#walt morey

[disney-daily]

♫"One heart, tenderly beating, ever entreating, constant and true"♫

-Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Directed by: David Hand, Wilfred Jackson, Ben Sharpsteen, Perce Pearce, Larry Morey, and William Cottrell

[lovesongbracket]

Reminder: Vote based on the song, not the artist or specific recording! The tracks referenced are the original artist, aside from a few rare cases where a cover is the most widely known.

Lyrics, videos, info, and notable covers under the cut. (Spotify playlist available in pinned post)

The Only Exception

Written By: Josh Farro & Hayley Williams

Artist: Paramore

Released: 2009

“The Only Exception” the third single from Paramore’s brand new eyes was co-written between Hayley Williams and Josh Farro at a time when the band was a quintet, the song is a soft ballad, which provides musical diversity to the album. Hayley Williams explained to Kerrang! in 2009: “I’ve never written lyrics like this before. The first verse is about where I think the fear to be open or vulnerable started. Ever since the first story in Kerrang!, everyone has known about my family issues and domestic whatever, it’s something that’s kinda stayed with me and I’ve learned from. I played this song to my mom and there were tears. It was kind of embarrassing.” Hayley Williams told Alternative Press in 2010: “This is the first love song I’ve ever written. And even if I’ve tried in the past, this is the first one that I’m really proud of. I like that I was able to express the fact that I have always been really afraid of love – and I still am at times – but the excitement and the hope that it exists is still very evident in the lyrics. So it’s not like I’m a total cynic! Love is a good thing, kids.” In terms of its success as a single, it notably reached 24th on the US Billboard’s Top 100 and 31st on the UK’s Single Chart.

[Verse 1] When I was younger I saw my daddy cry And curse at the wind He broke his own heart and I watched As he tried to reassemble it And my momma swore that she would Never let herself forget And that was the day that I promised I'd never sing of love if it does not exist [Chorus] But darling You are the only exception You are the only exception You are the only exception You are the only exception [Verse 2] Maybe I know somewhere deep in my soul That love never lasts And we've got to find other ways to make it alone Or keep a straight face And I've always lived like this Keeping a comfortable distance And up until now I had sworn to myself that I'm content With loneliness Because none of it was ever worth the risk [Chorus] Well, you are the only exception You are the only exception You are the only exception You are the only exception [Bridge] I've got a tight grip on reality but I can't Let go of what's in front of me here I know you're leaving in the morning when you wake up Leave me with some kind of proof it's not a dream Whoa-oh-oh [Chorus] You are the only exception You are the only exception You are the only exception You are the only exception You are the only exception You are the only exception You are the only exception You are the only exception [Outro] And I'm on my way to believing Oh, and I'm on my way to believing

So This Is Love

Written By: Paul J. Smith, Al Hoffman, Mack David & Jerry Livingston

Artist: Ilene Woods & Mike Douglas for Cinderella

Released: 1950

"So This Is Love" is a 1948 song composed by Al Hoffman, Mack David, and Jerry Livingston. It was written for Walt Disney's Cinderella, in which it was performed by Ilene Woods and Mike Douglas. It is sung by the characters of Cinderella and Prince Charming as they dance with each other at the ball. Composed in 3/4 time (also known as waltz time), a secondary title, "The Cinderella Waltz", appears in parenthesis next to or beneath the song's main name on many editions of sheet music. Prior to the Hoffman, David, and Livingston trio joining the film, songs for Cinderella were written by Larry Morey and Charles Walcott, with a song entitled "Dancing on a Cloud" intended for the ball scene. However, their songs would be scrapped. The song does not appear in Disney's 2015 live-action adaptation of the film, replaced instead with 19th-century inspired waltzes and polkas written by cinematic composer Patrick Doyle. Ilene Woods also commercially recorded the song with RCA Victor in 1949 to help promote the film's release the next year. It has since been performed by artists such as Vaughn Monroe, Vera Lynn, James Ingram, and Dave Brubeck, amongst others.

