with each

lie,

his

nose grows

longer and longer, eventually sprouting

branches and leaves

Chastened by sets

his experiences.

out to find

takes

Pinocchio

Geppetto— a search which

him under

the sea. LEFT: Pinocchio

being swallowed by Monstro the whale.

below: Jiminy Cricket and Monstro's eye. right: eventually Pinocchio and Geppetto are reunited in Monstro's belly- Escaping

from the whale, who gives furious chase. Pinocchio is washed ashore, seemingly dead. But he recovers, and. having proved himself brave, truthful, and unselfish. is

soon changed into a

real

boy by

the

Blue Fairv. Joyfully, Figaro the kitten dives into the fishbowl and kisses Cleo the goldfish

beautiful,

and the same can be said of the background paintings.

For Snow White, backgrounds had been painted mainly with transparent washes, but in the case of Pinocchio, while something that looks like a classic watercolor technique

pigment came into general

use.

bottom layer was painted onto

is

adhered

For multiplane

glass,

and

oil

shots,

to.

opaque

all

but the

paint was used for this

purpose.

Many

some fashioned from clay and some animators. The artist could refer to these models, turning them so that they could see at a moment's notice just how Jiminy Cricket, for example, would look character models,

from wood, were made

The layout drawings

for Pinocchio

were made with «reat attention

to assist the

to detail

i*^=fcv^-

-

The atmosphere of Pinocchio owed a great deal to the effectiveness of the background paintings, some of which are reproduced above and on the following pages

from such an angle

(in this respect the

similar to that of the live-action footage,

characters in

who

could not be shot in

models served a purpose and they could be used

live action).

The

for

special effects

Pinocchio are particularly striking. Live-action rain

is

incor-

porated into one scene, for example, and one cannot overlook the

impact of the musical score, highlighted by such songs as "Give a Little

Whistle" and

"When You Wish upon a Star"-both comlyrics by Ned Washington.

posed by Leigh Harline with

The suitable

plot of Pinocchio required extensive adaptation to for

necessary for

the

screen-far more

Snow

White. Disney

radical

make

it

changes than were

was charged with frightening

89

compared with Collodi's

children, but

Pinocchio

is

horror to

make

quite restrained.

He

original,

his

the story effective— certainly the scene in which

Pinocchio's nose grows longer as a result of each of his

deep response,

version of

kept just enough of the element of

as

does the sequence

in

lies triggers a

which he and Lampwick are

transformed into donkeys.

Although the reviewers welcomed

with enthusiasm. Pin-

it

occhio was not an immediate box-office success. released in February. 1940, five

Europe, and

it

may be

months

that the public

The

film

was

after the outbreak of war in

was not

in the

mood

for a

Not that Pinocchio was a frivolous movie. On the despite the happy ending, it presents the blackest vision of

fable of this sort.

contrary,

any Disney feature. But perhaps the

90

reality

of world events had

has never reached the

To this day. Pinocchio numbers oi' people who have seen some other

Disney

unfortunate, for

made

the fabulous temporarily redundant.

films. This

is

it

is

Disney's masterpiece.

Operating the multiplane camera crane. The technician at the upper is Card Walker, now president of Walt Disney Productions

left

91

Fantasia:

7

The Great Experiment The new emphasis on Disney had

was losing ground

to

Donald and

plan a comeback for him.

The

that

Mickey Mouse, but Mickey prompted Disney, in 1938. to

this

vehicle he chose for this purpose was

The Sorcerer's Apprentice, an ancient had used

mean

feature film production did not

lost his special affection for

in a

fairy-tale

motif which Goethe

very popular poem; Disney's immediate inspiration

was Paul Dukas's orchestral work of the same

title,

This popular piece of program music seemed with the perfect score for his project.

Its

to

written in 1897.

provide Disney

running time made

for a

film about twice the length of the average cartoon short, thus

allowing for leisurely storytelling and substantive character devel-

opment. Disney, anxious as possible,

to

Stokowski. Stokowski,

much

lend this production as

was fortunate enough

to obtain the services

who conducted

the Philadelphia Orchestra, to

make

he involved himself so intensely

in the

had long ired Disney's work and was delighted himself available. In project that

it

fact,

soon began

prestige

of Leopold

to

develop into something

far

more am-

bitious.

The

idea that evolved was for a full-length feature film which

would take the form of a concert of orchestral pieces conducted bv Stokowski and illustrated by the Disney artists. It had been decided that a narrator film,

would be needed

and Deems Taylor, known

to link the various

to millions as

episodes of the

music commentator

on the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts, was chosen \BOVl

shooting

live action fur

Kiiciw: Stokowski

in

role

and

the

first

for this

of selection.

Eventually, the field was narrowed

Fantasia:

the Dimu'v paint

to assist in the process

down

to

seven main parts,

being an introduction which culminated

in

Stokowski's

laboratory

orchestral arrangement of Bach's Toccata

and Fugue

in

D

Minor.

Next came excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite; then came The Sorcerer's Apprentice, followed by Stravinsky's Rite of

The fifth piece was Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, the Then came "Dance of the Hours" from Ponchielli's opera La Giaconda. The final selection combined Moussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain with Schubert's "Ave Maria." Spring.

"Pastoral."

The concert character of Stokowski and

the

movie

Deems Taylor were

as well as the fact that

associated with

it

expectations, and Disney went to great lengths to live

He planned

92

the

movie

for a

special

raised high

up

to these.

wide screen, but had

to

Toccata and Fugue abandon Hundreds of pastel studies were made the Toccata and Fugue segment of Fantasia and for the "sound track" interlude, both of which used abstract forms

to illustrate

musical ideas

for

this

He

scheme

for financial reasons.

utilizing

seven tracks and thirty speakers, which not

sound system

only anticipated stereophonic sound but was,

also

in

developed a

fact,

far

more

ambitious than anything that has been used since. Stokowski

handled the sound mixing personally, and the results were,

to judge

by contemporary s, quite spectacular. Unhappily, the system was prohibitively expensive and was installed only first-run theaters.

The

version of Fantasia that

we

few

in a

are familiar with

today has been remixed for more conventional equipment.

The

film opens with a brief introductory section in

Taylor this

segment provided a

field

(as did a later interlude

character).

When

which Deems

then the Toccata and Fugue begins. Visually,

sets the scene;

day

for the

Disney

effects

department

which introduced the sound track

Fantasia was in production,

more than

as a sixty

people worked for the effects department, and they were given the task of interpreting the patterns of Bach's

music

in

of abstract

and semiabstract forms. This was a new area of experiment

them and,

in the

opening section of the movie does

was

a

for

circumstances, they did a creditable job, since this

command

one's attention and

bold attempt to do something that had not been done be-

fore.

The Nutcracker

Suite

the section of film

sequence. The

first

is

it

ballet music,

and Disney's

artists treated

underpins as a kind of animated dance

two movements of the

suite

were dropped and

the order of the others rearranged so that a continuous story could

be constructed.

A technical tour de

force, the

Nutcracker Suite section features

some extraordinary animation and that

had colored so many of the

picks up on the romantic flavor

Silly

Symphonies, transforming

93

Nutcracker Suite Disney artists transformed Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suiie into a nature ballet featuring spectacular effects animation

and delicate airbrush work

that sensibility into

something substantial enough

bravura performances by

for

all

to

provide a base

concerned.

Disney had planned The Sorcerer's Apprentice as a spectacular

showcase

Mickey and

for

it

became

exactly that, the whole project

being developed with great care and attention Algar's direction, nothing

made on

in full color

assignment

this

Mickey

leaves

the

in

Wizard has directs

a

it

Mickey has been ordered

powers,

to

fill

the large

magic hat behind and Mickey decides

Donning

the hat, he brings a

pail with water,

broom

The broom marches

to carry the water.

wooden

own

with his

but the ambitious apprentice discovers that

left his

take advantage of this.

fills

moment

for the

charge of the subterranean cavern where he

in the cavern,

and

Under Jim

for ten years).

practices his sinister craft.

water vat

to detail.

chance. Story sketches were

portrayed as a young magician, the disciple of a

is

Wizard who, bored

great

left to

and some of the Studio's top animators were put (Bill Tytla, for example, and Les Clark, who had

been drawing Mickey

Mickey

was

and

on

starts

its

to

to life

to the well,

appointed

task.

Mickey settles down in the take a snooze. Soon he is dreaming that he is high

Satisfied with the success of his spell,

Wizard's chair to

above the earth,

far out in space.

His powers have become so great

can control the paths of

that he

and

stars

planets,

and comets

Next he is standing on top of a towering crag, conducting the waves of the ocean. With a gesture worthy of Stokowski, he beckons to the breakers to smash against change

their course at his bidding.

the base of the rock.

He

repeats the gesture and the waves break

over the top of the crag, drenching the dreaming apprentice and startling

him from

He wakens

his reverie.

to find that the

cavern

awash. The broom

is

is

following his instructions with too great a zeal and has already

brought thousands of gallons of water from the well and threatens to

cause a disastrous flood. Mickey orders

it

to stop

but his magic

powers have vanished and the broom mechanically continues its task. In desperation, Mickey attacks it with an axe, only to see the broom split into many brooms, all of which continue with dogged perseverance, sweeping him aside and

swamping

water gets deeper and deeper. Furniture safety

on a gigantic book of

iridescent whirlpool.

spells,

which

is is

The Mickey seeks

the cavern.

afloat.

soon sucked into an

The apprentice seems on

the point of losing

when, suddenly, the Wizard appears at the top of the stairway. A single gesture from him and the waters subside. Everything returns to normal. Mickey, chastened, is left to clean up his life

the mess.

Although

told in

an amusing way. The Sorcerer's Apprentice

presents psychological ideas that are very basic to the

human

condition. Technically, like everything else in Fantasia, the seg-

ment

is

superb.

95

The

Sorcerer's

Apprentice

The Sorcerer's Apprentice The Sorcerer's Apprentice presents Mickey as a neophyte magician dabbling with spells

he cannot control

Rite of Spring In Fantasia, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring

is

used to underscore the story of the earth's prehistory, including the age of the giant reptiles

The Rite of Spring heralds an abrupt change of mood. Disney saw Stravinsky's ballet music as providing the score for nothing less

than a portrayal of the creation of the world (and certainly the insistent

rhythms are suggestive of primeval

visions of a time

when

the earth

was

still

forces).

