1946 animated film by Walt Disney
Make Mine Music
is a 1946 American animated
musical
anthology film
produced by
Walt Disney
and released by
RKO Radio Pictures
on April 20, 1946.
During
World War II
, 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
. The film was entered into the
1946 Cannes Film Festival
.
[4]
Film segments
[
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]
This particular film has ten such segments.
The Martins and the Coys
[
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]
The popular radio vocal group The King's Men sings the story of a
Hatfields and McCoys
-style feud in the mountains. The feud is broken up when Grace Martin and Henry Coy, two young people from each side, inadvertently fall in love. [This segment was later censored from the film's US video release due to objections to the film's depiction of gun violence.]
Blue Bayou
[
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]
This segment featured animation originally intended for
Fantasia
using the
Claude Debussy
musical composition
Clair de Lune
from
Suite bergamasque
(conducted by
Leopold Stokowski
). 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
[
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]
This segment was one of two sections in which
Benny Goodman
and his Orchestra contributed.
[5]
Their music played over visuals drawn by an animator's pencil as the action occurred. The scene portrayed
hepcat
teens
of the 1940s, being swept away by
popular music
. This segment features some mild female nudity that was edited out in both the US and UK DVD releases, although the film's Japanese home video releases features it intact and uncensored.
[6]
Without You
[
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]
This segment is a
ballad
of lost love, sung by
Andy Russell
.
Casey at the Bat
[
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]
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. The setting is 1902, in the town of Mudville. A few moments are exaggerated or altered and music is added. A sequel cartoon to this segment called
Casey Bats Again
was released on June 18, 1954.
Two Silhouettes
[
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]
This segment featured two
rotoscoped
live-action
ballet dancers
,
David Lichine
and
Tania Riabouchinskaya
, moving in
silhouette
with animated backgrounds and characters. The dancers are accompanied by two
putti
, also in silhouette.
Dinah Shore
sang the title song.
Peter and the Wolf
[
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]
The segment "Peter and the Wolf" is 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 by the
Flute
, Sonia by the
Oboe
, Ivan by the
Clarinet
, Grandpapa by the
Bassoon
, the Hunters through their gunfire by the
Kettledrums
, and the evil Wolf primarily by
horns
and
cymbals
.
After You've Gone
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]
This segment again featured
Benny Goodman
and The Goodman
Quartet
(
Teddy Wilson
,
Cozy Cole
and
Sid Weiss
) as six
anthropomorphized
instruments (Piano,
Bass
, Snare and bass Drums, Cymbal and
Clarinet
) who paraded through a musical playground.
Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet
[
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]
This segment told the
romantic story
of two hats who fell in love in a
department store
window in
New York City
. When Alice
Bluebonnet
was sold, Johnnie
Fedora
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.
[7]
Finale:
The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met
[
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]
The final segment, the finale of the film, is a bittersweet story about a
sperm whale
(named Willie) with incredible musical talent and his dreams of singing
grand opera
. A rumor is spread throughout the city about an operatic whale, but is seemingly disproven, therefore the short-sighted
impresario
Tetti-Tatti believes that the whale has swallowed an opera singer. He concludes this after studying the story of
Jonah
.
Tetti-Tatti sets out to "rescue" his non-existent quarry, 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 uvulas, each with a different voice range; tenor, baritone and bass), and chases him with a
harpoon
on a boat with three crewmen. Upon hearing the whale sing, the crewmen try to stop the stubborn and deluded Tetti-Tatti from killing the whale, as they want to continue listening to him sing, even to the point of pinning Tetti-Tatti down by sitting on him. A montage then follows of what would be Willie's future career in performing opera on the stage of the
Met
, with Tetti-Tatti shown to have finally been convinced. In the end, reality strikes when Tetti-Tatti succeeds in harpooning and killing Willie which causes the three sailors to beat him up afterwards, but the narrator then explains that Willie's voice (now in a thousand, each more golden than before) will sing on in heaven, ironically still achieving his dream after all; the final shot is of the Pearly gates with a "sold out" sign.
Nelson Eddy
narrated and performed all the voices in this segment. As Willie the Whale, Eddy sang, among others,
Shortnin' Bread
, "
Largo al factotum
" from
The Barber of Seville
, all three male voices in the first part of the
Sextet
from
Donizetti
's opera,
Lucia di Lammermoor
, and
Mag der Himmel Euch Verbegen
from Friedrich Wilhelm Riese's opera
Martha.
As the curtains close, the film ends.
Cast
[
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]
Music
[
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]
Release
[
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]
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
.
Home media
[
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]
Make Mine Music
was originally released on home video in
Japan
on October 21, 1985. All of its segments (except for
Without You
and
The Martins and the Coys
) had been released on home video in the US since they were shown on
The Magical World of Disney
television series and/or released only as shorts.
Casey at the Bat
was featured on the VHS release of
Disney's Tall Tales
in 1985.
Blue Bayou
was featured on the Disney’s Greatest Lullabies Part Two VHS.
All the Cats Join In
,
Two Silhouettes
,
After You've Gone
and
The Whale Who Wanted To Sing At The Met
(along with Stokowski’s original recording of Claire de Lune) were featured on the VHS compilation
The Wonderful World of Disney: Music for Everybody
in 1986.
Peter and the Wolf
was first released on the Storybook Classics VHS in 1982 and eventually joined the Walt Disney Mini Classics series (along with
Willie the Operatic Whale
) and the Favorite Stories collection.
Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet
was released on laserdisc in 1999 as part of The Disneyland Anthology 3 disc box-set, as it was a segment of the
Adventures in Fantasy
episode on side 5.
The actual film was released on VHS and DVD on June 6, 2000 under the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection line. They edited this release to remove
The Martins and the Coys
, which contained comic
gunplay
that they deemed not suitable for children,
[6]
as well as editing out the sexualized imagery in
All the Cats Join In
.
Outside of North America,
Make Mine Music
has been largely unavailable on DVD and VHS. It has, however, been available in Scandinavia on both VHS (1983) and DVD (2006) and since 2013 on DVD in the UK (unrestored, albeit with
The Martins and the Coys
intact, but still editing out the sexualized imagery in
All the Cats Join In
). This and
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
are the only two major Disney animated films never to see a release on Region 4 DVD in Australia; however, the latter did get a VHS release.
As of 2024,
Make Mine Music
is the only Disney animated film that is not available on
Disney+
.
[8]
After staying in the
Disney Vault
for 21 years, Disney released
Make Mine Music
and
Melody Time
for the first time ever on
Blu-ray
, through their Disney Movie Club website on November 2, 2021. Despite explicit reports by Disney's customer service confirming this release would be uncut and mentioning that the release would include all ten musical segments, the actual discs contained the 2000 censored version of the film.
Reception
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Box office
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The film grossed $70,000 in its first week at the
Globe Theatre
in New York City.
[9]
It went on to earn $2,085,000 in
theatrical rentals
from the United States and Canada. Cumulatively, it earned $3,275,000 in worldwide rentals.
[3]
Critical response
[
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]
Abel Green of
Variety
stated that "the animation, color and music, the swing versus symph, and the imagination, execution and delineation?that this Disney feature (two years in the making) may command widest attention yet. The blend of cartoon with human action has been evidenced before; here Disney has retained all his characters in their basic art form, but endowed them with human qualities, voices and treatments, which is another step forward in the field where cartoons graduate into the field of the classics."
[10]
Harrison's Reports
felt that some of the shorts were "more entertaining than others, but all are good, and each has something to please movie-goers of all tastes and ages. It is a delightful blend of comedy, music, pathos, animation, and color, given a most imaginative treatment."
[11]
Bosley Crowther
, reviewing for
The New York Times
, praised the film as "a brilliant abstraction wherein fanciful musical instruments dance gayly on sliding color disks, sets of romping fingers race blithely down tapes of piano keys and musical notes fly wildly through the multi-hued atmosphere?all to the tingling accompaniment of Benny Goodman's quartet playing the ancient and melodious torch song, "After You're Gone". Color, form and music blend dynamically in this bit, and a rich stimulant of sensuous rhythm is excitingly achieved."
[12]
Edwin Schallert of the
Los Angeles Times
wrote that
Make Mine Music
was "a picture of much inventiveness and imagination. The lighter the picture is, the more is its excellence demonstrated, it might be noted. And while music is the keynote of the production, it ranges well into comedy, and plentifully into swing."
[13]
The film holds 58% rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
, with an average score of 6.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "This collection of musical-themed shorts doesn't reach the artistic heights of Fantasia, but it's well animated and mostly good fun."
[14]
See also
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References
[
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]
- ^
a
b
"Make Mine Music: Detail View"
. American Film Institute
. Retrieved
April 29,
2014
.
- ^
Stengel, Fred (September 12, 1945).
"14 RKO Pictures to Exceed Million in Prod. Cost in Coming 'Year of Years'
"
.
Variety
. p. 4 – via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
a
b
"Richard B. Jewell's RKO film grosses, 1929?51: The C. J. Trevlin Ledger: A comment".
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
.
14
(1). 1994.
- ^
"Festival de Cannes: Make Mine Music"
.
Cannes Film Festival
. Retrieved
January 3,
2009
.
- ^
Hischak, Thomas S.; Robinson, Mark A. (2013).
The Disney Song Encyclopedia
(2 ed.). Taylor Trade Publishing. p. 4.
ISBN
9781589797130
.
- ^
a
b
"Saludos Amigos / The Three Caballeros (1942-1944) (75th Anniversary Edition) - Page 26 - Blu-ray Forum"
.
- ^
"Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet"
(in French)
. Retrieved
December 3,
2010
.
- ^
Goldberg, Matt (April 2021).
"Disney+ Has Every Disney Animated Feature Except One, and It's a Surprising Omission"
.
Collider
. Retrieved
October 20,
2022
.
- ^
"B'way Soars; 'Kid' Colossal $66,000, 'Music' Huge 70G, Both New Records; 'Virginian'-Bracken-Long Fancy 98G"
.
Variety
. April 24, 1946. p. 11
. Retrieved
April 4,
2023
– via
Archive.org
.
- ^
Green, Abel (April 17, 1946).
"Film Reviews: Make Mine Music"
.
Variety
. p. 16
. Retrieved
September 21,
2020
– via Internet Archive.
- ^
"Make Mine Music"
.
Harrison's Reports
. April 20, 1946. p. 63
. Retrieved
September 21,
2020
– via Internet Archive.
- ^
Crowther, Bosley (April 22, 1946).
"The Screen in Review"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
September 21,
2020
.
- ^
Schallert, Edwin (April 17, 1946). "
'Make Mine Music' Hits Peak in Musical Whimsy
".
Los Angeles Times
. Part II, p. 2. Retrieved September 21, 2020 ? via
Newspapers.com
.
- ^
"Make Mine Music"
.
Rotten Tomatoes
.
Fandango
. Retrieved
October 6,
2021
.
External links
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