[CINDERELLA] Mmmmmm Mmmmmm So this is love Mmmmmm So this is love So this is what makes life divine I'm all aglow Mmmmmm And now I know [PRINCE] And now I know [CINDERELLA & PRINCE] The key to all heaven is mine [CINDERELLA] My heart has wings Mmmmmm And I can fly [CINDERELLA & PRINCE] I'll touch ev'ry star in the sky So this is the miracle That I've been dreaming of [CINDERELLA] Mmmmmm [PRINCE] Mmmmmm [CINDERELLA & PRINCE] So this is love

[vaguekiwi]

Tagged by @peterrparrkerr

1. Three ships? Starker, Parksborn, Spiderio (edit: I kinda wanna put Spideychelle as the third one, but Spideychelle and Spiderio are both so good in very different ways so 🤷‍♀️)

2. First ever ship? Zutara (Avatar The Last Airbender), Specialshipping (Pokémon), or Zelink (Legend of Zelda). First Marvel ship was probably Stucky / Clintasha.

3. Last song? Prior Warning by Marcus Mumford.

4. Last movie? Recently rewatched Tick, Tick... Boom. Most recent new movie would be Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical.

5. Currently reading? Gentle Ben by Walt Morey and Quantum Girl Theory by Erin Kate Ryan

6. Currently watching? Rewatching Daredevil. Newly working through Abbott Elementary.

7. Currently consuming? Coffee and leftover Christmas chocolates

8. Currently craving? More time

Tagging: @professional-benaddict @sinditia @lemonpeter and anyone else who wants to fill out :)

[snowy-wife]

I would like to appreciate a few dozen people and a couple companies.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, R.K.O Radio Pictures Inc, R•C•A•Victor "High Fidelity" Sound System, Walt Disney, David Hand, Perce Pearce, William Cottrell, Larry Morey, Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske, Fred Moore, Vladimir Tytla, Norman Ferguson, Charles Philippi, Tom Codrick, Hugh Hennesy, Gustaf Tenggren, Terrell Stapp, Kenneth Anderson, Mc Laren Stewart, Kendall O'Conner, Harold Miles, Hazel Sewell, Samuel Armstrong, Mique Nelson, Phil Dike, Merle Cox, Ray Lockrem, Claude Coats, Maurice Noble, Ted Sears, Richard Creedon, Otto Englander, Dick Rickard, Earl Hurd, Merrill De Maris, Dorothy Ann Blank, Webb Smith, Albert Hurter, Joe Grant, Frank Churchill, Leigh Harline, Paul Smith, Frank Thomas, Les Clark, Dick Lundy, Fred Spencer, Arthur Babbitt, Bill Roberts, Eric Larson, Bernard Garbutt, Milton Kahl, Grim Natwick, Robert Stokes, Jack Campbell, James Algar, Marvin Woodward, Al Eugster, James Culhane, Cy Young, Stan Quackenhush, Joshua Meador, Ward Kimball, Ugo D'Orsi, Woolie Reitherman, George Rowley and Robert Martsch.

Without these people, companies and systems Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs wouldn't be a thing and wouldn't exist. So really I appreciate these people and things so much.

— Snow Rants

[vtgbooks]

WALT MOREY Year of the Black Pony Vintage Pony Book Vintage Brumby Book

[brooklynbutterflyarts]

Snow White Movie Poster Many Framing Options Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film) Poster Molding:Professional 1" Flat Top Black (solid-wood) 1.5 inch mat. . Includes glass and metal wire for hanging on your wall. Print: Bonded & Dry-mounted Print on Foam Core. Perfectly flat and smooth finish High Resolution and Quality Full Color Poster Print The double mat adds depth giving the display a unique "looking through a window'' appearance. The calendar print is bonded to foam core on a hot vacuum press. This bonding gives the print a perfect flat and smooth texture. This process also insures the print will never fold or fade with age or moisture. This wonderful display makes a thoughtful and original gift containing a classic vintage touch yet modern design, allowing it to fit alongside both modern and classic decor. BUY WITH CONFIDENCE. ALL OF MY DELICATE ITEMS ARE SHIPPED WITH A SPECIAL 3 LAYER PROTECTION SYSTEM. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the 1812 German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, it is the first full-length traditionally animated feature film and the first Disney animated feature film. The story was adapted by storyboard artists Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and Webb Smith. David Hand was the supervising director, while William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen directed the film's individual sequences. Snow White premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, California on December 21, 1937. Despite initial doubts from the film industry, it was a critical and commercial success and, with international earnings of more than $8 million during its initial release (compared to its $1.5 million budget), it briefly held the record of highest-grossing sound film at the time. The popularity of the film has led to its being re-released theatrically many times, until its home video release in the 1990s. Adjusted for inflation, it is one of the top-ten performers at the North American box office and the highest-grossing animated film. Worldwide, its inflation-adjusted earnings top the animation list.[3] Snow White was nominated for Best Musical Score at the Academy Awards in 1938, and the next year, producer Walt Disney was awarded an honorary Oscar for the film. This award was unique, consisting of one normal-sized, plus seven miniature Oscar statuettes. They were presented to Disney by Shirley Temple.[4]