It

begins with

molten mass, and

a

carries the story of evolution to the point at

it

which the dinosaurs

disappeared from the face of the planet. Millions of years are telescoped into a few minutes.

We see

mountain ranges thrown up

by gigantic volcanic convulsions; then primitive forms of marine life emerge from the oceans and learn to live on dry land. Later, huge

reptiles

roam

the surface of the earth

battles to the death. Eventually, a

and engage

in titanic

massive drought turns whole

continents into deserts.

The next segment, judge objectively.

seems

to

It

have very

set to the

"Pastoral"

Symphony,

has considerable charm, yet little to

do with

its

is

difficult to

visual character

the real nature of Beethoven's

music.

This segment owes a great deal to the stylized decorative and idioms of the thirties-it es before the viewer like an

illustrative

99

Dance of the "Dance of the

Disney

Hows

the Hours." as interpreted by artists,

became

animated mural

for

some fashionable

Parisian restaurant.

The

backgrounds are extremely elegant and pleasing, combining gently curving forms with an innovative use of color.

a hilarious

Good comic

parody of classical ballet

Bacchus and

his

interludes are provided by Ward Kimball's drunken unicorn-mule; toward the end, Zeus,

aided by Vulcan, stages a thunderstorm for his

Night

falls

from the bow of

starfire

It is

and Artemis appears

difficult to give

"Dance of possibly

the

own amusement.

sky to launch an arrow of

formed by the crescent moon.

an adequate idea of Disney's interpretation of

the Hours," but

we might begin bv saying

best— and certainly the

who

movie. The animators, Swift,

light

in the

that

it

is

funniest— segment of the

included John Lounsbery.

Howard

and Hugh Frazier, were given the task of developing

a

parody of classical ballet featuring hippos, elephants, ostriches, and alligators.

The

result

is

hilarious.

pirouettes as though she

A

hippo

in a negligible tutu

weighed no more than

swoop down from behind

pillars,

the inherent

species amplified by choreographic fantasy

does

a feather. Alligators

menace of

their

and clever camera

angles. Elephants hide timidly behind flimsy architectural ele-

ments and ostriches perform entrechats with an inspired absence of grace. Gravity

Directed by T.

Hours"

is

and reason are denied

Hee and

a classic

laid out

in a

triumph of

insanity.

by Ken O'Connor. "Dance of the

of comic animation.

Fantasia concludes with Night on Bald Mountain and "Ave Maria." As technical achievements they are extraordinary, but emotionally they are unsatisfying. The concept of this segment is a simple

101

Night on Bald Mountain left: the tormented spirits swirl about the crags of Bald Mountain.

right: The Devil raises his arms

in a

triumphant gesture

contrast of

good and

To Moussorgsky's dramatic

evil.

music,

witches ride and tormented spirits rise from the grave to the Devil on top of a jagged, rocky peak.

sequences are excellent and

enormous

vigor.

The

Bill Tytla's

At dawn, the ghosts return

and, to the strains of

"Ave Maria,"

Fantasia

a film with great merits

is

little

to

is

realized with

to their resting places

a procession

toward a Gothic-cathedral forest of huge

owes very

special effects in these

Devil

moves slowly

trees.

and great

anything that preceded

it

faults. Structurally

in the history

it

of the

cinema (Snow White and Pinocchio were basically conventional narratives),

and Disney deserves great

with precedent. His

artists

credit for breaking so boldly

deserve credit for some of the finest

animation that has ever reached the screen. Fantasia

is

an amazing

piece of film-making, one that will continue to fascinate audiences.

102

Dumbo and Bambi

8

Snow White, Pinocchio, and Fantasia were blockThe two features that followed- Dumbo and Bambi-were a

Cinematically, busters. little

different in character.

Like Pinocchio, Fantasia did not have a great financial success at the

time of its

release,

first

recouping some of the cost of the at least

were kept with the learns to fly

many

to theirs.

releases, yet

its

as a

way of

for only a fraction of the

earning potential would be

Multiplane shots and other expensive effects

story

minimum was

that

told as simply

respects this represented a shift back to the spirit of the

cartoon shorts. After the

was

was made

would assure good production and directly as possible, emphasis placed on humorous character development. In to the bare

and the

values,

Dumbo

two preceding

equal

Dumbo was conceived

and

losses. It

demands of the

practically a vacation for the

enjoyed

themselves on

this

first

Disney

project.

three features,

Dumbo

and they

clearly

artists,

It

probably the most

is

spontaneous animated feature that the Studio has ever produced.

Audiences responded well

to

needed revenue (only the

fact

Harbor by

and the film brought

it

that

than two months prevented

less

in

much-

release antedated Pearl

its

it

from having an even

greater impact).

Dumbo,

as everyone knows,

discovers that he can

is

Adapted

baby elephant who

the story of a

by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer, the film has a number of highlights. The circus fly.

parade and the scenes with

for the screen

Dumbo

and

the clowns have a splashy

vigor spiced with the kind of knockabout greatly

elephants, caricatured as gossipy Bill

humor

that benefited

from the expertise of the veteran animators. The older

women,

feature fine animation by

Tytla and John Lounsbery. Perhaps the most original sequence

in the

Mouse

movie get

the one in which

is

Dumbo

and

scenes in which

prompted by

Dumbo

the

learns that he can

fly,

Timothy

his friend

drunk and see pink elephants. This leads

directly to the

a discovery

raucous encouragement of

Ward

which

is

Kimball's

quartet of hipster crows.

Disney had begun preparatory work on Bambi as early as 1937. before the release of

Snow

White, but for various reasons

reach movie theaters until 1942. (until the climax, at least)

is

The

prevailing

one of lyricism.

mood

Humor is

of

it

did not

this film

blended with

103

swJjS

.

Preparatory work for Bambi included elaborate studies of animals in action

the lyricism, but

interrupt the

is

it

humor of

mood. The

forest

a very gentle variety

becomes

every bit as important as any of the animals. (as in the

shots)

and

raindrop sequence with to

Much of the credit

Dumbo

Its

response to weather

effective use of multiplane

season (as in the autumn montage)

is

happen

Dumbo

follows the career of a

young

is

stork at the winter quarters

of the circus

the

day he learns he can

fly

delivered by

and

"arrival" as a national celebrity

to his

to

a part of

styling. in the

making of

classes-an extension of the existing training

Bambi. Special

art

program— were

instituted so that

animators

much

to

Great emphasis was placed on naturalism

elephant from the night he

as

Bambi and his friends. for this should go to Tyrus Wong, who keyed the

the story as any of the things that

background

its

and does not

a character in the movie,

in the finer points

Rico LeBrun could instruct the

of drawing animals. Real deer were

lot as models for the artists. Books of photographic and innumerable model sheets were compiled, along with analyses of animal action and thousands of feet of live-action

kept on the studies

material to be used for reference.

Bambi has a great deal to commend it. Much into it and we might single out the contributions of the art direction team, headed by Tom Codrick, and the animation of Frank Thomas, Milt Kahl, Ollie Johnston, Eric Larson, and Retta Scott. But. for all the effort and skill. Bambi is Technically.

patient

work went

ultimately unsatisfying-especially by the standards Disney had set for himself in his earlier features.

problem

lies

The

artists

cannot be faulted. The

with the interpretation, perhaps with the script

itself.

Disney films-both shorts and features-the fact that animals take on human characteristics and have human voices is not disturbing, since they exist in a world of their own which is In earlier

governed by

cat,

its

own

rules.

We are not surprised,

for instance,

when

seduced from the straight and narrow by a fox and a for they are clearly caricatures of human types and the story

Pinocchio

is

105

Bambi In

Bambi, Disney

artists

aimed

for a

degree of naturalism quite unprecedented in the

history of the

animated film

unfolds in a fantastic dimension which

we

recognize as a metaphor

for reality rather than as a naturalistic portrayal.

and birds

Snow White do

in

Even

behavior. Within the framework of the fairy tale acceptable,

them— they

and only

the animals

not disturb us by their intelligent

relatively

small

demands

it

seems quite

are

made on

are not even asked to speak. Prior to Bambi, Disney's

use of humanized animals had always been within the limits of established idioms.

Bambi, however,

is

for a kind of naturalism

and

something quite

which

fairy tale— it presents

to believe in

different. This film

aims

outside the borders of fantasy

an owl on friendly with baby

rabbits who. in the real forest,

asked

falls

would be

his victims,

and we are

deer that speak the language and share the

emotions of the humans

who are supposed

to

be their enemies.

It is

very difficult to reconcile these contradictions.

107

Background treatments conceived to sustain a

The most sympathetic

for

Bambi were

lyrical

mood

characters are those, like

rabbit

and Flower the skunk, who are used mostly

relief.

They seem

to

belong

to the

Thumper

the

humorous Disney mainstream and work for

well in those .

Yet despite its shortcomings, Bambi is an important movie. Along with the four preceding feature films and the short cartoons of the

thirties,

it

gave the Studio a tremendous reservoir of idioms

and techniques. The Disney

artists

could

now handle

from the broad stylization of Mickey or Goofy Bambi's mother. They had learned

how

to the

to create

everything,

naturalism of

any atmosphere

they might need, and the multiplane camera allowed them to use

space

in

new and complicated ways. The Disnev

had developed hundreds of new colors animation

108

in still

another way.

to

paint laboratory

extend the possibilities of

9 Interruptions and Innovations America's entry into the war had an almost immediate effect on

Disney Productions. In December, 1941, part of the Studio was

commandeered by the military authorities as quarters for seven hundred of an antiaircraft unit. They took over the sound stage for use as a repair shop

and stayed

Before very long, someone in the

for several

Navy realized

months.

that animation

could be of great value in the presentation of training material. The Studio soon received a series of contracts from military and

government agencies and commenced production of short

The

tional films.

some of

listing

Aircraft Carrier

these wartime

Food Will Win

The 1942

subjects included

War. and a number of

the

Among later efforts were

aircraft-identification films. British

titles.

Landing Signals. Aircraft Production Processes,

Battle of Britain.

