Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson & Hamilton Luske (1955)
Lady and the Tramp is a 1955 animated musical romance by Walt Disney Productions. The 15th Disney animated feature film was directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske, and features the voices of Barbara Luddy, Larry Roberts, Bill Thompson, Bill Baucom, Verna Felton, and Peggy Lee. The film was based on the 1945 Cosmopolitan magazine story “Happy Dan, The Cynical Dog” by Ward Greene, and tells the story of Lady the pampered Cocker Spaniel as she grows from puppy to adult, deals with changes in her family, and meets and falls in love with Tramp the homeless mutt.
Lady and the Tramp was released to theaters on June 22, 1955, to box office success. It was the first animated film to be filmed in the CinemaScope widescreen film process, as well as Disney’s first animated film to be distributed by their Buena Vista division. It initially received generally mixed reviews by film critics, but critical reception for the film has been generally positive in modern times.
As they had done with the deer on Bambi, the animators studied many dogs of different breeds to capture the movement and personality of dogs. Although the spaghetti eating sequence is probably now the best-known scene from the film, Walt Disney was prepared to cut it, thinking that it would not be romantic and that dogs eating spaghetti would look silly. Animator Frank Thomas was against Walt’s decision and animated the entire scene himself without any lay-outs. Walt was impressed by Thomas’s work and how he romanticized the scene and kept it in. On viewing the first take of the scene, the animators felt that the action should be slowed down, so an apprentice trainee was assigned to create “half numbers” in between many of the original frames.
Tramp takes Lady for an Italian candlelit dinner at Tony’s Restaurant. The comedic characters of Tony and Joe, two Italian chefs, lighten the tone of the film, even though they aren’t on screen for too long. It is Tony who sings the song ‘Bella Notte’ as the two dogs eat their spaghetti and meatballs. The music is by Sonny Burke and the lyrics are by Peggy Lee.
“Exactly. Life on a leash. Look again, Pidge. Look, there’s a great big hunk of world down there, with no fence around it. Where two dogs can find adventure and excitement. And beyond those distant hills, who knows what wonderful experiences? And it’s all ours for the taking, Pidge. It’s all ours.”
Tramp
This Disney animated classic follows a pampered cocker spaniel named Lady (Barbara Luddy) whose comfortable life slips away once her owners have a baby. When, after some tense circumstances, Lady finds herself on the loose and out on the street, she is befriended and protected by the tough stray mutt Tramp (Larry Roberts). A romance begins to blossom between the two dogs, but their many differences, along with more drama at Lady’s household, threaten to keep them apart.
Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi & Wilfred Jackson (1953)
When there’s a smile in your heart There’s no better time to start Think of all the joy you’ll find When you leave the world behind And bid your cares good-bye You can fly, you can fly, you can fly, you can fly, you can fly!
Peter Pan is a 1953 animated adventure fantasy film produced in 1952 by Walt Disney Productions. Based on J. M. Barrie’s 1904 play Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, it is the 14th Disney animated feature film. The film was directed by Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi, and Wilfred Jackson. Featuring the voices of Bobby Driscoll, Kathryn Beaumont, Hans Conried, and Bill Thompson, the film’s plot follows Wendy Darling and her two brothers, who meet the never-growing-up Peter Pan and travel with him to the island of Neverland to stay young, where they also have to face Peter’s archenemy, Captain Hook.
In 1935, Walt Disney began considering plans to adapt Barrie’s play into an animated feature. He purchased the film rights from Paramount Pictures in 1938, and began preliminary development in the next year. However, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Disney shelved the project when his studio was contracted by the United States government to produce training and war propaganda films. The project sat idle in development for the rest of the decade until it experienced a turnaround in 1949. To assist the animators, live-action reference footage was shot with actors on soundstages. It also marked the last Disney film in which all nine members of Disney’s Nine Old Men worked together as directing animators.