[g-kaur13]

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) -(David Hand, Wilfred Jackson, William Cottrell, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is an American animated movie, produced by Walt Disney Productions and was realsead by RKO Radio Pictures. It was first full length traditionally animated feature film.

Technique Section:-

In 1930’s early color processes came into use and also multiplane camera were used for better animation. Disney sent his animators to Chouinard Art Institution, to ensure that the animators get the right skill about cameras and realistic movements which in return will make the animations more realistic to audience. For giving his animators more understanding of the concept, Disney also brought animals into studio and hired actors for better griping the main idea. Snow White had been largely finised by the time the multiplane camera had been completed, Disney ordered some scenes to be re-drawn to use new effects in the film. Mostly techniques like Cutout, silhouette and stop motion was used while filming of this animation.

Representation Section:-

The grimm fairy tale gets color to its film for the first time for Disney’s animated cartoon film. It is story of a beautiful lady Snow white, who gets tortured by her setpmother, who also gave orders to murder her. later on she discovers that she is still alive and is hiding in a cottage with seven drawfs. Knowing this makes the setpmother angry and leds her to poison  Snow White with poisonous apple, which makes her to fall into a death-like sleep that can be broken only by a kiss from the prince. This film show the affection of the drawfs towards Snow White. The voice over of Snow White was done by Adriana Caselotti. Walt Disney was looking. for a voice that sounds “away from everyday, as if from another world”.

Reception Section:-

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at the Carthy Circle Theatre on December 21, 1937. The film was hugely appreciated and recieved standing ovation from audience. Six days later after its release, Walt Disney and the seven drwafs appeared on the cover of Time magzine. It became a major box-office success and most successful sound film of all time. It was re-released to theaters in 1952, 1958, 1967, 1975,1983 and 1993. in 1983, on its 50th anniversary release, Disney released one of many authorized novelizations of the story. It had a lifetime gross of 418 million dollar across its original release and several reissues.It is the highest-grossing animated film. 

Personally watching this animated movie of 1937 in todays era is as enjoyable as it was in 1930’s. Knowing that in 1930’s producers and directors didn't have all the technology we have today for animation makes this film more appreciable. 

[televinita]

Ten Random Books From My Physical TBR: Round 2

1. A Hundred Pieces of Me - Lucy Dillon (2014)

Once upon a time I read Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts and it knocked my socks off; adult fiction could be full of animals and be good?? Then I read Walking Back to Happiness and it wasn’t quite as good, but I’d already decided to read all of her books. That was in 2014. But the plot of this sounds more inherently interesting, so I do fully intend to continue when I want a dose of comforting British women’s fiction full of dogs and no gross scenes.

2. The Blue Roan - Adelaide Leitch (1971)

A horse story I bought when my beloved antiquarian bookstore closed down. I know nothing about it. But there’s also a less than 5% chance I won’t like it. (it’s possible for old horse books to be bad GOLDEN MARE, but very hard to be worse than 3 stars, if that)

3. Dear Bill, Remember Me? - Norma Fox Mazer (1976)

This author is hit-or-miss but I’ve read a lot of her work. Why not short stories. (answer: because 70s teen lit is low on my priority list if not animal-centric, though I know at some point I will want a hit of exactly that in the same way I enjoyed Sixteen for 80s fic, and this book will serve me well. Plus it’s one of those pocket-size paperbacks.

4. The Sorrel Horse - Ruth Nolton Moore (1982)

Yet another vintage horse book I know nothing about. :) At least this one is a fairly slender paperback. One day I will pare this collection down a bit and I doubt this one will be a keeper, but until then...

5. Canyon Winter - Walt Morey (1972)

Morey is one of those animals-and-wilderness authors I really loved in middle/high school so I just sort of made it a habit to collect his books as I saw them. This is a particularly nice ex-library one.