China.

instruc-

variety of material treated can be suggested by

The Battle of

Torpedo Plane Tactics, Air Masses and Fronts,

Defense Against Invasion, Rules of the Nautical Road, Automotive Electricity for

Military

Map

Basic

Vehicles,

Reading,

Transmitters, Fundamentals of Artillery Weapons,

Scourge (which concerned

itself

not with the Luftwaffe but with

economy was

malaria-bearing mosquitoes). Since these productions, extensive

animation (limited

that

in

devices were substituted for

more ambitious

project

Tuning

and The Winged at a

in

and clever use was made of limited

camera movements and other basic full animation wherever possible). A

was Victory Through Air Power,

length film presenting the strategic

bombing

a feature-

theories of

Major

Alexander de Seversky.

The two most important commercial

releases of this period—

Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros—were themselves indiVictory

Through Air Power. 1943. argued

the virtues

rect

products of the war. Europe had been in turmoil since

of strategic bombing. Der

Fuehrer's Face, released that

same

year,

September. 1939, which meant that Hollywood's chief overseas

Great Britain and some small Department down,

took the form of a nightmare in which

market was wiped

Donald Duck found himself working

neutral countries. Everybody, from the State

Nazi munitions factory

in a

was anxious

that other

target for this stars like

1941,

out, except for

markets be expanded, and the most obvious

expansion was Latin America

Carmen Miranda

rose to

(it

was no accident

prominence

that

at this time). In

Nelson Rockefeller, then Coordinator for Latin American Department, invited Disney to make a good-will

Affairs at the State trip to

Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Brazil. Disney was not interested

109

in

simple hand-shaking tour but suggested instead that

a

combined with

a film project.

The

State

it

be

Department agreed

to

underwrite four short films to the extent of $50,000 each.

Disney and

Saludos Amigos

his wife,

along with a group of Studio

and came back with

the trip

a

onto other ideas that had been developed separate shorts were produced, but

advantageous

which

first

Four would be

at the Studio.

was decided

it

that

it

release them as a single package. They were some documentary footage that had been shot on

and released under the

The

made

to

dovetailed into the tour

artists,

mass of material which was grafted

title

Saludos Amigos.

of the four animated segments

illustrates

the adventures of

is "Lake Donald Duck in

Titicaca."

the

High

some good moments but is no better than any of half-a-dozen Duck cartoons from this period. The second segment. "Pedro." is more interesting, telling the story of a little mail plane Andes.

has

It

which must carry

A

weather.

its

cargo across the mountains despite foul

remarkable sense of space and depth was achieved

the flying sequences,

for

and both backgrounds and animation are

The third segment. "Aquarela do Brasil," is the most memorable, featuring Jose Carioca, an energetic parrot who

excellent.

introduces Donald

samba. The action

Duck

is

effects animation, but fact that

to

it

to Rio's

lively

and

is

Copacabana Beach and

what makes "Aquarela" so

has a real Latin flavor and heralds a

Disney movies. The

final

to the

helped along by some imaginative distinctive

mood

animated segment

Goofy." starring the Goof as a displaced cowboy.

is

It is

is

the

that

was new

"El

Gaucho

amusing but

by no means innovative. Saludos Amigos was released later.

also

in

February. 1943.

The Three CabaUeros appeared. In many respects was aimed

at

the

Latin

Two

years

a sequel,

American market and.

like

it

its

predecessor, featured a combination of live action and animation. it is a disappointing movie— patchy and with no compare with the best things in Saludos Amigos. Donald and Carioca have some lively moments and are ed by a Mexican rooster called Panchito. who sports a large sombrero and an itchy trigger finger. Their energy is not enough to offset the lackluster character of segments such as "The Cold-blooded Penguin" and "The Flying Gauchito." The package film was not an ideal format for Disney artists to work with, but it did have an economic advantage which remained a major factor as the war came to an end. Reorganization was necessary, and it was important that the Studio have feature-length

Taken

as a whole,

highlights to

The 1943 package

film Saludos

Amigos

included the story of Pedro the mail plane

and introduced Donald's friend Jose Carioca

productions in the theaters to bring grams.

A

true

in

revenues for future pro-

animated feature would have taken too long

and would have eaten up too much of the reserves

to

make

at this point, so

other solutions had to be found. Saludos Amigos and The Three

CabaUeros had shown Disney that the package movie was one

The animated portions of Song of the South, 1946, brought the animals of the

Uncle

stories to life

Music: "After You've Gone" one of the segments from this 1946 package film

Make Mine is

Remus

in 1949. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad combined screen

Released

adaptations of two famous stories

and three more were produced— Make Mine Music 1946). Fun and Fancy Free (1947). and Melodv Time (1948). In 1946 Disney released The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. This picture falls somewhere between being a package film and a true feature, consisting of two distinct and separate stories which are linked only by the fact that the hero of each segment is prone to disaster. The "Toad" episode is based on Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows and is enlivened by good character animation and some lively art direction. Unfortunately, the story is too compressed for any of the personalities to be fully solution,

(

explored. All the action original

(it

is

there, but not the leisurely

seems that Disney had intended the story

feature-length film but

was forced

to settle for this

pace of the to furnish a

compromise

version).

The

tale

of Ichabod. based on Washington Irving's The Legend

of Sleepy Hollow,

is

narrated by Bing Crosby. The Adventures of

Ichabod and Mr. Toadis not a great movie, but toward regaining past

The Studio was

still

it

was

a definite step

glories.

producing short cartoons on

a regular basis. (It

continued to do so until 1956.) Donald and Goofy were

now

the

Formulas had been devised for them which made them easy to write for (Donald's bad temper and the Goofs ineptness provided endless gag possibilities). Mickey still made biggest stars.

occasional appearances, but he was

now used almost

exclusively as

man. Important newcomers were Chip and Dale, a pair of highly competitive and occasionally pugnacious chipmunks who were often pitted against Donald, driving him to distraction (he had a straight

several other antagonists, including a musical bee

and an

athletic

beetle).

On

112

occasion, short subjects were accorded

rather special

treatment, as was the case with Toot,

Whistle, Plank,

and Boom

Cinemascope cartoon. Devised by Ward Kimball, it is a highly stylized history of music which makes use of a novel sound track— very simplified and lacking the lush orchestration that

(1953), the first

had become standard.

Its

widened format, gave top: the 1950 short Motor

Mania

is

one of

several that take an ironic look at the

American driver. center: Two Chips and a Miss, 1952, a tvpical outing for Chip and Dale. bottom: Tool, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom.

subject from the as

same

an experiment

in

it

use of limited animation, along with the a very distinctive character.

A

year. Adventures in Music: Melody,

3D

similar

was used

animation.

habits of the

1953.

is

an experimental short

made

in

Meanwhile,

in 1950.

since 1942. This

and

office

Cinemascope

Disney released

was Cinderella, and

his first true it

was

animated feature

a success both at the

box

as a piece of film-making.

In spirit

it

harks back to

Snow

White, though with added

An

surface glamour and with a greater reliance on gag routines.

human

charac-

ters.

Cinderella, her stepmother, and the Prince are treated

less

naturalistically.

more or God-

interesting variety of treatments

mother,

the

is

brought

to the

while the ugly stepsisters, the Fairy

and the Duke are essentially caricatures. work very well together. The animal characters Lucifer the cat is a splendid villain and the mice

King,

Surprisingly, they

are excellent.

(who, thanks to the vocal talents of Jim MacDonald, speak a kind of pidgin Latin) are consistently entertaining.

The backgrounds

Cinderella are less distinctive than those which

Snow White and Pinocchio earlier

and

his influence

for

added so much

(Albert Hurter had died

some

to

years

was greatly missed), but they are more

than adequate, establishing a kind of French Provincial look

in the

early scenes.

of

Cinderella succeeds because

it

remains faithful

the original while embroidering

it

with the kind of business that

to the spirit

Disney understood better than anyone else. The next feature, Alice in Wonderland, failed because it did not capture the sophisticated atmosphere of Lewis Carroll's book and also lacks, except in a few isolated scenes, the authority of the

talked of animating

Disney touch. Disney had

A lice while Snow White was

(his interest in the subject

it

in

first

production

goes back even further, of course, to

Kansas City and A lice's Wonderland). He worked off for years before

still

finally

at the idea

reached the screen

in

on and

1951. but for

some reason he never came completely to grips with it. Translating Carroll's highly intellectual verbal humor into visual was no easy thing, and Alice

is

perhaps the weakest of Disney's animated

features. Occasionally there

invention, tea party,

Wynn and

is

a sharp piece of Surrealistic visual

and there is one excellent sequence— the which is greatly enlivened by the voice

Hatter's

talents of

Ed

Jerry Colonna.

Disney blamed the failure of the film on the lacked "heart." Whatever the reasons for

much

Mad

to the

amazement of

its

fact that Alice

failure,

about 1971.

the Disney front office, requests for

113

Cinderella

Cinderella

was Disney's

first

true

animated

feature since Bambi. Released in 1950.

recaptured features,

much of

it

the spirit of the early

modified by a new lightness of

touch and an emphasis on surface glamour

Alice in Released

some

Wonder/and

in 1951.

Alice in Wonderland had

brilliant visual

touches but failed to

capture the flavor of Lewis Carroll's story

Peter

Pan

Disney's version of Peler Pan, 1953,

is

a

generally entertaining interpretation of Sir

James

Barrie's stage classic

115

Lady and

the

Tramp 16mm

rentals of the

print of Alice

The demand was

the country.

began

to

pour

from

in

from college film

chiefly

all

over

societies,

but private individuals ed for a respectable proportion of the rentals. in

At the Lincoln Center Disney Film Retrospective held

New York

during the

showings of Alice were the

summer of

two scheduled

1973, the

performances

first

to sell out.

and three

additional ones were immediately added. This indisputable evi-

dence of the

film's

new appeal provided

the

needed impetus, and

Alice was rereleased in theaters throughout the country

in

the

spring of 1974.

Peter Pan, released in 1953.

is

an altogether more satisfactory

With the exception of Nana, the St. Bernard, and the crocodile, all the main characters are human or have human picture.

characteristics (as

We

is

the case with Tinker Bell and the Mermaids).

have discussed the special problems involved

human

form, but this movie shows just

had become

at

handling them. As

how in

in

animating the

expert Disney's

Cinderella,

artists

they mixed

naturalism and caricature without allowing them to clash.

The year first

1955 saw the release of Lady and the Tramp, Disney's

animated feature

innovative in another

make use of the Cinemascope format. It is way too. Set in the recent past, Ladv and the

to

Tramp deals with

a kind of subject matter that

encountered

at the

Studio before, taking us for the

world which

is

not far removed from our own.

but

set in the present,

its

circus milieu

atmosphere of the Big Top setting

it

makes

had not been first

Dumbo, it

time into a it is

true,

is

a special case, the

apart from the everyday world.

