Make Mine Music

Make Mine Music

Original theatrical release poster
Directed by
Produced by Walt Disney
Written by
Starring
Production
company
Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Release dates
  • April 20, 1946 (1946-04-20) (Premiere-New York City)[1]
  • August 15, 1946 (1946-08-15) (U.S.)[1]
Running time
 76 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $1,350,000[2]
Box office $2,250,000 (US rentals)[3]

Make Mine Music is a 1946 American animated anthology film produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres on April 20, 1946. It is the 8th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.

During the Second World War, much of Walt Disney's staff was drafted into the army, and those that remained were called upon by the U.S. government to make training and propaganda films. As a result, the studio was littered with unfinished story ideas. In order to keep the feature film division alive during this difficult time, the studio released six package films including this one, made up of various unrelated segments set to music. This is the third package film, following Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. It received mixed to positive reviews, though its first segment, The Martins and the Coys, was panned by critics due to its overuse of violence. The film was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.[4]

The musical director was Al Sack.[5]

Film segments

This particular film has ten such segments.

The Martins and the Coys

This segment featured popular radio vocal group, King's Men singing the story of a Hatfields and McCoys-style feud in the mountains broken up when two young people from each side fell in love. It was edited out in the NTSC home media version, while in the PAL version, it was kept.

Blue Bayou

This segment featured animation originally intended for Fantasia using the Claude Debussy musical composition Clair de Lune from Suite bergamasque. It featured two egrets flying through the Everglades on a moonlit night. However, by the time Make Mine Music was released Clair de Lune was replaced by the new song Blue Bayou, performed by the Ken Darby Singers. However, the original version of the segment still survives.

All the Cats Join In

This segment was one of two sections in which Benny Goodman and his Orchestra contributed the soundtrack to visuals drawn by a pencil as the action was happening, and in which 1940s teens were swept away by popular music.

Without You

This segment was a ballad of lost love, sung by Andy Russell.

Casey at the Bat

This segment featured Jerry Colonna, reciting the poem also titled "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer, about the arrogant ballplayer whose cockiness was his undoing. A few moments are exaggerated or altered and music is added.

Two Silhouettes

This segment featured two rotoscoped live-action ballet dancers, David Lichine and Tania Riabouchinskaya, moving in silhouette with animated backgrounds and characters. Dinah Shore sang the title song.

Peter, Ivan the cat and Sascha the bird realize that they have crossed the line upon meeting the wolf. Sonia the duck remains oblivious

Peter and the Wolf

This segment was an animated dramatization of the 1936 musical composition by Sergei Prokofiev, with narration by actor Sterling Holloway. A Russian boy named Peter sets off into the forest to hunt the wolf with his animal friends: a bird named Sascha, a duck named Sonia, and a cat named Ivan. Just like in Prokofiev's piece, each character is represented with a specific musical accompaniment: Peter by the String Quartet, Sascha the Bird by the Flute, Sonia the Duck Oboe, Ivan the Cat by the Clarinet, Grandpa by the Bassoon, Gunfire from hunters' by the Kettledrums, and the evil Wolf primarily by horns and cymbals.

After You've Gone

This segment again featured Benny Goodman and The Goodman Octet as eight anthropomorphized instruments (Piano, Bass, Drums, Clarinet, Trumpet, Trombone, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax) who paraded through a musical playground.

Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet

This segment told the romantic story of two hats who fell in love in a department store window. When Alice was sold, Johnnie devoted himself to finding her again. They eventually, by pure chance, meet up again and live happily ever after together, side by side. The Andrews Sisters provided the vocals. Like the other segments, it was later released theatrically. It was released as such on May 21, 1954.[6]

The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met

The bittersweet finale about a Sperm Whale with incredible musical talent and his dreams of singing Grand Opera. A legend is spread throughout the city that there is an opera-singing whale, but as it is seemingly disproven, it is assumed that the whale has swallowed an opera singer who is the one the sailors are actually hearing sing. The short-sighted impresario Tetti-Tatti believes this and sets out to destroy Willie, the newspapers announcing that he was going to sea. Whitey, Willie's seagull friend, excitedly brings Willie the newspaper, all of his friends believing that this is his big chance, so he goes out to meet the boat and sing for Tetti-Tatti. He finds them, and upon hearing Willie sing, Tetti-Tatti comes to believe that Willie has swallowed not one, but THREE singers (due to his having three uvulae), and chases him with a harpoon on a boat with three crewmen. Upon hearing the whale sing, the crewmen try to stop Tetti-Tatti from killing the whale, as they want to continue listening to him sing, even to the point of tying up Tetti-Tatti and sitting on him, however he still manages to escape and fire the harpoon gun. In the end, Willie was harpooned and killed, but the narrator then explains that Willie's voice will sing on in Heaven. Nelson Eddy narrated and performed all the voices in this segment. As Willie the Whale, Eddy sang all three male voices in the first part of the Sextet from Donizetti's opera, Lucia di Lammermoor.

Cast

Actor Role(s)
Nelson Eddy Narrator; characters (The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met)
Dinah Shore Singer (Two Silhouettes)
Benny Goodman Musician (All the Cats Join In/After You've Gone)
The Andrews Sisters Singers (Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet)
Jerry Colonna Narrator (Casey at the Bat)
Sterling Holloway Narrator (Peter and the Wolf)
Andy Russell Singer (Without You)
David Lichine Dancer (Two Silhouettes)
Tania Riabouchinskaya Dancer (Two Silhouettes)
The Pied Pipers Singers
The King's Men Singers (The Martins and the Coys)
The Ken Darby Chorus Singers (Blue Bayou)

Theatrical and home video releases

Make Mine Music was initially released in theaters in 1946. Like many other package features of the 1940s, it was never given a wide theatrical reissue. Instead, its distinct segments were separated and released as separate short films or used as segments in Disney television programmes.

Make Mine Music was originally released on Laserdisc in Japan on October 21, 1985. It was released on VHS and DVD in the US on June 6, 2000 under the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection line. This release did not include the segment "The Martins and the Coys", because it had "graphic gunplay not suitable for children." In addition, "All the Cats Join In" was edited to remove the breasts on the girl who emerges from the shower. The Japanese Laserdisc includes none of the edits made to the VHS/DVD versions. No unedited release has been scheduled in America. An unedited version of the film was released on DVD in the United Kingdom in 2013, having been previously unavailable until that point.

Outside of North America, Make Mine Music has been largely unavailable on DVD and VHS. This and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad are the only two films in the Disney Animated Classics canon never to see a release on Region 4 DVD in Australia.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Make Mine Music: Detail View". American Film Institute. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
  2. ↑ [https://archive.org/stream/variety159-1945-09#page/n55/mode/1up Variety 12 September 1945 p 12
  3. ↑ "60 Top Grossers of 1946", Variety 8 January 1947 p8
  4. ↑ "Festival de Cannes: Make Mine Music". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-01-03.
  5. ↑ "Al Sack and Disney". St. Petersburg Times (Times Publishing Company). 19 May 1946. p. 38. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
  6. ↑ "Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet" (in French). Retrieved 2010-12-03.

External links

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