6. In Another Light - A.J. Banner (2021)

This is from the Once Upon a Book Club box I scored at the library sale last year. Saving it for when I’m ready to open all the little gifts along the way, an experience I’m so looking forward to that I keep Saving it for the exactly perfect time (check back in 2027).

7. Wild Traveler - A.M. Lightner (1967)

“ family that vacations out West and finds a coyote pup” sold. This is a very tiny book so it is again part of the “vintage wildlife/pocket-sized” collection.

8. The Golden Mean - Nick Bantock (1993)

Is it not enough to simply own the (near) complete collection of beautiful Griffin & Sabine books and maybe take out the removable postcards and letters from time to time to admire them? Must I actually read all the words? 

9. Yukon Mystery - Joseph H. Gage (1965 copy of a ... 50s? story)

Yet another pocket-sized kids/teen western adventure with a dog. These are REALLY satisfying when I want exactly that. That said, this one’s cover is all scribbled over in pen so unless it’s 5 stars I’m planning to let it go once I read it. Which I haven’t done yet because I don’t want to ~waste~ the adventure.

10. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Ohhh, I know this is an ugly-as-sin paperback from the 80s that I saved during one of my mom's purges of her own collection because I thought I might want to read it someday. which I still might. But I will get it from the library, and then if I love it it I'll buy a pretty edition someday. When I find this particular eyesore it is leaving!

I don’t actually have a third round of this post on deck at the moment, so maybe you’ll be spared (maybe)

[whitepolaris]

Where Stars Shun the Spotlight

The award for the most impressive collection of dead celebrities has to go Forest Lawn Memorial Parks in Glendale and Hollywood Hills. Take a look at this roll call if you will: Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Walt Disney, Sammy Davis Jr., Bette Davis, Larry Fine, Clark Gable . . . that’s some impressive Hollywood gathering, above or below the earth. 

Death must be a good business in Los Angeles. Forest Lawn Corporation has five complexes in different areas of the county, covering over 1,200 acres in total. The cream of the crop is definitely the park in Glendale. The grounds look as if someone took every painting of heaven that has been produced since the Middle Ages and used them as production drawings. Periodic billboard campaigns dot the southland, asking motorists to “celebrate a life” with “pre-planning” courtesy of Forest Lawn. 

The 1965 film The Loved One, written by Terry Southern, was supposed to have been a parody of the uniquely southern California-Forest Lawn style of overweeningly pastoral resting places for the dead. A walk through the grounds reveals that the film was not far from the truth. The Freedom Mausoleum is a flag-waver’s paradise, with a massive brass statue of George Washington and busts of founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin installed tastefully throughout the buildings. All around the mausoleum complex, 101 Strings-inspired version of old favorites like “Suwannee River” and “Greensleeves” play on a continuous loop through sometimes static-laced outdoor speakers. Is it comforting or just strange? Does everyone in the graveyard like this music? Can’t they at least install an iPod and leave it on shuffle? 

The biggest problem when visiting Forest Lawn is that, unlike in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, you are on your own to navigate around it. Forest Lawn silently discourages tourists and fans. Some celebrities had the courtesy to customize their commemorative plaques and markers, so as to stand out from the regular noncelebrity dead, like circus legend Clyde Beatty (cool engraving of a lion) or the original rhinestone cowboy, Nudie (designer of Nudie clothing). Unfortunately, it seems the more famous the person, the more unassuming their sites here tend to be. We did find them, though, along with local celebrities like longtime L.A. newscaster Jerry Dunphy and right-wing talk show host and father of actress Rebecca DeMornay, Walley George. There’s an A-list of classic television stars: Morey Amsterdam, Freddie Prinze (the talented one), McLean Stevenson, and Isabelle “Weezy Jefferson” Staford. 

We advise a printout from one of the many Web sites that specialize in this sort of thing. The security staff was surprised that locations of celebrity graves were commonly found on the Internet. “Those are supposed to be private” is a an oft-repeated phrase when the visitor arrives with pictures and directions fresh off some Web site. So if you go to Forest Lawn, make sure you walk with a dignified grace once you enter, because we’re serious about their being sticklers for decorum. Getting eighty-sixed from a swinging Hollywood shindig carries with it a certain cachet; being bounced from a cemetery, no matter how cool the cemetery, is pretty lame.