Ladv and the Tramp is set largely in the suburbs of a medium-size American city in the early years of the century, an environment compounded from a vernacular that is still familiar today. Considering the problems of layout, space, and depth inherent in

the

wide-screen medium. Lady and the Tramp turned out

remarkably

well.

The animators did a good job of grafting human main characters without losing the nuances

personalities onto the

of dog behavior that were necessarv dled and there are the rat

is

one

the dogcatcher's

humor the

is

some well-executed

that springs to

wagon

the

if

convincing. Interaction between dogs and

story

humans

action scenes

is

was

to

be

neatly han-

(Tramp

killing

mind, and Jock and Trusty intercepting

at the

climax of the movie). The film's

low-keyed— outright gag routines would have destroyed

atmosphere— and

it

features

some agreeable

songs.

Ladv and the Tramp was followed by another wide-screen featureone Released the (

first

in 1955.

Lady and the Tramp was

animated feature made

Cinemascope.

More

in

significantly,

it

broke

new ground in of subject matter, setting a more informal tone for future Disney movies

that

began with high hopes and ended

in disaster.

Sleeping Beauty was conceived as the most spectacular of the

postwar productions. Eyvind Earle devised background stylings

based on Early Renaissance paintings, and the characters were designed

to

blend with these settings.

Much

care was lavished on

*A

Six years in the making. Sleeping 1959.

marked

a

temporary return

world of the fairy

tale

Beamy, to the

10 Later Animation As far as animation was concerned, new formats like Cinemascope and Technirama 70 proved to be more trouble than they were worth. The next feature. One Hundred and One Dalmatians, made use of a technical innovation which was to make a more lasting impact. During the fifties Ub Iwerks. now in charge of special processes at the Studio, had been experimenting with Xerox photography as an aid to animation. By 1959 he had modified a Xerox camera to transfer animators' drawings directly to eels, thus eliminating the inking process and preserving much of the spontaneity of the drawings. As a time (and money) saver, this was of enormous importance to the Studio, and it had a major effect on the way future Disney animation would look, since the distinctive character of the Xerox eels would influence the art direction. The Xerox line would now.be employed for most backgrounds, too. so that there would be no stylistic clash between character and setting. This has meant that recent Disney films have had a more linear and graphic look— quite different from the tonal renderings that were so typical of the earlier features.

One Hundred and One Dalmatians technical innovation.

made real

It

is

the artists' task easier

and

represents

more than

good movie. The new process

a very left

them

free to concentrate

on the

substance of the film— character development and story. Set in

London and the surrounding The opening sequences, in which true love

the present, the plot unfolds in

English countryside. finds a way, are a villainess of the

little

weak, but the

never flags again. The treatment action

is

and

loose

and laughs, and the viewer

sympathy

moment

Cruella de Vil— the

piece— enters the picture, the pace picks up and

is

witty, with plenty

o\~

given no chance to lose

for the heroes as the story builds steadilv to a fitting cli-

max.

One Hundred and One

The dogs and other animals

human

Dalmatians

are. as in

Lady and

interesting animation in the film, however,

humans. They are drawn with

This film provides fast-moving entertainment ;ind

many good

touches,

including "quotations" from old Disney

cartoons (seen on television), and Cruella

who

perhaps the best villainess

de

Vil,

in

Disney's postwar movies

is

the Tramp.

surrogates and work very well as such. Perhaps the most

features,

a looseness

no attempt being made

is

reserved for the

which was new

to imitate

to

Disney

photographic

reality.

Elbows and knees are not always where they should be according to anatomy books, but everything works. Roger and Anita, the owners of the Dalmatians, are believable

if

not memorable, while Horace

77??

Jungle Book

Voice talents

including those of George

Sanders, Phil Harris, Lotus Prima. Sterling

Holloway, and Sebastian Cabot— played an important part

in this film

The Aristocats A

moonlit night

in Paris,

production, and one of sketches for The

from the finished

Ken Anderson's

A ristocais

that he

was suffering from advanced cancer of the lung. One lung

was removed, but

room

from the Studio.

weeks

six

at St. Joseph's

later,

on December

He was

sixty-five years old.

film that he

he died

in his

The Jungle Book was

not quite finished, and the Disney artists were task of completing

15.

Hospital in Burbank, directly across the street

it

left

with the painful

without him. Happily. The Jungle Book

would have been proud

of. It

is

a

takes great liberties with

Kipling's original, but these are justified by the end result.

The Jungle Book was the said that the voice talents

first

feature film of which

were more than

it

can be

just appropriate. Phil

George Sanders, Sterling Holloway. Louis Prima, Verna and Sebastian Cabot were chosen to speak for the animals of Kipling's jungle— all of them actors whose voices had distinct personalities that would to a large extent dictate the approach the animators would have to take. We have remarked Harris,

Felton. Pat O'Malley.

121

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery

Day before that animators think of themselves as actors, and

own

took on the challenging task of matching their

performances of the

now

they

skills to the

live actors.

had— on the strength of a board of Ken Anderson— given the go-ahead for the next

Before he died, Walt Disney

drawings by

feature project, which appeared in 1970 as The Aristocats. This film

blends the vernacular style of

One Hundred and One Dalmatians

with The Jungle Book's, developments in voice characterization,

and the

result

comedy

a delightful

is

that has enjoyed great

popu-

larity.

An

aristocratic cat

kittens

become

butler.

Stranded

named Duchess (Eva Gabor) and

her three

the objects of the evil designs of their mistress's in the

French countryside, they are befriended by

an alley cat called O'Malley (Phil Harris again). The film follows their adventures as they

make

way back

their

only to be

to Paris,

confronted once more by the black-hearted butler. This time the

and Duchess and O'Malley

villain gets his just deserts

ever after (the story line

is

live

happily

reminiscent of Lady and the Tramp).

Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966) and Winnie the

Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968) are

made during

this

same

a pair of irable featurettes

period. Apart from Americanizing

some of

A. A. Milne's characters, the Disney artists dealt very capably with the difficult task of translating the

screen.

The second

film

is

atmosphere of the original with

especially good,

to the

imaginative

itself (wind and rain threaten to blow or wash the words from the pages). Most of the characters are well

animation of the book

conceived, with Tigger perhaps the outstanding success.

At

five

least

of the postwar features— Cinderella, Lady and the

Tramp, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, and

The Aristocats— are

excellent, each of

informal kind of entertainment. features

first five

If

them moving toward

we put

a

more

these together with the

and the best shorts of the

thirties

and

forties,

we

have an extraordinary body of work. Walt Disney's achievement can hardly be overstated.

He

took a marginal branch of the

entertainment industry, transformed

went on

to

make

a

it

into

major contribution

an

and then

art form,

to the history

of the cin-

ema.

What makes

this all the

more remarkable

is

the fact that

it

represents only one aspect of his career.

There

is

a degree of overlap in the production of Disney

features. Before Featuring Tiggcr, Eeyore, and. of course,

Pooh Bear. Winnie Blustery Day, 1968,

Pooh an J the a charming

the is

adaptation of an A. A. Milne

si,. is

one

is

finished, the next

is

already

advanced stage of planning. Several possible investigated

everyone

and one selected

will

be involved

Reitherman. and

his top

as the

most

in this process,

animators very

animated

in

stories

likely candidate.

a fairly will

be

Almost

with the director. Woolie

much

to the fore.

But the

Robin

Hood

Like many other Disney films. Robin Hood uses animals to caricature human types

man who

has the greatest responsibility at this stage

Anderson, whose wide experience design,

and

art direction

of developing

new

in

layout,

story,

makes him an excellent choice While The Aristocats was

projects.

is

Ken

character for the task still

on the

boards, Anderson was exploring possibilities for the next film.

Studio executives favored a "classic" subject for the Ken Anderson suggested a new treatment of the Robin

movie.

Hood legend, and everyone was enthusiastic. Once an overall approach and the broad had been decided on, the Studio began

to

outlines of the story

look around for voice

123

talent to

fit

and

the characters,

notable array of acting abilit\ was

a

assembled. Peter Ustinov was signed

and insecure

who

lion

Terry-Thomas was

is

cast as the

to play Prince

pathetic

the

villain

John,

a vain

of the

piece.

snake Sir Hiss. Prince John's constant

and obsequious companion. Robin Hood, portrayed

as a fox.

is

played by Brian Bedford, and Phil Harris was featured once again, this

time as the voice of Little John. Other talents concerned

include those of

Andy Devine.

Pat Buttram. and countrv and

western singer Roger Miller.

The

first

animator

to

work

in earnest

on Robin Hood was, Ollie

Johnston. While the remainder of the staff was

another project, Johnston began

to

still

engaged on

develop the character of Prince

John, building on Ustinov's voice track and

Ken Anderson's

character sketches. (Anderson had turned, for inspiration, to the

cartoon segments of Song of the South— recalling that everyone had

enjoyed working on that picture and theorizing that "the kind of thing

decadent

lion,

we do

it

represented

best.") In delineating the personality of the

Johnston was very

interpretation of the character— so

much guided by much so, in fact,

Ustinov's that

it

is

impossible to watch Prince John's scenes without seeing a strong

of the actor's features under the animal's shaggy mane.

hint

Johnston added touches of his own, rounding the character out; then the other animators ed him. making their tions.

No one

person

is

own

totally responsible for the overall

Prince John. His character

is

contribu-

concept of

blended from the contributions of a

dozen different people. Further projects are already being planned. In one important respect, then, this discussion of

incomplete, since

much

we

Disnev animation must remain

are talking about a going concern. Just

of a future there

is

for

how

animated features depends on the

extent to which younger artists can be attracted to a craft which

demands

a long and exacting apprenticeship.

The

present dynasty

of animators can carry the weight of production for a time, but there

is

an urgent need for reinforcements.

For the time being, however, the organization that Walt Disney

built continues to

picture industry.

124

occupy

its

unique position

in the

motion

3.

Uv€~actian fttnu

• • •

Actors and Animals

11

Walt Disney's greatest contribution to the motion picture industry was the genius he brought to the art of animation. Since World War II, however, his Studio has become equally well known for

movies and

live-action

its

its

television shows.

