Perce Pearce Movies
- 1957
This episode of Disneyland is set in the basement of the Disney studio, storehouse for many a fantastic and phantasmagoric prop. Walt Disney turns the hosting duties over to the Spirit of the Mirror, originally seen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and here played by the ineluctable Hans Conried. In demonstration how the art of magic has been utilized in animation, the Spirit introduces clips from several Disney cartoons, including Mickey Mouse's "Sorceror's Apprentice" sequence from Fantasia. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hans Conried
- 1953
- PG
A man running away from his problems escapes conventional reality with the help of a band of pirates in this offbeat fantasy. Manuel (Manuel Mesquita) is a musician who is short on money and behind on his tax payments. Eager to leave his troubles behind, he spies a 15th Century pirate's ship and impulsively jumps on board. Throwing in his lot with the sea-going bandits, Manuel discovers they're an unusual bunch, searching for a strange but powerful substance called plutex and possessing the ability to become invisible, adopt new languages, or fashion strange gizmos at will. But matters of principle and opinion lead to conflicts among the crew, and Manuel searches for a way to follow his own path while doing right by his friends. A Espada e a Rosa (aka The Sword and the Rose) was the first feature film from director Joao Nicolau. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Todd, Glynis Johns, (more)
- 1953
The rousing adventure novel by Sir Walter Scott was adapted for this swashbuckler. Richard Todd stars as Robert Roy MacGregor, a clan leader in 18th century Scotland attempting to lead his fellow countrymen in a rebellion against the heavy-handed rule of England's King George I. When the king replaces a sympathetic politician with a lackey working against Rob Roy, it's up to the hardy Scotsman to defeat his enemies without the support of a powerful ally, while also romancing and marrying his true love (Glynis Johns). Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1953) was the last of 21 British films produced jointly by Disney and RKO. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Todd, Glynis Johns, (more)
- 1952
- PG
Better known as The Story of Robin Hood, this colorful costume adventure was the second made-in-Britain production for Hollywood's Walt Disney. Avoiding the familiar episodes covered in previous "Robin Hood" films, this Disney effort still manages to adhere to the basic chronology. Richard Todd stars as the Earl of Huntington, who loses his title and his lands after besting the despotic Sheriff of Nottingham (Peter Finch) at an archery tournament. Reinventing himself as Robin Hood, our hero rounds up other victims of the oppression of the Sheriff and his dictatorial liege Prince John (Hubert Gregg), and thus the "Merry Men" are born. Robbing the rich to give to the poor, Robin manages to elude the villains and to prove his loyalty to John's brother Richard the Lionhearted (Patrick Barr) by raising the money for Richard's ransom. The Queen (Martita Hunt) is to deliver the ransom to Richard's Austrian captors, but Prince John schemes to steal the money and place the blame on Robin Hood. Maid Marian (Joan Rice) gets wind of this plan but is locked in John's dungeon before she can warn Robin and his men. How can virtue triumph with these odds? But triumph it does, as everyone in the audience knew it would. The success of The Story of Robin Hood inspired Disney to produce two additional British films, The Sword and the Rose and Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Todd, Joan Rice, (more)
The Walt Disney production of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic novel Treasure Island is one of the company's best live-action films of the '50s, and one of the best family-oriented adventures ever filmed. Bobby Driscoll plays Jim Hawkins, a young cabin boy who battles the pirate Long John Silver (Robert Newton) for a treasure. Disney changes the ending of the book, yet the film is so entertaining--particularly Newton's scene-stealing performance--that the difference is forgivable. In the '70s, Treasure Island was re-issued with "objectionable" violence cut out of the print; the original version was restored in the 1992 home video re-release. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bobby Driscoll, Robert Newton, (more)
- 1948
- G