[animalfictionsource]

Kävik the Wolf Dog by Walt Morey (1968)

[seattlemysterybooks]

philsp.com

January 25th, 1947 issue

cover by Charles Wood

Seattle Mystery Bookshop

[ofallingstar]

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

[dweemeister]

Movie Odyssey Retrospective

Bambi (1942)

In the early 1920s, Austrian Felix Salten began working on his best-known novel. Salten, a prominent Jewish author, was an avid outdoorsman who closely observed the habits of wildlife in the Viennese countryside. His experiences led him to write Bambi, a Life in the Woods, which became a bestseller in Europe. It was a bestseller in the United States, too, but Salten’s work had somehow been recategorized as a children’s book when exported across the Atlantic. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) producer Sidney Franklin (1942’s Mrs. Miniver, 1942’s Random Harvest) purchased the film rights, but he experimented and failed to find a satisfactory way to adapt Salten’s novel. Frustrated, Franklin handed the reins to Walt Disney. While Disney took on this new project, the Nazi Party banned Salten’s novel – claiming it to be, “a political allegory of the treatment of Jews in Germany.”

Salten, who soon fled for neutral Switzerland (never to return home to annexed Austria), may have inserted some such allegories, but that is not his novel’s primary intention. In one of the novel’s most memorable passages not present in the Disney adaptation, Bambi’s father shows his son a poacher’s corpse – another human has shot this poacher. In realizing humanity’s fragility and its sameness to the animals of the forest, a frightened Bambi, while examining the poacher’s body, declares, “‘There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.’” Salten’s novel and the 1942 Disney adaptation directed by David Hand are about the inevitability and universality of death – subject matter not exclusive to children.

Bambi was slated to be the second animated feature by Walt Disney Productions (now Walt Disney Animation Studios). Due to production delays, narrative confusion, aesthetic difficulties, and especially the Disney animators’ strike of 1941, it is the fifth and last entry of the studio’s Golden Age. Whether because of or despite these delays, Bambi seems an outlier in the Disney animated canon. It bears scant artistic resemblance to any of its predecessors or successors. To the bewilderment of viewers who believe that a great movie requires plot, Bambi dispenses of such notions. If conflict appears, it is resolved immediately – with one continuous exception. As Walt Disney insisted on the animation being as realistic as possible while retaining anthropomorphic qualities, the True-Life Adventures series (1948-1960; fourteen innovative nature documentaries that continue to influence the subgenre’s narrative and visual grammar) remains Bambi’s closest cousin in the studio’s filmography. Bambi – wildly innovative, underappreciated upon release and today – completes a consecutive run of five animated features for a Golden Age. Rarely matched today are the standards set by those five films.

This film is a coming-of-age tale; more specifically, it is about a male fawn’s experiences and observations on the natural life cycle. It begins with Bambi’s birth and concludes as Bambi inherits his father’s role as Great Prince of the Forest. This animated Bambi is less pedantic than Salten’s book, which focuses on Bambi’s survival lessons from the other woodland creatures. Instead, story director Perce Pearce (1940’s Fantasia, 1943’s Victory Through Air Power) and screenwriter Larry Morey (primarily a lyricist; 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) adopt a free-flowing episodic structure where Bambi lives life innocently, with violence puncturing through the idyll rather than being omnipresent. We see him befriend the rabbit Thumper and skunk Flower, learn to observe his surroundings before grazing in the open meadow, and play in the snow and on the ice come his first winter. There are comic misunderstandings and warnings about men, neither of which dominate the film.

Bambi also takes time, for a minute or a few, to avert its concentration from its protagonist to other animals. In a less disciplined film, these decisions might undermine the film’s goals – in this case, to portray nature as faithfully as possible within the bounds of a loose narrative. But each of these scenes focused away from Bambi either strengthen Bambi’s characterization, the liveliness of the forest, or the film’s messaging.