Disney had had

limited experience in live-action production stretching back to his

Kansas City days

(the Alice

number of juvenile

Comedies had involved

the filming of a

performers), but the release in 1941 of The

Reluctant Dragon can be seen as a significant departure from the

mainstream of the Studio's productions. At one

documentary about Disney animation, but

it

that as the result of a linking narrative device visiting

selling

movie idea (he performs

a

prompted by

main

gate,

his

he

domineering

is

wife).

this

When

guide,

the intention of

Benchley arrives

given a and a uniformed escort

he finds himself involved

in

all

at the

who to

is

to

elude

kinds of Studio

activities— story conferences, art classes, recording sessions, like.

a

chore under duress,

conduct him into the presence of Mr. Disney. Managing his

is

which has Robert

Burbank premises with

Benchley

the

level this film

becomes more than

and the

Friendly animators show him the secrets of their craft while a

charming young lady introduces him

to the

magic of the paint

laboratory and the multiplane camera, also demonstrating to

how sound

effects are

him

produced. Eventually Benchley does reach

Disney, only to discover that the idea he

is

trying to sell has already

been made into a movie. These incidents are punctuated by short cartoon inserts, including one called "The Reluctant Dragon," and all

kinds of tricks are introduced to help the narrative along

(at

one

point the movie changes from black-and-white to Technicolor).

The Reluctant Dragon

and charming,

it

is

something of

of the Disney Studio during

Segments of

a curiosity.

gives us an interesting

live-action footage

its

if

Unpretentious

somewhat

fictionalized

golden age.

began

to find their

way

into

package films such as The Three Caballeros and Fun and Fancy Free, but the real breakthrough

released in 1946. the

first

of professional actors to

came

with Song of the South,

Disney film that used a tell

full

an entirely fictional

complement story.

It

also

on the reputation of Disney animation by including three cartoon episodes, but from the point of view of future developments it was more significant that the live-action sequences capitalized

127

were well conceived and executed. Song of the South displays the confident professionalism one expects from Hollywood movies of that period.

A

little

more than two years

Mr Heart,

released So Dear to

Bobby

Driscoll

and Luana Patten

A

America.

rural

later, in

January, 1949. Disney

which, like Song of the South, starred as children in nineteenth-century

minimal amount of animation was used

film; for all practical

purposes

it is

in this

a live-action production telling

boy and his pet sheep. Lacking a central figure as James Baskett's Uncle Remus, the film is less memorable than Song of the South, but it is another well-made movie with a the story of a

strong as

to recommend it. The next phase in the development of Disney live-action production came about largely as the result of a historical accident. Because of postwar monetary restrictions, a sizable amount of

good deal

Disney

product of accrued royalties, was frozen

capital, the

in the

United Kingdom. This meant that funds which were not available to the

company

On

Isles.

in the

United States could be used

the advice of his brother Roy,

these funds to

make

in the British

Walt Disney decided

live-action films in England.

The

to use

of

fruits

this

dramas— Treasure Island, The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, The Sword and the Rose, and Rob Row the Highland Rogue—which were released between 1950 and

venture were four costume

1954.

All four of these films can be described as unpretentious, well-told, satisfying adventure stories. Treasure Island, the

Although

it

includes segments of

animation. Song of (he South, released in 1946. is primarily a live-action costume

drama. Set stars

in the

Deep South,

James Baskett

as

the film

Uncle Remus

probably the best of the

and

son's classic novel

series, is

is

first

and

based on Robert Louis Steven-

highlighted by Robert Newton's mes-

merizing performance as Long John Silver— although even without

Newton its

the

success.

movie would have had enough good

The screenplay

is

qualities to ensure

simple but effective. Byron Haskin's

is clean and straightforward, the acting is good throughand the action sequences are handled with vigor and style. The same general virtues are to be found in the other British

direction out,

adventure

stories.

These

films,

which featured performers such

as

Richard Todd. Jack Hawkins, James Robertson Justice, and Glynis Johns, introduced Disney to the reservoir of acting talent that was available in London, one he

would draw upon often

in future proj-

ects.

At some point soon the idea of

making

after the war.

a film

Disney seems

about the pioneer

to

spirit.

have conceived

He

realized that

the last frontier within the political orbit of the United States

Alaska.

The conventional Hollywood approach

the last frontier

would have involved

a

to a subject

couple of major

director with a reputation for handling epic subjects,

budget, but Disney was not

128

bound by convention and

his

was

such as stars, a

and

a big

approach

Treasure Island

Starring Robert

Newton and Bobby was the costume dramas made

Driscoll, Treasure Island, 1949. first in

a series of

the British Isles

in

The Living Desert One of

the

most successful of the True

Life Adventures, The Living Desert. 1953. is

a feature-length production

for the last frontier,

Disney had discovered a new frontier— na-

ture.

marked by

1950 and

Between

spectacular nature photography

more than

1960,

dozen True Life

a

Adventures were produced by the Studio. The two-reel format introduced by Seal Island was used for most subjects— titles include

Beaver Vallev. Nature's Half Acre, The Olympic Elk, Bear Country, Prowlers of the Everglades, and Water Birds. Six feature-length films were also

made— The

Living Desert, The Vanishing Prairie,

The African Lion, White Wilderness, Secrets of

Life,

and Jungle

Cat.

The

many

Milottes were involved in several of these productions but

other

cameramen

also contributed to the

tures—most of them trained

was used

the

for all

films.

naturalists.

A

True Life Adven-

The same

basic formula

subject was chosen

and crews

dispatched to the appropriate locations to gather footage (films

demanded

such as Secrets of Life

laboratory filming rather than to Hollywood and James Algar, Winston

outdoor work). The raw material was sent back edited into usable form by a team headed by Hibler,

and Ben Sharpsteen. The producers

on the audi-

relied

ence's tendency to identify with the animals at an emotional level, so animal behavior

was interpreted

in

human

.

The

structure

of each movie and the commentary that accompanies conceived with

The True

this

Life

this subjectivity,

end

much chance

we must

to is

it

were

mind.

Adventures have sometimes been

and

Certainly the material

given

in

some

presented in such a

to interpret

criticized for

extent this criticism

it

way

that

is

justified.

we

are not

At the same time, these films were not

for ourselves.

take into consideration the fact that

131

The Vanishing Prairie

«*&/

A

The African Lion

specially constructed

camera truck

allowed Al and Elma Milotte to shoot extraordinary wildlife footage for The African Lion, released

in

1955

intended

to

be scientific documents— they were designed for the

enjoyment of a mass audience that was not yet prepared this

to accept

kind of material without a measure of sweetening. Spin-offs from the True Life Adventures include the People

and Places films

series and,

more

significantly, the

many

later

Disney

which blend animal footage with conventional live-action

dramas.

Perri, released in

1957,

was the story of

a squirrel;

its

material was similar to that used in the True Life Adventures, but

was organized

in

such a way that

narrative on which the film

134

it

corresponded with the

was based.

fictional

Davy Crockett,

12

Other Heroes,

and Mary Poppins As

early as the 1930s,

Walt Disney had been aware of the potential

importance of television— perhaps because Mickey Mouse cartoons

were used

of transmitting equipment— and he was

in early tests

careful to retain television rights to the other

all his films.

By

the late 1940s,

major studios were seriously worried about the impact the

new medium was having on theater attendance, and some of their losses by selling the home-screen

rights to their

backlog of productions. Disney was almost alone

in

tried to

recoup

holding out

against the short-term advantages of this course of action.

Having retained Starring Fess Parker

Daw

and Buddy Ehsen.

Crocked was the great success of

Disney's

first

television season

television rights to all his films,

great reservoir of past productions to fresh material

was prepared

draw on, but

a

Disney had a

good deal of

for the initial season in

1954.

The

programs were presented by the American Broadcasting Company. Disney, although not entirely enthusiastic about television, was anxious to go ahead with the plans for building Disneyland, and return for the prestige of a Disney series,

major investment

in the park.

priately, titled Disneyland. Bill

almost

The new

agreed

make

to

series was, quite

Walsh, series producer,

once they came up with a

at

ABC

hit

in

a

appro-

recalls

how

of quite stunning

"We were planning to do a series on American folk heroes— like Johnny Appleseed. Daniel Boone, and Big Foot Wallace-and the first one we picked out, by dumb luck, was Davy magnitude:

Crockett. At that time he was considered just one

We

more

frontiers-

down in Tennessee and when we got the film back to the Studio, we found we didn't have quite enough footage for three sixty-minute shows. So Walt said, 'Why don't you take some man.

shot

drawings and

it

stick

them

all

show's going to be about.' So

of Davy's

we can

life,

and Walt

together and give an idea of what the

we put the drawings

" get a song to go with them.'

Ballad of

together, sketches

said, 'Well, that looks kind of dull.

Maybe

The song was. of course. "The

Davy Crockett." which-like

the

television

episodes

themselves— enjoyed enormous success.

The production was shown in three parts: "Davy Crockett, "Davy Crockett Goes to Congress." and "Davy Crockett at the Alamo." Although they were transmitted in Indian Fighter,"

135

20,000 Leagues Under (he Sea

black and white, they were filmed in color, which meant that the footage could advantageously be re-edited for theater release.

Seeing

this slightly shorter

version today, one must observe that

same kind of basic costume dramas. The story is told with

it

stands up remarkably well, having the

strengths

as Disney's British

crispness

and

a

minimum

The landscape

of fuss. Acting and action sequences are excellent.

used to create atmosphere and the result

is

is

a

well-constructed, fast-moving adventure story. As biography the plot

may be

to the spirit

The nights

a bit oversimplified, but

it

remains essentially

faithful

of the legend.

original Disneyland series

and continued

was broadcast on Wednesday

that time slot for four years.

in

For the

name was changed to Walt Disney Presents and program was moved to Friday evenings. During the 1960-61

1958-59 season the the

season Walt Disney Presents was shown on Sunday evenings; in the fall

of 1961, the program

made

a

major switch, moving

to the

NBC

Sunday evening time slot. After the move to NBC. all Disney television shows were transmitted in color and the name was changed once again— to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. The title was later altered to television network,

where

it

has kept

its

Wonderful World of Disney, but these changes are irrelevant to the which is that the sixty-minute weekly format which

central point,

Disney developed

in

1954 has remained immensely popular— ad-

ding up to one of television's all-time success

stories.

