Walt Disney

[4] This short feature presentation from Disney Animation is really two short stories slammed together. Up first, we have “The Wind in the Willows,” narrated by Basil Rathbone. It’s a fast-paced story about three stuffy critters — a badger, a mole, and a river rat — who try to keep their friend Toad out of trouble. Toad is addicted to all the latest modes of …

[4] For its racist stereotypes and sugar-coated depiction of plantation life in the post-Civil War South, Disney has locked away Song of the South from the public since its last re-release in 1986. I don’t think the film is any more offensive than countless others made before desegregation (Gone with the Wind among them). In fact, putting its social infractions in historical context is probably …

[3] When the army took over Disney Animation during WWII to make training and propaganda films, old Walt was forced to make a series of ‘package films’ to keep the studio afloat until he could afford to make another stand-alone feature story. These package films were collections of various shorts jammed together to make a feature-length program. One of these, and perhaps the worst, was …

[7] Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor provide the voices of two brave mice who volunteer to rescue a kidnapped orphan in this surprisingly dark and scary offering from Disney’s animation department. I love the atmosphere this movie creates, especially around a wrecked riverboat tucked away in a spooky bayou. That’s where our villainess, Madame Medusa (voiced by Oscar-winner Geraldine Page), holds a little girl named …

[9] Under the precious veneer of the Disney name lie some pretty damned spectacular pieces of motion picture art and Bambi is one of the best. With relatively little dialogue and an abundance of montage, Bambi plays out like a tone poem on rites of passage, death and rebirth. Many a child has been traumatized by Bambi, and rightly so. The death of Bambi’s mother …

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