A handful of scenes including the elderly Friend Owl introduce us to Bambi and his mother as well as those adolescent, animalistic romantic tinglings he calls “twitterpation”. Friend Owl moves the film forward in ways that abided by the censors at the time, as well as introducing concepts to Bambi and friends in just enough time that is necessary. The most graphic moment during the first scene featuring the hunters (who are never depicted, aurally or visually) does not concern Bambi and his mother, but a few nameless pheasants. Covered in shadow by the long grasses, one of these pheasants speaks of the impending danger, and the audience hears the terror in her tremulous voice. Flying out of the underbrush in a desperate attempt to flee, she is shot by the hunters, and drops to the ground. The frame shows the pheasant’s corpse, but does not linger. This is the only depiction of a dead animal in the film – contrary to the recollections of many viewers. For younger and older viewers alike, this scene emphatically communicates the dangers that Bambi’s mother has warned about, priming the audience for what is to come, and doing so without sensation.

It leads directly to a scene that has become a sort of childhood rite of passage. The death of Bambi’s mother in a later scene has traumatized multiple generations of viewers – intrepid, timeless cinema. As Bambi and his mother are grazing on early Spring grass in the meadow, the latter senses movement and pokes her head up, turning her head realistically as if on a swivel. Her eyes are wide, unnerving. She looks straight at the audience; this would be the stuff of fourth wall-breaking comedy in any other context, but here it is almost inquisitive. Bambi is one of the few Disney canonical films in which what is happening off-screen is equally (if not more) important than what the audience is seeing – something most evident here. The film stubbornly fixes its perspective on the deer and the snow-blanketed backgrounds that emphasize how exposed they are. They flee. There is no cover as the editing becomes more frantic, closing in on the deer’s terrified faces as they rush back to the thicket. A shot rings out. The film’s score – a constant presence throughout Bambi until now – decrescendos from broadening string lines to a chorus vocalizing pianissimo (mimicking the wind-blown snow drifts), and disappears completely when the Great Prince of the Forest appears.

The Great Prince is obscured by the falling snow.

“Your mother can’t be with you anymore.”

Silence. Stillness.

Bambi sheds but a single tear. He walks away with his father and, mirroring his deceased mother, looks towards the audience – this time, not in accusation or inquiry, but faint hope. Cynical viewers label this scene as anticlimactic due to Bambi’s lack of expression. But the filmmaking preceding it – a combination of the editing by Thomas Scott (1939’s Beau Geste, 1948’s So Dear to My Heart); the compositional decisions by composers Frank Churchill (Snow White, 1941’s Dumbo) and Edward H. Plumb (1944’s The Three Caballeros); the attentive character animation by artists too numerous to single out here; and the moody lighting and brushstroke textures to the backgrounds set by Tyrus Wong (1956’s Giant, 1969’s The Wild Bunch) – helps justify Bambi’s reaction. Some of the most important, at times traumatic, moments in life are silent and still. There is just enough pathos here without being anticlimactic or maudlin, or to be patronizing towards young viewers.

And yet the next scene shows Bambi grown up, in the middle of Spring, at play. There is no allusion to the tragedy on-screen a few minutes prior. The filmmakers are not minimizing Bambi’s trauma or nature’s violence, but saying that life nevertheless continues. There is growth, the acceptance of grown-up responsibilities, romance, love, child-rearing. Stags – like Bambi and the Great Prince – mate with does, but do not participate in the lives of their fawns. Unlike other Disney films where animals assume greater anthropomorphized qualities (1967’s The Jungle Book, 2016’s Zootopia), Bambi’s naturalistic approach contradicts any application of human norms and values onto its animals.

For years, this meant struggling to animate wildlife – especially deer. Rendering deer in appealing ways is difficult, due to the shape of their face and the positioning of their eyes on either side of the face. In the end, the animators went with character designer Marc Davis’ (Davis also led the character design of Thumper, Flower, and Cruella de Vil from 1961’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians) outlines: maintaining realistic deer anatomy, but exaggerating the face with a shorter snout and larger eyes. The Great Prince’s antlers proved most infuriating due to the intricate perspectives in animating them. When the animators resolved that they could not animate antlers from scratch, a plaster mold of deer antlers were made and was Rotoscoped (projecting live-action film onto an image for an animator to trace it) the film’s animation cels.