Another hugely popular Disney show was The Mickey Mouse Club, which was launched on October

weekday afternoon

1955,

3,

and televised each

until 1959.

The show developed children could identify.

a pleasant, informal format with

The

talents of the

which

Mouseketeers were

combined with old Disney cartoons and many other kinds of material. Dramatic serials, such as "Spin and Marty," became a popular feature of the program.

Other series such as Zorro and The Mouse Factory enabled the Disney Studio

Over stable

to retain

the years,

it

area of the

gradual

shifts

an important share of the television market.

has continued to aim

its

programing

at the

most

market— the family audience— allowing

of taste rather than attempting to

make

for

radical

changes.

In 1954, the year in Released the Sea

in 1954,

20.000 Leagues Under

was the Studio's most lavish up to that point. It

live-action film

featured elaborate

sets,

exotic locations,

and spectacular scenes shot water tank

in a special

which the Disneyland television

series

was

launched, the Studio released 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, easily its

most ambitious live-action picture up

to that point

modest predecessors, 20,000 Leagues was planned as a big-budget movie using major Hollywood stars (Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas, and Peter Lorre) and Far removed from

its

spectacular special effects.

137

Swiss Family Robinson Adapted from Johann Wyss's

classic

novel, Swiss Family Robinson. 1960. starred

John Mills and featured a

spectacular tree house which later formed the basis for a popular attraction at both

Disneyland and Walt Disney World

The

project

demanded

Much

photography.

one of the Disney sound outdoor tank

at the

elaborate sets and a great deal of trick

of the action was shot

Fox

in a large

water tank on

were filmed

stages; other scenes

and location work was done

lot,

and off San Diego. One high spot of the action

is

in

in

an

Jamaica

a violent fight

between the crew of the submarine Nautilus and a giant squid— sequence that called for all the ingenuity the Studio could muster.

The Jules Verne original provided a marvelous basis for a film combining fantasy and adventure. Script and direction were excellent and production values outstanding. James Mason was Captain

cast as

Nemo— half villain,

icy rage to the sinister

half

commander of

hero— bringing

a sense of

the Nautilus. Paul

Lukas

played an eminent scientist who, along with his apprentice, Peter

captured by

Lorre,

is

Verne

tradition, are a

Nemo. little

All three characters, in the best Jules

out of the ordinary. Their eccentricity

is

balanced by the down-to-earth figure of the whaler, played by Kirk Douglas. The whaler

of course brave and strong and handy with a

is

harpoon. More important, his viewpoint

uncomplicated by

is

making him the character with whom most audience would identify. So far as the protagonists

intellectual aspirations,

of the potential

are concerned, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea deals in of grips our imagination because

simplifications, but

it

as a battle of ideas

and emotions.

Swiss Family Robinson

from a

the starring role, this

on a

tropical island.

is

convincing

yet another major production taken

is

adventure story. Released

classic

it is

in 1960,

with John Mills in

the story of an emigrant family shipwrecked

We

how they learn to cope with their how they deal with a band of Oriental

see

unfamiliar environment and pirates.

The Shaggy Dog, released zany comedies.

It

starred

other similar vehicles for

Minded actress this

Professor,

1961,

in 1959,

it

of the Studio's

was followed by

in several

Disney films during

including costume pieces such as Pollyanna and

contemporary comedies

like

The Parent Trap.

The Studio was now enjoying live-action

first

MacMurray's talents, notably The Absent and Son of Flubber, 1963. The British

Hayley Mills was featured

period,

was the

Fred MacMurray, and

success with a wide variety of

productions, and animation was also thriving.

outlook for Disney was very bright, a fact

remarkable because

at

this

made

all

the

The more

time other major studios were ex-

periencing a sharp decline in their fortunes.

In 1964

Disney released Mary Poppins, a film which became one of

the greatest hits in the history of the

Adapted from

P. L.

motion picture industry.

Traverses children's stories, the movie provided

139

Andrews with

Julie

spectacular screen debut and smashed

a

home and

box-office records at

abroad.

Mary Poppins is a unique movie, imaginative and entertaining. Those who expected a direct adaptation of Mrs. Travers's stories may have been a little disappointed, but it could not have been Her

otherwise.

delicate fantasies

considerable change. the

work beautifully

words, but

in

does not translate into film without undergoing a

literary artifice

movie with

Bill

Walsh and Don DaGradi had to provide and they could only do this by altering

a structure,

to some extent. Andrews is certainly a more glamorous and youthful version of Mary Poppins than the one we meet in Mrs. Travers's stories. She brings to the character a charm and spark of her own.

the

raw material Julie

Her singing voice and dancing ability her performance

some kind of marvelous

perpetually on the verge of

Primness

Mary Poppins's

is

that

self-discipline

fragile

are great assets, but the key to

her ability to seem prim and proper yet

is

modicum of form on

solitary link with

manages,

just

insanity.

everyday reality—

barely,

impose a

to

the tides of fantasy that flow just below the

surface.

Edwardian London

is

reconstructed with a good feeling for

atmosphere, clever use being

and of simple

effects

made both

of remarkable special

would not seem out of place on Throughout the film, the real and

sets that

the

the Broadway theater. imaginary are combined in inventive and believable ways, notably, of course, in the scenes that combine live action with animation. In

stage of a

the production of

pooled

to

Mary

Poppins,

all

of the Studio's resources were

produce a motion picture that probably could not have

been made anywhere

else.

The sound track is dotted with memorable songs, "Chim Chim Cher-ee." "Jolly Holiday." "The Life Spoonful Mary

Pnppins, released in 1964, used

combining

live

all

Disney Studio, action with animation and

the resources of the

featuring startling special effects

of

Sugar,"

and

Lead."

I

"A

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."

is at least one dance routine in the best tradition of the Hollywood musical. Mary Poppins is. in fact, an extravaganza of the sort that had been fairly plentiful in the thirties and forties, but

There

which seemed Since

Mary

to

1967,

be a

lost art in

the sixties.

Poppins, Disney has released a

live-action films,

number of

good examples being The Happiest

The Love Bug,

1969,

was The Island

at the

type of adventure.

mention the have

made

Top of the World,

a

One cannot pretend

lesser productions that

in

interesting

Millionaire,

Bedknobs and Broomsticks,

The WOrhl's Creates! Athlete. 1973. Released

1971.

December

and 1974

spectacular Jules Verne that these films, not to

have emerged from the Studio.

a vital contribution to the history

of the cinema, but they

do deserve to be treated with more respect than accorded them

140

in particular.

is

generally

One

of the most spectacular sequences in Mary Poppins chimney sweeps' dance, set on the rooftops of London

is

the

Walt Disney's position

in the

pantheon of movie greats

almost entirely from the imagination and art

vitality

of animation. But he was also a very practical

that the kind of operation he ran required a

results

he brought to the

man who knew

sound financial base.

Live-action production has been vital to the fiscal health of the organization. Without these films there might have been no later

animated features— perhaps no Disneyland and no Walt Disney World.

142

4.

The Magic Kingdom*...

Beyond Film: Disneyland

13

and Walt Disney World Disneyland grew from an idea that had beem maturing in Disney's head for fifteen or twenty years before it became a physical reality.

When

his

daughters were young, he would take them

amusement parks and playgrounds, and he

to local

said later that those

often unsatisfying visits triggered the notion that a park could be

devised which would be as entertaining for adults as for their children.

Shortly after the war. Disney's doctor suggested that he find

some

leisure activity that

would give him

pressures of running the Studio,

if

a

chance

to

escape the

only for an hour or two a day.

Disney had always loved railroads, and this interest was now fanned by the discovery that two of his top animators were already serious railway buffs.

re "I told

One

of these was Ollie Johnston,

who

the beginnings of Disney's enthusiasm:

him

I

was building

a steam engine.

He

said,

'You are?

always wanted a backyard railroad myself.' So he came out

where we were building mine,

in

his.

They

started building

it

He came out two how he was going to

Santa Monica.

or three times and he started to get ideas on build

I

to

here in the shop, several months

He had this keen setup around his yard with about half a mile of track. He had a real nice thing with a tunnel— it went under his wife's flower garden and he made her sign a contract that said he could put the track there. He had all kinds of bridges and things for later.

it

too.

"We'd work on one of my 'Hey,

I

it

here at the Studio sometimes. I'd be working

and he'd say. found out where they keep the hardwood.' So he'd where I could find some nice scraps of lumber. He built a

think

show me

at

cars, out there in the carpenter's shop,

I

beautiful, old-fashioned headlight for his engine,

and he built all and boxcars. Walt was good with his hands. Roger Brodie was head of the shop then and he kind of guided Walt the cars— cattle cars

along.

overleaf:

at

Walt Disney World,

Florida, Cinderella's Castle

centerpiece of the Magic

is

the

Kingdom

in

"The next thing you know. Walt was thinking about putting a around here, at the Studio. There was a guy in Los Gatos who had some engines that were used in the 1915 Pan American Fair in San Francisco, and Walt was thinking of buying those. Then he got to thinking there wasn't enough room here and before long there was a Disneyland." railroad

145

%

\

4*1*

•

fe£

iiras

-*«Si£> "'-'m&i

When 1955.

Disneyland opened

in

was surrounded

it

by orange groves

It's

a

Small World:

one of the most

popular

attractions at both Disneyland

and Walt Disney World

In

1952,

initials

of his

Disney

set

own name)

WED consisted, at

first,

WED

up an organization called to

begin planning the park

of a handful of designers, mostly co-opted

men who

from the Disney animation department. They were understood

(the

in earnest.

how Disney worked and

they were well equipped to

and models were made for an as yet and part of the impact of Disneyland may well

interpret his ideas. Plans

unchosen

site,

was planned

derive from the fact that

it

dream interpreted by

own

his

this

way— with

Walt's

and no attention paid to As the park began to take

artists

potential topographical limitations.

shape on paper, the Stanford Research Institute was called find a site within the greater Los Angeles area.

acres of orange groves in

Anaheim,

to the

They

settled

in to

on 160

south of Los Angeles,

which seemed suitable for a number of reasons. Disney's overall concept for the park has

which has proved extremely

defining the perimeter of the park, with right at the entrance. to

down Main

Once

its

its

main

station situated

would have

Street— a reproduction of the heart of a small

Midwestern town such

148

kind of logic,

past the station, the visitor

as

Disney himself might have known

boy. Entered from a small square on which a station

own

effective. His plan called for a railroad

town

were situated. Main Street was calculated

hall to

and

as a

a fire

correspond

with one of the archetypes of the American imagination.

provide an operating base for than that,

it

would

would be put than

less

many

establish the right

in a receptive state

to

life-size,

It

was

to

of the concessions, but. more

ambiance, so that

visitors

would be

slightly

of mind.

scale

Its

enhance the sense of friendliness and would be available— trams and horse-

intimacy. Transportation

drawn streetcars— but people on by the imposing edifice

Street

Castle— the

likes

foot at

would be drawn down Main far

its

end— Sleeping

Beauty's

of which has seldom been seen in any Midwestern

town.

would be important

It

keep people moving

to

Disney had an expression which voiced

his

regard: "You've got to have a wienie at the

in the park,

philosophy

end of every

in

and this

street."

