During the 1940’s, Disney wasn’t producing big feature-length films. The company didn’t have the staff (they were serving in World War 2), the money, or the resources at the time. Instead, they took sequences that they had created for other filmsor ideas they had for shorts and put them together to create these collections of stories. Disney’s eighth film,Make Mine Music, actually is a collection of shorter segments instead of a complete film. It’s also the third out of the six films released in the 1940’s Wartime Era. In fact, it wasn’t even given a wide theatrical release. It premiered in New York City on April 20, 1946, but didn’t reach many other theaters. Most of it was released on television one short at a time; they were specially released Disney featurettes.
I loved watching this series of shorts. Quite a few of them were absolutely mesmerizing. The artwork was stunning and the music was beautiful. This film, even though it is much less known, has the feel of a classic Disney film. It features those elements of classic cartoons and it also has bits that seem like you are at a museum watching artwork come to life. Since each short is clearly separated by its own title cards, it’s easy to split them up and discuss them. So I’ll go through and talk about the highlights and a simple summary of each short.
1. Blue Bayou
Thissegment doesn’t have too much action going on as far as animation, but it’s visually stunning to watch. We see a beautiful night sky with a full moon that transitions to a bayou. The only character in this segment is a white crane that wades through the water before we see it fly through the areas of the bayou. The color palette features multiple shades of blue and the splashes of white from thecrane.There’s a beautiful scene where we see the full moon reflecting on the water and as the water ripples, the reflection displaces.A beautiful song is sung that is a male and female duet with a Disney chorus in the background.
2. All the Cats Join In
This was an exciting short from the moment it started. I really enjoyed watching this one and it even had my foot tapping. It is based around a jazzy pop song from the time and the music is fast paced and energetic. There is a female scat singer and then eventually we get an awesome duet between a man and woman. The animation is also greatly entertaining. It begins with an animation desk and we see a pencil come to life and begin drawing on the paper. Everything it draws begins to come to life on the page. We watch the story of a group of teenagers dancing to the music from a jukebox at a soda shop. The pencil continues to come in and out of the short as it adds to the drawings. I love watching the characters interact with the animator; it reminds me of “Aquarela do Brasil” from the filmSaludos Amigosthat I discussed previously. This short just made me feel happy. The bright, vivid colors brought a smile to my face and I recommend checking this oneout.
3. Without You: A Ballad in Blue
This is another short that features abstract and symbolic animation instead of characters in a story. It is beautiful to watch. The song is a ballad sung by a male crooner that fits this style of animation well. We begin with a dark room where all we can see is a window and the light shining through onto the floor. It slowly zooms in towards the window where we see that it is raining against the glass. As we watch the glass more, the rain drops begin to turn into different colors of paint streaming down the window and as that pain covers the screen, we see transitions to different types of nature. The colors subtly grow to be warmer as the segment goes on and eventually we see a beautiful sunset with pinks and purples covering the screen. It’s one of those shorts that I described earlier as watching artwork in a museum come to life.
4. Casey at the Bat
The pace picks up greatly here as this segment begins featuring “America’s Greatest Pastime”: a baseball game. This one is not as much as song as it is a poetic recitation to a rhythm. It fits the feature well though. We watch a very slapstick cartoon about two baseball teams playing a game. The team up to bat is down by two and seems to get two people on base accidentally. Then the legendary Casey gets up to bat. This player strikes fear into the other team and the fans love him. We get this huge build up for him to save their team by hitting the home run that gets enough points for them to win. I won’t tell spoil how it ends, you’ll have to check out. But it’s very entertaining. Also, you can tell that there was some animation that was re-used fromSnow Whiteand possiblyBambias well when they show birds in the trees.
5. Two Silhouettes
Here we have a love song ballad that is sung while two live-action ballerinas dance as silhouettes on a bright pink and purple background. It’s very peaceful and their dancing is great. It’s a combination of live-action and animation as two cherubs fly around on the screen occasionally. It’s a simple sequence, but it is very graceful.
6.Peter and the Wolf
This is the segment that I feel as though Disney put the most work into from this film. Based on the musical composition by Sergei Prokofiev. In the piece, each instrument tells the story of a different character. Using animation, Disney was able to add even more life to the characters. None of the characters on screen speak though, the instruments speak for them. However, this segment is narrated by Sterling Holloway, who also narrated the beginning ofThe Three Caballeros.The story of this segment is very thrilling to watch and, if not for World War 2, they could have made a feature-length film from this story. I am glad they did this the way they did. It was fun to watch. You can also tell they put a lot of time into the animation and the different characters.
7.After You’ve Gone
Thisshort features some more abstract art, but it follows the style of the first part ofFantasia.We see instruments and symbols for the instruments dance across the screen with bright and vivid colors. The music is an octet and it’s a fast-paced and lively tune.
8.Jonnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonet
This short reminds me of “The Blue Umbrella” short from Pixar (or I guess it’d be the other way around). It’s a story about two hats – Jonnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonet – are in a hat store together and are in love. That is until Alice is purchased. Then we watch the journey of Jonnie to find his missing love. It’s a sweet, heartwarming love story that makes viewers feel for inanimate objects. It’s funny how animators can make you feel that way. The song is great too. It’s got a nice swing to it and an old-time feel.
9. The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met
We end this film with an opera and an emotional story. Our lead opera singer is Willie the whale with an incredible voice. All of his animal friends are thrilled to hear him sing. Also, we learn that because he has three uvulae, he can sing three voices at once. One day, he gets discovered by people and some misunderstand his gift; they think that he can sing because he has eaten famous opera singers. So obviously they head out to hunt him down. When Willie see that he’s in the newspaper, he starts to dream about the different operas that he’ll sing at the Met when he is invited to sing there. I’m going to throw in some spoilers, so if you want to watch it, be wary here. But sailors head out on a boat to hunt him. As Willie sees them approach, he starts to sing for them. Some of the sailors are amazed and want to stop hunting him. Their captain however, demands that they kill Willie. So, as sad as it is, Willie the whale is killed by a harpoon. We are told not to be too sad though because he now has a sold out show in heaven. It’s an odd way to end this film, but it’s still a great animated sequence.
It was a fun group of segments, and I enjoyed watching it. These few years of animated shorts collections aren’t my favorite from Disney, but they are still fascinating to learn about. And learning I did! Here are some facts that I gathered about this film:
- Twoof these segments were originally planned for release in Fantasia,but were cut for time’s sake. These were “Blue Bayou” and “Peter and the Wolf”. The “Blue Bayou” sequence was actually supposed to go along with Claire De Lune, but it was changed for this film.
- The two dancers in “The Two Silhouettes” were famous ballet dancers: David Lichine and Tania Riabouchinskaya.
- “Jonnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonet” was not in the original theatrical release of the film. It was added on May 21, 1954.
- Nelson Eddy narrated the short about the whale. He also did the voices for all of the characters in the segment.
- This film never received a wide theatrical release, but it was released as shorts on television.
- The original audio was mixed in mono.
- Directed by: Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi and Hamilton Luske.
- Produced by Walt Disney.
Thanks for reading! We’re halfway through the collections of animated shorts and will be moving on to more full-length films soon!
(In case you were wondering, I used an image of water as the featured image because of the multiple segments that featured the color blue: “Blue Bayou”, “Without You: A Ballad in Blue“, “After You’ve Gone”, and “Alice Bluebonet”. I feel like the color blue is emphasized a lot in this film and I decided to feature deep blue water along with it).
Have a magical day!
Dani Doucette
November 16, 2015