But the most remarkable contribution to Bambi comes from Tyrus Wong. Wong, a Chinese-born American artist, established the look of Bambi’s painterly backgrounds. Based on landscape paintings from the Song dynasty (960-1279; a Chinese historical period when landscape painting was in vogue), Wong’s concept art caught the eye of colleague Maurice “Jake” Day. Day, a photographer, illustrator, and naturalist, spent weeks in Vermont and Maine, sketching and photographing deer and the woods surrounding them. His sketches, however, were deemed too “busy”. By comparison, Wong’s concept art – using pastels and watercolors – is impressionistic, deeply atmospheric. Disney, impressed by Wong’s work, appointed him to be lead production illustrator, and instructed the other background animators to take inspiration from Wong’s concept art. Wong’s lush backgrounds have graceful dimension (a hallmark of Song dynasty landscapes), seemingly extending the forest beyond the frame. A brushstroke implies dimensions to the forest unseen. Wong’s sense of lighting – whether soaking in sun-bathed greens or foreboding black-and-white, blues, or reds – helps Bambi smoothen otherwise abrupt tonal shifts.

Nevertheless, history downplayed Wong’s enormous contribution to one of the greatest animated films ever made. The studio fired Wong shortly after Bambi’s completion as collateral damage from the aftermath of the Disney animators’ strike – by the terms of the agreement with the strikers, Disney recognized the animators’ union but would lay off a union-approved equal ratio of strikers and non-strikers. Wong later found work as a Hallmark greeting card designer and a production illustrator for Warner Bros. Retiring in 1968, Wong was contacted by Disney to serve as a sketch artist for Mulan (1998) – Wong declined, stating that animated films were no longer a part of his life. Only within the last decade has Wong, who passed away in December 2016 at 106 years old, received due recognition for his contributions that his on-screen credit does not reveal.

Perhaps inspired by his meetings and collaboration with conductor Leopold Stokowski and music critic Deems Taylor for Fantasia, Walt insisted on a film score to be present across Bambi’s runtime. Composers Frank Churchill and Ed Plumb take inspiration from the Silly Symphony shorts made prior to Snow White – Bambi’s score and soundtrack occasionally blends with the sound mix and it liberally uses “Mickey Mousing” (the synchronization of music with actions, most notably footsteps, on-screen). With the writing team periodically revising Bambi, Churchill and Plumb waited until the final structure of the story was set before composing the music. Transcripts from the Disney Archives also reveal an emboldened Walt – again, perhaps inspired by his experiences from Fantasia – to insert his own preferences in how the music should sound. Walt, a man who once professed that he, “[didn’t] know beans about music,” was more musically articulate than he had been before Fantasia, and was unusually influential in the film’s orchestration. In the end, the Churchill and Plumb score is largely framed by the opening credits number, “Love is a Song”.

Love is a song that never ends. Life may be swift and fleeting. Hope may die, yet love's beautiful music Comes each day like the dawn.

In a few short stanzas, the composers begin a score that falls silent only two times: when Bambi’s mother mentions “man was in the forest and when the Great Prince of the Forest appears shrouded in snow. If one did not already associate it with the actions of the film’s characters, Bambi’s fully-orchestrated score sounds like a lengthy, motif-filled tone poem that can be heard in a concert hall. Listen to the string harmonies supporting the “Love is a Song”-vocalizing chorus during “Sleep Morning in the Woods/The Young Prince/Learning to Walk” beginning from 4:19-5:20. That sort of harmonic density would not be out of place in a late Romantic-era concert hall. Occasionally, that tone poem of a score gives way for the limited musical soundtrack like “Little April Shower” – the film’s best song, and one where instruments and vocalizing humans serve to simulate the sound of rain and wind. Bambi contains some of the tenderest music, reflecting the film’s thematic content, in the Disney canon.

Upon release, many critics and audiences found Bambi a step backward for Disney, caring not that the studio’s namesake and its animators agonized over its realism. Disney had upended the moviegoing world’s expectations with Snow White and spawned competing studios looking to replicate that alchemy. But in doing so, the studio also coded audience and critic expectations that animated film should only be fantastical. To strive for realistic animation to reflect nature was, “boring” and “entirely unpleasant” – for these critics (who say nothing about how animation can guide emotion), animated fantasy was innovative because it bent reality in ways live-action cannot portray. Echoing the most vehement criticisms hurled towards Fantasia, Bambi’s then-contemporary naysayers implied that even attempting to animate nature realistically and ignoring fantasy would be a pretentious exercise. In columns and tabloids, the American media also devolved into a mud-slinging debate over whether Bambi – because of its off-screen portrayal of humanity – defamed hunters.