Translated into practical , this meant that his planners had to

provide a sequence of visual magnets that would keep drawing

on to the next attraction. Situated at the hub of the park, the would be the biggest of these magnets, and all paths would

visitors

castle

converge on the

A feature

traffic circle

visitor

who

would

find himself,

immediately

in front

of

it.

followed a clockwise route from first

of

all, in

Frontierland, then in Fantasyland, and finally in (other possibilities, such as Holiday

this central

Adventureland. next

Land and

in

Tomorrowland

Lilliputian Land,

were considered, then abandoned). Each of these areas would have a specific

atmosphere appropriate

and references

to

to

name. Disney characters

its

Disney movies would be found throughout the

park. It

was

a

good plan.

which was new An

aerial

view of Walt Disney World's Main Street

to this

It

had a sense of structure and continuity it capitalized fully on

kind of enterprise, and

the established Disney image. Everything

had been thoughtfully

considered and imaginatively developed.

Disneyland was opened on July

hand

to

17, 1955.

Television crews were on

record the opening ceremonies, and thirty thousand guests

thronged Main Street and explored the farthest reaches of the

complex. Millions more saw the opening on their entertainment

facility

had ever enjoyed

this

home screens. No

kind of publicity, and

Disneyland became a national phenomenon overnight. Crowds

came 18

flocking through the gate— more than a million between July

and September

complete

30,

and almost four million during

the

first

fiscal year.

Disneyland soon became a regular stopping-off place for

all

kinds of foreign dignitaries. Walt Disney had built the Versailles of the twentieth century— but

it

was

a Versailles designed for the

pleasure of the people. At the time of its inauguration course, quite the dense

complex

that

we

it

find today.

was not. of As yet. no

Monorail had been installed, no New Orleans Square divided Adventureland from Frontierland, and many of the most popular

150

rides

were not even

in the

planning stage.

What

existed

was an

unusual and agreeable environment suitable for further expansion but already providing novel entertainments for both children and adults.

Apart from the originality of

designed are the

The

like a

same

movie

lot.

skills that

difference

is

its

plan,

what makes Disneyland

from other amusement parks

radically different

The

went

that a set

skills that

into

may

Main

the fact that

it is

go into building film

sets

Street

is

and Frontierland. open onto

consist of facades that

nothing, whereas Disneyland's streets are punctuated by doors that give access to rides, entertainments, stores,

The

and restaurants.

success of Disneyland had persuaded Disney that a second

He wanted his new park to serve the Eastern and Florida offered the best environment. Its climate-like of southern California— would permit year-round operation,

park was desirable. states,

that

and the

state attracts

over twenty million tourists annually.

More

than three-quarters of these visitors travel by automobile, and as many through central Florida. And. because the vast majority

of Florida vacationers are from east of the Rockies, the two parks

would not be in direct competition. Disney was not the kind of man who could be satisfied with merely repeating himself, and he conceived his new project as far more than just another Disneyland. It would be a complete vacationland, cushioned from the outside world, providing hotel

accommodations and camp sites as well activities, from boating to birdwatching

as all kinds of recreational to golf.

The

project

would

also include an industrial park designed to showcase American

and a small community— Lake Buena Vista-which would homes and permanent residences. More ambitiously, EPCOT-an experimental prototype community of business,

Walt Disney World's Crystal Palace alass-and-steel structure

is

a spectacular

include both vacation

tomorrow— became said, "It will take

part of the plan. Speaking of

its

EPCOT

Disney

cue from the new ideas of new technologies

emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems." It would be, he said, a place where "people actually live a life

In

they can't find anywhere else in the world today." Disney representatives obtained control of a large

1964.

area straddling the line separating Orange and Osceola counties in Florida. Surveying his property from the air, Disney

central

decided that the shores of Bay Lake-its largest natural body of water-was the spot to begin Phase One of the development, and the practicality of this choice

was borne out by detailed

studies.

He

died six months before the earth-moving equipment arrived at the of Phase One down site, but he had already supervised the planning to the last detail

ment of

the

and

laid

down

general principles for the develop-

whole property.

151

As scheduled. Walt Disney World was opened bv Roy Disne) in

October. 1971.

Long before he began

to build

collector of mechanical possibility

Disneyland, Walt Disney had been a

and these suggested

toys,

him

to

of finding a three-dimensional equivalent for the

the

of

art

screen animation. In the mid-forties he began to experiment with

Ken Anderson worked secretly with him Then films were made of Buddv Ebsen dance routines, and Disney engineers (whom he later rebaptized "Imagineers") made a small model of Ebsen which mechanical puppets, and to devise

some

reproduced

theatrical settings.

movements with reasonable

his

was mounted beneath

figure

a

The

faithfulness.

proscenium arch above a large

console, giving the whole the appearance of a sinister

Punch and

Judy show, the kind of thing Boris Karloff might have toyed with

some

in

still

in

epic of the macabre. At this time, the electronics industry was its

vacuum

and the console had

infancy,

tubes as well as

many

to

house cumbersome

purely mechanical elements— fly

wheels and escape mechanisms— with which a clockmaker would be quite familiar.

The console was programed by something closely strip of paper, punched with

resembling a piano roll— a long From

a technological point of view, the

Hall of Presidents, in Walt Disney World. is

probably the most sophisticated

patterns of holes,

which looped through

required responses.

The Ebsen puppet worked, but

was too clumsy

to suggest

lay neglected, but

attraction Disney engineers have yet built.

years

Featuring

Walt Disney World. Later,

lifelike full-scale figures

every American president,

speech given by

its

of

highlight

is

a

it

in the

Abraham Lincoln

round

practical,

it

it

and triggered the machinery

the

any immediate application; has

now been

for

many

restored for an exhibit at

solid-state technology

made animation

and Disney engineers developed puppets

controlled by what they called "audio-animatronics."

The birds

first

audio-animatronic models

made were some

exotic

which eventually formed the basis of Disneyland's Tiki

Room. The birds, perched among tropical vegetation, put on a little show for visitors, singing and cracking jokes. It was not until 1964. at the

New

York World's

Fair, that the full potential of audio-ani-

matronics was revealed to the public. Disney contributed a

number

Motor Company's "Magic Skyway," General Electric's "Progressland," and Pepsi-Cola's "It's a Small World" (the last adapted for both Anaheim and Orlando). The most impressive exhibit, however, was "Great Moments with of attractions, including the

Ford

Mr. Lincoln," which Disney prepared for the Visitors

were confronted with a

the nation's sixteenth

president,

Illinois pavilion.

startlinglv lifelike facsimile of

who

rose from

his chair

and

addressed his latter-day countrymen. Lincoln not only talked, he

emphasized

his

thoughts with naturalistic gestures and his eyes

raked the audience as though challenging opponents to debate. shifted his weight

from one foot

to the

changed with the sense of his words. He almost seemed

The impact was

152

extraordinary.

He

other and his expression to breathe.

WED engineers

programing

Walt Disney World's Mickey Mouse Review

The complexity of

the

audio-animatronic figures can be judged from these

photographs taken

at

WED

during the preparation of characters for the Country

Bear Jamboree

This success was not easily won. Indeed, only a few months Lincoln it had seemed that The Lincoln figure was very complex problems. The President smashed his

before the opening of the pavilion

would never be ready

in time.

and posed serious control

chair and threw mechanical

men working on

fits

that threatened the safety of the

him. But Disney was determined that the figure be

ready in time, and eventually the power was harnessed.

Equally sophisticated audio-animatronic figures are

many

tured in

attractions at both Disneyland

now

fea-

and Walt Disney

World. Pirates of the Caribbean, the Mickey Mouse Review, and both Haunted Mansions offer good examples, but perhaps the most

Walt Disney World's Hall of

successful ones are to be found in

Presidents and at the Country Bear Jamboree, versions of which

have been installed

in

both parks.

Years of experience taught the Disney artists

sense of reality

is

in

the field of screen animation have

how

to use

movement

with economy.

often best transmitted by suppressing

A

move-

ment—for example, a character may express surprise more effectively by raising an eyebrow than by throwing up his hands. It is such knowledge that has made audio-animatronics so valuable an asset to the parks, for without

into these figures

Animation

is

it,

the engineering skill that goes

all

would be wasted.

the most completely controlled form of film-making

imaginable. As

we have seen

preplanned. Nothing

is

left to

in

earlier chapters, everything

temperament of

the

is

stars, to the

day-to-day inspirations of director and cameraman, or to the vagaries of light

and weather. Disneyland and Walt Disney World

conform to the princimaking his animated films. All the elements of a movie must be made to complement each other— and this criterion was adapted in deg the parks. The movie influence is most obvious within the context of individual attractions. The Haunted Mansion, for example, presents us with an example of a ride that unfolds in time in exactly the same way a motion picture does. A movie transports an audience from point A to point Z by means of a carefully structured sequence of visual devices— the camera following the action and the audience traveling with the camera. The camera is, in other words, a moving vehicle which carries the viewer through the plot. In the Haunted are controlled environments engineered to ples

Disney had developed

Mansion, as

in

many other

in

attractions at the parks, another kind of

vehicle— a car that runs on rails— is substituted for the camera. The visitor

is first

ushered into a gothic lobby where he finds himself,

along with a hundred other people, surrounded by sinister portraits.

A

disembodied voice

lights are

planned

154

issues a

few words of warning, then the

extinguished and the show begins with a teaser— a device to set the

atmosphere and

to

draw

the viewer into the

unfolding situation. The floor begins to drop and a body suddenly appears, hanging from the ceiling high above.

