Once Upon A Disney #8: Make Mine Music

The Autumn nights are drawing in, and the stormy weather is blustering me back into the warm arms of the Disney Classics challenge. The good news? This week, there's no sign of pervy Donald Duck. The bad news? We're still about a month away from any Disney movie you will have seen/heard of. For now, we're stuck firmly in Walt Disney's 1940s 'package film' phase, with... 

Make Mine Music (1946)

As the title suggests, Make Mine Music is all about pairing animation with famous pieces of music, in a concert-like format. It describes itself as 'A musical fantasy in 10 parts.' "So it's a rip off of Fantasia?" you may say. Well, yes, it does use a similar conceit. However, Make Mine Music has a few key differences that made me enjoy it more than the former (blasphemous, I know): 

1. It's 75 minutes long, compared to Fantasia's staggering 126-minute runtime 
2. It has 10 short, snappy segments, where Fantasia has 7 long, draggy segments 
3. Its creative choices speak far more to a young audience, with a good balance of contemporary and classical music and kid-friendly stories

As I said, there are some kid-friendly stories – but true to '40s Disney form, there's also some troubling darkness. The first segment in the film, 'The Martins and the Coys,' in which a bunch of hillbillies engages in a violent turf war, was banned for the US home entertainment release, due to excessive gun use (we were chill with it here in the UK, apparently). 

I'm getting serious Gaston vibes and NOT loving it.

For me, though, the violence in this section pales in comparison to the terrifying crowd mentality on display in the later story, 'Casey at the Bat.' An animated version of Ernest Thayer's Victorian poem about a baseball player whose arrogance is his downfall, Disney interprets this particular verse far too literally:

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar, 

Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.

"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;

And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand. 

You get the picture. I was scared. 

On the lighter front, both of the Benny Goodman sections did a great job of capturing the joyous side of the 1940s. 'All the Cats Join In' follows groups of carefree teens as they drive through the streets, sip on milkshakes, and lindy-hop into the night. 'After You've Gone' has anthropomorphic instruments dancing to an ultra-fast jazz orchestra, and it's as fun as it sounds.

When someone decides to grease the dancefloor

However, my favourite segment of the whole film was the, quite frankly ADORABLE, 'Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet.' Set to the delightful tones of The Andrews Sisters – and anyone that knows me can attest that I love a close harmony group – it follows the story of two hats that fall in love in a department store window in Edwardian New York. When the hats get sold to different customers, they are desperate to reunite, to the annoyance of their owners. With the atmosphere of a later movie like The Aristocats and the storytelling of a Pixar short, this section is full to the brim with charm. 

Hats falling love? Check. Hats being able to give birth to baby hats? Check.

The two other major parts of Make Mine Music are Disney's kid-friendly retelling of 'Peter and the Wolf,' and the sillier but also devastating 'The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met.' Both sections expertly balance comedy with a genuine threat. The wolf in 'Peter' is pure nightmare fodder, if only for his teeth, and the whale's tragic demise in 'the Met' is truly heartbreaking. However, the lasting image from 75 minutes of Make Mine Music does end up being a whale singing an aria in a wig and suit, so the comedy goal is achieved. 

While it hits a few bum notes, Make Mine Music was certainly less painful than it could have been. If it's Fantasia for dummies, then I'm definitely a well-entertained dummy.

Sea World used to be far more sophisticated back in the day.

Villain rating:  4/5 for the wolf's killer eyes 

Best Song: All the Cats Join In

Disney Detail: The 'Peter and the Wolf' section is narrated by Sterling Holloway, who voiced Winnie-the-Pooh, the Chesire Cat, Kaa the snake, and Roquefort from The Aristocats. Yup, the cute mouse! 

Why it's a Classic: Although disjointed by design, Make Mine Music shows how Disney understands its place in entertainment, blending the joyous side of contemporary culture with the cosiness of nostalgia. This is carried forward throughout their feature films, with the writers unafraid to put modern jokes and references into traditional fairytale stories. 

Once Upon A Disney #7: The Three Caballeros

Apologies for my brief hiatus, but I'll be honest – the next film in this challenge was not my favourite, and so I was putting it off. However, just like that piece of homework that you hoped would go away and never did, this movie ain't writing about itself. Not one to cheat on a self-imposed project, I've resolved that the sooner we crack on, the sooner we can get back to the true Disney magic. So, without further ado, let's dive into the exotic world of *gulp* ... 

The Three Caballeros (1944)

'Donald, get ready for more Samba music' 

In a nut (or taco) shell, The Three Caballeros takes Saludos Amigos to its logical extreme – when it really didn't have to. We're talking more Latin-inspired music; more Gauchos; more Donald Duck being borderline sociopathic, and just more minutes of profound strangeness. 

Like Saludos Amigos, the movie is made up of a series of short segments, but this time the narrative is loosely driven by Donald Duck receiving presents from his Latin American friends. The first is the most exciting gift you could hope for – a projector, on which you can watch a documentary about birds. So there's that. 

Next, we move on to 'The Cold-Blooded Penguin,' following a pretty cute little fella called Pablo, who just can't get warm in the South Pole, and decides to find balmier climes. By itself, it's a pretty entertaining short, but in the context of the movie, like Pablo himself, it doesn't really have a home. 

When you're at uni and too poor to turn the heating on.

Following the bird documentary and the penguin fable, we're treated to another short called 'The Flying Gauchito,' about a little South American boy who finds a flying donkey and decides to race him. So far, so bearable. But then things get really weird. Introducing... 

Donald the Creep. 

As it turns out, Donald Duck is one pervy waterfowl. The second half of the movie has Donald being guided around Brazil and Mexico, by his familiar cigar-smoking pal José Carioca, and a new beaked, gun-toting Mexican mate, Panchito Pistoles. Whilst José and Panchito are happy to dance with the locals and take magical carpet rides over Mexico, Donald has other ideas. 

'We've been dancing for 9 hours. When can we stop?'

From the minute he sets eyes on a singer in Baia (played by Carmen's sister Aurora Miranda), old Donny has chicks on the brain – and we're not talking the feathery kind. What starts as a comic-book 'lovestruck' reaction becomes an obsession with all females. This involves literally chasing after swimsuit-clad women on a beach and culminates in a strange fever dream around Miranda, which is very uncomfortable by today's standards. 

The creepiness is put into focus due to the fact that the women Donald is lusting after are real actors. Whilst the animated / live-action hybrid is impressively done, it does throw a light on the position women in Hollywood were put in at the time. It's shocking now to think that kids were being taught that women existing as the object of male sexual desire was just something to laugh at and shrug off. Although when you consider some '70s sitcoms, attitudes didn't change for quite some time. 

Going loco down in Acapulco  

#MeToo aside, The Three Caballeros has some interesting conceptual design, some sweet animation and romantic portrayals of South America, and seemed to do its job in capturing the hearts of a nation. But I will be relieved to get to a linear fairytale with some characters other than pervy man-birds. 

Villain rating: 4/5 (For Donald Duck being a complete creep). 

Best Song: Saludos Amigos

Disney Detail: Mary Blair, the lead designer on 'It's A Small World,' was a key animator on this movie, and the section on Mexican children's Christmas traditions oozes her colourful, cute style. 

'Maybe we'll get a properly good Disney movie inside!'

Why it's a Classic: To cut it some slack, it does showcase how Disney would use mixed media (live-action and animation) going forward, in movies like Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. But it's pretty low on the rankings, tbh.