By similarly contradictory logic, animated film in 1942 was mostly perceived as children’s entertainment – an attitude that has been dominant ever since, and one that yours truly tries to discredit with exasperating frequency. With no other rival animation studios attempting anything as ambitious as a Fantasia or Bambi, gag-heavy short films from Disney and its competitors contributed to these widely-held views. With World War II underway, the dissonance of expectations would only escalate. American moviegoers, though wishing to escape from the terrible headlines emerging from Europe, North Africa, and Asia, believed animated films too juvenile for their attention. Bambi – a dramatic film intended for children and adults – faltered under the burden of these wartime contradictions. It would not make back its production costs during its initial run.

This commercial failure, on the heels of the animators’ strike, cast a shadow over Disney’s Burbank studio and on Walt himself. Walt would never publicly admit this, but he believed he had been too focused on animated features. So much of his creative soul and experimental mind had been dedicated to the Golden Age films, but at what cost? The critical and commercial triumphs of Snow White and Dumbo were offset by Pinocchio’s (1940) budgetary overruns and the headline-grabbing negativity (by music and film critics) that financially drowned Fantasia and Bambi. Internal divisions that led to the animators’ strike nearly destroyed the studio; heavy borrowing from Bank of America resulted in runaway debt. Walt – spiritually and physically – would not be present for the rounds of layoffs (mandated by the agreement with the striking animators) that almost halved the studio’s staff after Bambi’s release. He accepted a long-standing offer from the Office for Inter-American Affairs to embark on a goodwill tour of South America to help improve relations with Latin American nations (as well as collect ideas for future animated films).

Bambi remains a sterling example of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ artistic daring. The film pushes realistic animation as far as the technology of its time can. It does so not only for the sake of visual realism, but to reinforce the profound emotions it has evoked for decades. The film’s tragic dimensions are legendary, oft-parodied; yet this does not (and should not) define it. Almost eighty years since its debut, Bambi’s reputation continues to be mired in the contradictions that first greeted its release. There are some who still believe that animated cinema, by its nature, is specifically for children. And by an extension of that thought, some believe tragedy has no place in animated cinema. What a limited view of art that is, an underestimation of humanity’s capacity for understanding.

Bambi concludes the Golden Age of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Since its departure from theaters, moviegoers have rarely been treated to animated cinema of equal or greater maturity – let alone from Disney itself. The artistic cavalcade of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942) resulted in five consecutive films resembling nothing like the other, but all united in ferocious innovation. The central figure of this Golden Age, Walt Disney, was personally involved in each of these works; the end of this so-called Golden Age comes as he stops dedicating himself so completely to the studio’s animated features. In their own ways, each film helped define what animated cinema can be and who it is for. That debate remains fluid, one where the principal interlocutors learn from or disregard the lessons of this Golden Age.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

This is the seventeenth Movie Odyssey Retrospective. Movie Odyssey Retrospectives are reviews on films I had seen in their entirety before this blog’s creation or films I failed to give a full-length write-up to following the blog’s creation. Previous Retrospectives include The Wizard of Oz (1939), Mary Poppins (1964), and Oliver! (1968).

[powells]

Congratulations to SMART (Start Making a Reader Today) for being honored with the Walt Morey Young Readers Literary Legacy Award at last night's Oregon Book Awards! As our CEO Miriam said, "they create an intimate and human connection that lets every child know they are an important part of this family."

See the rest of the winners.

[sneakydragon]

The Fansplainers - The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit

Ciao, cinemaphiles!

Sorry we’re late we our newest episode! It’s kind of a long story and you’ll have to listen to Sneaky Dragon Episode 455 to hear all the gory details. Suffice to say, our most recent episode was lost

Unfortunately, Ian’s busy schedule prevented us from re-recording the episode, but fortunately, Dave’s wife Lezah volunteered to step in and discuss one of her favourite movies, Walt Disney’s The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit.

SO, be prepared for lots of horse talk on this week’s episode of Fansplainers as Dave’s [whisper it] “horse crazy” wife takes us through all the ins and outs of horses, riding, coaching and making movies about horses!

Thanks for listening.

The Fansplainers – The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit was originally published on Sneaky Dragon