The sinking

immediately establishes a sense of insecurity, but

it

floor

has the added

down to a basement level them through the rest of the

practical purpose of bringing visitors

where they board the cars

that take

show. These cars carry the guests through a sequence of spooky

new kind of phenomenon (to describe these would be unfair to The cars, each wired for stereo sound, are built in

environments, each of which exposes them to a "supernatural" future riders).

such a way that the rider can see only what him. Each car

is

directly in front of

on a swivel so that it can be turned, by electronic signals, to face just what the designer wants it to face at any particular moment. In this sense, then, it is used exactly like a is

movie camera. The rider

is traveling through a programed show The choice of where to look is not his to has already been made by the designer, who determines

which unfolds

make— it what

will

in time.

be seen, just as a director determines what the movie

patron will see. This degree of control certain

rides,

is,

of course, limited to

but everything in the parks

is

touched by the

motion-picture expertise of the Disney organization. Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, with delicate wrought-ironwork,

is

its

designed

Just as the

"theme" parks deal

in

everything from nostalgia to

to

blend with the architecture of adjacent

space technology, so their transportation systems represent a wide

New

variety of types

Orleans Square

and

eras.

Main

Street

is

horse-drawn vehicles, yet a short walk

served by tram cars and

will take

you

to a stream-

The engines and rolling stock of the railroad circling the park conjure up the golden age of steam, but the People Mover that runs through Tomorrowland is a silent, electrically lined Monorail.

powered product

that belongs entirely to the second half of the

twentieth century. Other kinds of transport— from cable cars to

complex network made all the is so far removed from the mass-transit systems we are accustomed to in the "real" world. The investment made in each of the major attractions at the boats— abound, meshed into

river

more

satisfying

by the

a

fact that

it

parks exceeds the budget of any Broadway show. This possible by the fact that as forty to

so

one

thousand people

ride alone

in a single day.

many people— of

all

which has

its

own

The

made many

necessity of appealing

the character of the attractions. are

aimed

at a specific

segment of

well-defined needs and interests.

Disney designers do not have the luxury of trying tastes

is

be enjoyed by as

and from every imaginable

ages

background— clearly determines Most films or stage performances the population

may

to satisfy the

of only one group— their entertainments must appeal to

everyone, and this

means

that they

must work with universal con-

cepts.

Several attractions— Main Street, Frontierland,

New

Orleans

Square, and Liberty Square— capitalize on nostalgia, a sentiment to

which everyone responds

to

some degree.

Its

opposite, the concept

155

in Walt Disney World, reproduces the quiet

Liberty Square,

elegance of an American colonial town

The wrought

iron

and engraved

glass of Disneyland's

Orleans Square

New

illustrates the

great care taken in reproducing architectural styles for the parks

of progress,

embodied

is

Tomorrowland. The Jungle Ride, the

in

Swiss Family Robinson's Tree House, and Pirates of the Caribbean all

Haunted Mansion

exploit a yearning for the exotic, while the

and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attempt confront the unknown.

One

and explain

in

its

appeal

common

response

to

of some instinctive or emotional all

of

us.

"common

factor" does not encourage

the designers to indulge in intellectual subtleties, but for a fascinating series of archetypal experiences.

may broaden

them

it

A

does make

great film or

the horizons of thousands of people, introducing

to fresh ideas or

deepening

their

The Disney parks have

condition.

to

could take every feature of the parks

almost

This emphasis on the

play

our urge

to satisfy

understanding of the

a very different goal.

human

They

are

designed to satisfy the existing imaginative appetites of tens of millions of

men, women, and children.

For years, Disneyland was an object of scorn circles.

Many

vulgarity

people

and

its

who had never

in architectural

disregard of textbook precepts. Those

the trouble to experience

discover that Disneyland

at First

it

deplored

visited the park

who did

hand were often surprised

worked— worked

at the

its

take to

very basic level of

being a compact architectural complex which could efficiently

handle up At Walt Disney World, the streamlined

Monorail glides past Cinderella's Castle

to fifty

thousand people a day. While they paid grudging

and itted

tribute to Disney's multilayer transportation system,

was rather innovative, the most

that the park

that the majority of

planners and architects were prepared to say was that Dis-

city

neyland was a happy accident.

Walt Disney World proved

less

easy to dismiss, and in fact

rapidly attracted a good deal of favorable interest. Taking advantage of the experience gained in developing the to

plan

entire

the

organization

complex from

came up with

start

to

first

park,

and able

the

finish,

Disney

solutions to urban-planning problems

to those that had been proposed in and publications around the world, but had never been put into practice. Disney and his assistants were in a position to implement them. Other planners, hobbled by more

that

were remarkably similar

architectural schools

conservative clients, watched with considerable envy.

The turning

first

difficulty the

swamps

Disney team had

to face

into building sites without falling

was

that of

back on the

expedient of draining the entire area— an unfortunate practice,

commonplace

in

Florida for

fifty

years or more, that had disastrous

on the equilibrium of nature. Disney insisted that his planners find a way of creating adequate sites without upsetting the

effects

ecological balance.

From

the outset one large

area— 7.500 acres-was

set aside as a

nature preserve. This tract of swamp and hardwood forest has been

kept it,

158

in its virgin state (only a

hunting for

alligators,

few poachers have ever ventured into

which are

plentiful enough),

and

it is

the

home

of a variety of rare native wildlife, including what are

believed to be the the public,

and

last

team of resident

surviving Florida black bears.

untouched character

its

scientists,

Audubon Society. Had Disney decided because the change

in

drainage was

practice and drain his would have been impossible, would have altered the terrain

water level

ground wherever possible. necessary, but

still

closed to

common

to follow

irrevocably. Instead, he listened to the best advice existing high

It is

carefully protected by a

aided by such organizations as the

property, such a preserve

entire

is

was kept

it

A

and made use of

certain

amount of

minimum and

to a

the

water table of the remainder of the forty-three square miles was protected by an elaborate system of levees and sluice gates.

Within

framework, extraordinary individual

this overall

feats

of engineering were undertaken. Without disturbing the surround-

pumped

ing landscape, a 200-acre lake was

enough white sand

dry,

bed was moved up to the shoreline to provide beautiful beaches, and islands were constructed and planted with palm trees. from

its

Then

was

the lake

with clear water free of the dense

refilled

concentration of tannic acid that had discolored the original water.

Thus, a murky Central Florida lake was transformed into some-

more

thing that looked The Monorail emerges from the vast lobby of Walt Disney World's

Another

like a

Micronesian lagoon.

lake, almost as large,

A-frame Contemporary Hotel vicinity of these bodies of

was

entirely

manmade;

in the

water the major architectural develop-

ments have been placed.

Magic Kingdom— the chief entertainment area World— may imagine they are walking on solid

Visitors to the

of Walt Disney

ground, but they are like the flight

Castle,

in fact

promenading on a

deck of an aircraft

and most of the major

Thirty feet below

is

carrier.

gigantic

Main

attractions are built

a kind of gigantic

deck— rather

Street, Cinderella's

on

this

basement— actually

deck.

the true

ground level— which consists of a vast network of corridors wide

enough

to drive trucks

through, offices, repair shops, kitchens,

restaurants for employees, the world's largest

ment, and a

hundred other

development, space for

all

things.

In

would have

these

wardrobe depart-

more conventional

a

to

be provided

surface level. At Walt Disney World, supplies can be

one spot

to

another without

visitors to the

at

moved from

park seeing a single

delivery vehicle. All along the corridors, at ceiling height, are tubes

which are part of a sophisticated garbage disposal system. Waste material, deposited at various terminals throughout the park, is sucked through these pipes and disposed of by a nonpolluting incinerator. Walt Disney World also has a very advanced sewage treatment plant;

it

makes use of

further purify waste water once

living trees

it

and other plants

to

has been treated mechanically

and chemically. Also

in the service

basement

is

a

computer center

that controls

159

almost

the mechanical

all

components of

the

Magic Kingdom.

from the most elaborate of the audio-animatronic exhibits

to the

tape recorders that provide music for the lobbies of the nearby hotels.

These

hotels,

A-frame "Contemporary," the

the dramatic

flashier "Polynesian."

and

a smaller hotel built alongside

one of the

golf courses, are assembled entirely from prefabricated steel-frame

manufactured near the

units

plant set

site in a

up by

the United

Each unit is slotted into place, fully wired and with all its plumbing and other services already

States Steel Corporation. for electricity installed.

The

The

sides.

Magic Kingdom by

hotels are linked to the

Monorail, which

Alweg all

Walt Disney World allowed Disney to indulge transportation systems more freely than was possible

scale of

his interest in

Disneyland, and their efficiency

in

the

providing spectacular views on

skirts the lakes,

is

startling— whether one rides

the Monorail, the futuristic-looking friction-drive People Mover, or a

paddle steamer out of the world of Mark Twain.

Each of the individual innovations at Walt Disney World if transplanted to a new housing development or shopping

would,

center,

provoke considerable interest and comment. More remarkhowever— more remarkable than the

able than any one thing,

whole catalogue of experiments— is the overall concept, the Disney master plan.

end of his life, Walt Disney— the man who started tell funny stories with animated rabbits and mice— began to think seriously about our environment and wondering what he could do to improve it. This seems to have been the

Toward

the

out by trying to

real

motivation behind Walt Disney World. Disney did not have an

overwhelming desire

to repeat

himself by building another enter-

end, devised to give Disney a chance to try out

mind. What he looked forward

their

way

into his

more than anything

else

was the planning of

been crowding

tal

Community of Tomorrow)— a

Prototype

be twenty-five years ahead of It

would be naive

an answer

to

to

old means to a new some ideas that had

Kingdom was an

tainment complex. The Magic

its

EPCOT

city that

to

(Experimen-

would always

time.

suppose that Walt Disney World provides

our problems.

It

is

not a real city— in the sense of

Chicago or even Orlando-but it is a valuable testing ground and many of the systems that have already been proven there could be used to improve the quality of our everyday life. Even if EPCOT is

Walt Disney World

never

built,

many

valuable pointers.

It

is

will

have given urban planners

too soon to any final historical

Disney World, but we can say that

it

judgment on Walt last and most

was the

audacious flowering of an extraordinary imagination.

160

Portland House Distributed by Crown Publishers, Inc. 225 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10003 America Jacket printed in the United States of

AA **

ISBN 0-517-bbM7M-?

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