Disney’s Nine Old Men were Walt Disney Productions’ core animators, some of whom later became directors, who created some of Disney’s most famous animated cartoons, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs onward to The Rescuers, and were referred to as such by Walt Disney himself. The Nine Old Men consisted of Milt Kahl, Marc Davis, Frank Thomas, Eric Larson, Ollie Johnston, Woolie Reitherman, Les Clark, Ward Kimball, and John Lounsbery.
Peter Pan was released on February 5, 1953, becoming the final Disney animated feature released through RKO before Disney founded his own distribution company. The film was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival, Upon its release, the film earned positive reviews from film critics and was a box office success. Its representation of the Native Americans received retrospective criticism.
In this Disney animated film, Wendy and her two brothers are amazed when a magical boy named Peter Pan flies into their bedroom in pursuit of his rebellious shadow. He and his fairy friend Tinkerbell come from a far-off place called Neverland, where children stay perpetually young. Enchanted, the kids follow him back. But when Pan’s nemesis the pirate Captain Hook causes trouble, the kids begin to miss their old life.
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is a 1949 animated anthology film produced by Walt Disney Productions and directed by Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney and James Algar. It consists of two segments: the first based on the 1908 children’s novel The Wind in the Willows by British author Kenneth Grahame, and the second based on the 1820 short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by American author Washington Irving.
The Wind in the Willows
This segment is based on the novel by Kenneth Grahame. The story is set in and around London, England, United Kingdom between June 10, 1907 and January 1, 1908. The protagonist J. Thaddeus Toad, Esq. is introduced as an “incurable adventurer” who “never counted the cost”. As the story’s “one disturbing element”, although he is the wealthy proprietor of the Toad Hall estate, Toad’s adventures and “positive mania for fads” have brought him to the brink of bankruptcy. As a last resort, Toad’s friend Angus MacBadger volunteers as Toad’s bookkeeper to help Toad keep his estate which is a source of pride in the community.
One summer day, MacBadger asks Toad’s best friends Ratty and Moley to persuade Toad to give up his latest mania of recklessly driving about the countryside in a horse and gypsy cart, which could accumulate a great deal of financial liability in damaged property. Ratty and Moley confront Toad, but are unable to change his mind. Toad then sees a motor car for the first time and becomes entranced by the new machine, having been taken over by “motor-mania”.
To cure Toad’s new mania, Ratty and Moley put Toad under house arrest. However, Toad escapes and is later arrested and charged with car theft. At his trial, Toad represents himself and calls his horse Cyril Proudbottom as his first witness. Cyril testifies that the car which Toad was accused of stealing had already been stolen by a gang of weasels. Toad had entered a tavern where the car was parked and offered to buy the car from the weasels. However, since Toad had no money, he instead offered to trade Toad Hall for the car. The prosecutor and judge show disbelief toward the statement, so Toad then calls the bartender Mr. Winky as a witness to the agreement; however, when told by Toad to explain what actually happened, Mr. Winky claims instead that Toad had tried to sell him the stolen car. Toad is found guilty on the spot and sentenced to 20 years in the Tower of London. As the months passed by, Toad’s friends make every effort to appeal his case, but to no avail.
On Christmas Eve, Cyril visits Toad in disguise as his grandmother and helps him escape by giving him a disguise of his own. Toad quickly runs to a railway station and hijacks a steam locomotive and drives out of the station heading toward the river bank without getting caught by the police on another train, coming to Ratty and Moley’s house. Just then, MacBadger vists Ratty and Moley to tell them that he discovered that Mr. Winky is the leader of the weasel gang, and that Toad had indeed traded his estate for the stolen car; Mr. Winky himself is in possession of the deed. Knowing that Toad is still guilty in the eyes of the law and the deed bearing his and Mr. Winky’s signature would prove Toad’s innocence, the four friends sneak into Toad Hall and take the document after a grueling chase around the estate.