Like Disney's earlier Song of the South, So Dear to My Heart peppers its live action with animated sequences. In this film, however, it is the "live" story that lingers longest in the memory. Set in 1903, the film takes place on the small Kincaid farm. Twin sheep are born in the barn: one white, one black. When the mother sheep rejects the black lamb, young Jeremiah Kincaid (Bobby Driscoll) adopts the animal, naming it Danny, after the great trotting horse Dan Patch. Danny grows up to be quite troublesome, and Jeremiah's grandmother (Beulah Bondi) wishes that the boy would get rid of his pet. Jeremiah's only ally is kindly blacksmith Uncle Hiram (Burl Ives), who encourages the boy to enter Danny in blue-ribbon competition at the county fair. Granny is against this notion, so Jeremiah sets about to pay his own way. On a stormy night, Danny runs away; Jeremiah is kept from searching for the lost sheep by Granny, who now believes that the boy wants to enter the state fair contest for selfish reasons rather than out of love for his pet. She further warns that the Lord may not let Danny survive the night. The next day, however, Danny returns. Remembering Granny's remonstrations, Jeremiah now states that he won't attend the county fair, having promised the Lord that he'd forget about the competition if Danny was spared. Moved by this unselfishness, Granny softens her own stance, claiming that she'd promised the Lord that Jeremiah could go to the fair if the lamb returned alive. The story reaches a warm-hearted climax at the fair; Danny doesn't win, but his ultimate prize is far more meaningful than any blue ribbon. The isolated animated sequences spring from Jeremiah's scrapbook, illustrating such homespun philosophies as "stick-to-it-tivity" and "it's whatcha do with whatcha got." So Dear to My Heart yielded a hit song, "Lavender Blue," which co-star Burl Ives retained in his repertoire until his dying day. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bobby Driscoll, Beulah Bondi, (more)
- 1943
Walt Disney's animation/live action hybrid feature Victory Through Air Power is unabashed, and undeniably entertaining, wartime propaganda. At the time the film was made, Disney was fascinated with the theories of Major Alexander de Seversky, a proponent of strategic long-range bombing. Since America's military leaders did not altogether subscribe to Seversky's "revolutionary" notions, Disney hoped to win their support with this 65-minute film. Beginning with a semicomic animated history of aviation, the film then segues into a retelling of Seversky's accomplishments, with the Major himself appearing to explain key points of his theories. Switching back to animation, the finale shows Seversky's "dream air force" in action, scientifically bombing enemy war factories and supply lines and thereby incapactitating their power to make war. Released by United Artists rather than Disney's usual conduit RKO, Victory Through Air Power served its purpose both in terms of the War Effort and in terms of enlightening the civilians in the audience. It has not been seen theatrically since, though portions of the animated sequences have popped up on Disney's various TV anthology series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The classic Felix Salter story Bambi provides the basis for this near-perfect Disney animated feature. We follow the male deer Bambi from birth, through his early childhood experiences with woodland pals Thumper the rabbit and Flower the skunk, the traumatic sudden death of Bambi's mother at the hands of hunters, his courtship of the lovely doe Faline, and his rescue of his friends during a raging forest fire; we last see the mature, antlered Bambi assuming his proper place as the Prince of the Forest. In the grand Disney tradition, Bambi is brimming with unforgettable sequences, notably the young deer's attempts to negotiate an iced-over pond, and most especially the death of Bambi's mother--and if this moment doesn't move you to tears, you're made of stone (many subsequent Disney films, including Lion King, have tried, most in vain, to match the horror and pathos of this one scene). The score in Bambi yielded no hits along the lines of "Whistle While You Work", but the songs are adroitly integrated into the action. Bambi was the last of the "classic" early Disney features before the studio went into a decade-long doldrums of disjointed animated pastiches like Make Mine Music. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Fantasia, Walt Disney's animated masterpiece of the 1940s, grew from a short-subject cartoon picturization of the Paul Dukas musical piece The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Mickey Mouse was starred in this eight-minute effort, while the orchestra was under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. Disney and Stokowski eventually decided that the notion of marrying classical music with animation was too good to confine to a mere short subject; thus the notion was expanded into a two-hour feature, incorporating seven musical selections and a bridging narration by music critic Deems Taylor. The first piece, Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor", was used to underscore a series of abstract images. The next selection, Tschiakovsky's "Nutcracker Suite", is performed by dancing wood-sprites, mushrooms, flowers, goldfish, thistles, milkweeds and frost fairies. The Mickey Mouse version of "Sorcerer's Apprentice" is next, followed by Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", which serves as leitmotif for the story of the creation of the world, replete with dinosaurs and volcanoes. After a brief jam session involving the live-action musicians comes Beethoven's "Pastorale Symphony", enacted against a Greek-mythology tapestry by centaurs, unicorns, cupids and a besotted Bacchus. Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours" is performed by a Corps de Ballet consisting of hippos, ostriches and alligators. The program comes to a conclusion with a fearsome visualization of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain", dominated by the black god Tchernobog (referred to in the pencil tests as "Yensid", which is guess-what spelled backwards); this study of the "sacred and profane" segues into a reverent rendition of Schubert's "Ave Maria". Originally, Debussy's "Clair de Lune" was part of the film, but was cut from the final release print; also cut, due to budgetary considerations, was Disney's intention of issuing an annual "update" of Fantasia with new musical highlights and animated sequences. A box-office disappointment upon its first release (due partly to Disney's notion of releasing the film in an early stereophonic-sound process which few theatres could accommodate), Fantasia eventually recouped its cost in its many reissues. For one of the return engagements, the film was retitled Fantasia Will Amaze-ya, while the 1963 reissue saw the film "squashed" to conform with the Cinemascope aspect ratio. Other re-releases pruned the picture from 120 to 88 minutes, and in 1983, Disney redistributed the film with newly orchestrated music and Tim Matheson replacing Deems Taylor as narrator. Once and for all, a restored Fantasia was made available to filmgoers in 1990. A sequel, Fantasia 2000, was released in theaters in 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1937
- G
- Add Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Queue Add Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to top of Queue
It was called "Disney's Folly." Who on earth would want to sit still for 90 minutes to watch an animated cartoon? And why pick a well-worn Grimm's Fairy Tale that every schoolkid knows? But Walt Disney seemed to thrive on projects which a lesser man might have written off as "stupid" or "impossible". Investing three years, $1,500,000, and the combined talents of 570 artists into Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney produced a film that was not only acknowledged a classic from the outset, but also earned 8,500,000 depression-era dollars in gross rentals. Bypassing early temptations to transform the heroine Snow White into a plump Betty Boop type or a woebegone ZaSu Pitts lookalike, the Disney staffers wisely made radical differentiations between the "straight" and "funny" characters in the story. Thus, Snow White and Prince Charming moved and were drawn realistically, while the Seven Dwarfs were rendered in the rounded, caricatured manner of Disney's short-subject characters. In this way, the serious elements of the story could be propelled forward in a believable enough manner to grab the adult viewers, while the dwarfs provided enough comic and musical hijinks to keep the kids happy. It is a tribute to the genius of the Disney formula that the dramatic and comic elements were strong enough to please both demographic groups. Like any showman, Disney knew the value of genuine horror in maintaining audience interest: accordingly, the Wicked Queen, whose jealousy of Snow White's beauty motivates the story, is a thoroughly fearsome creature even before she transforms herself into an ancient crone. Best of all, Snow White clicks in the three areas in which Disney had always proven superiority over his rivals: Solid story values (any sequence that threatened to slow down the plotline was ruthlessly jettisoned, no matter how much time and money had been spent), vivid etched characterizations (it would have been easier to have all the Dwarfs walk, talk and act alike: thank heaven that Disney never opted for "easy"), and instantly memorable songs (Frank Churchill, Leigh Harline, Paul J. Smith and the entire studio music department was Oscar-nominated for such standards-to-be as "Whistle While You Work" and "Some Day My Prince Will Come"). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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