The film then ends on New Year’s Day with Toad exonerated and regaining his house while it is implied that Mr. Winky and the weasels have been arrested and imprisoned. As MacBadger, Ratty, and Moley celebrate the New Year with a toast to Toad, who they believe has completely reformed, Toad and Cyril recklessly fly past on a 1903 Wright Flyer; Toad has not truly reformed and has developed a mania for airplanes.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The second segment is based on the original story by Washington Irving. Although the film introduces the story as Ichabod Crane, later individual releases retained the story’s original title. (As a short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was originally published in The Sketch Book with other stories, not as a single volume as pictured in the film.)
In October 1790, Ichabod Crane, a lanky, superstitious yet charming dandy arrives in Sleepy Hollow, New York, a small village outside Tarrytown that is renowned for its ghostly hauntings, to be the town’s new schoolmaster. Despite his odd behavior, appearance, and effeminate mannerisms, Ichabod soon wins the hearts of the village’s women and forms good friendships with his students. Brom Bones, the roguish town hero, does his best to pull pranks to Ichabod. However, he is very good at ignoring these taunts and continues to interact with the townspeople. One day, Ichabod meets and falls in love with Katrina van Tassel, the beautiful daughter of the wealthy Baltus van Tassel and Brom’s unofficial fiancee. Despite being obsessed with Katrina’s beauty, Ichabod mainly desires to take her family’s money for himself. Brom, who has never been challenged like this, proceeds to compete with the schoolmaster, but Ichabod wins Katrina over at every opportunity. Unbeknownst to both men, Katrina is only using Ichabod to make Brom jealous and force him to try harder for her affections.
The two love rivals are invited to the van Tassel Halloween party. Brom attempts to get Ichabod to dance with a plump woman instead of Katrina, and later attempts to have him fall through a cellar door, but both attempts backfire. While both men dine, Brom catches Ichabod accidentally knocking the salt shaker over and nervously tossing salt over his shoulder. Discovering that Ichabod’s weakness is superstition, he decides to sing the tale of the legendary Headless Horseman. The horseman supposedly travels the woods on Halloween each year, searching for a living head to replace the one which he has lost, and the only way to escape the ghost is to cross a covered bridge. Everyone else, including Katrina, finds the song amusing, while Ichabod on the other hand starts to fear for his life.
Riding home from the party, Ichabod becomes frightened of every sound and sight which he hears in the dark woods. While traveling through the old cemetery, Ichabod believes he hears the sound of a horse galloping toward him, but discovers the sound is being made by nearby cattails bumping on a log. He and his horse begin to laugh – however, their laughter is cut short by the appearance of the Headless Horseman, wielding a sword and riding on the back of a black horse. After being chased through the dark forest, Ichabod, remembering Brom’s advice, rides across the covered bridge to stop the ghost’s pursuit. The horseman stops and throws his flaming head, revealed to be a jack-o’-lantern, right at Ichabod’s face.
The next morning, Ichabod’s hat is found at the bridge next to the shattered jack-o-lantern, but Ichabod himself is nowhere to be found. Sometime later, Brom takes Katrina as his wife. Rumors begin to spread that Ichabod is still alive, married to a wealthy widow in a distant county with children who all look like him. However, the superstitious people of Sleepy Hollow insist that he has been “spirited away” by the Headless Horseman.
Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske & Jack Kinney (1948)
Melody Time is a 1948 American live-action/animated musical film produced by Walt Disney. The tenth Disney animated feature film, it was released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on May 27, 1948. Made up of seven segments set to popular music and folk music, the film is, like Make Mine Music before it, the popular music version of Fantasia. Melody Time, while not meeting the artistic accomplishments of Fantasia, was mildly successful. It is the fifth Disney package film following Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, and Fun and Fancy Free.
“In the grand tradition of Disney’s greatest musical classics, such as Fantasia, Melody Time features seven classic stories, each enhanced with high-spirited music and unforgettable characters. A feast for the eyes and ears full of wit and charm. A delightful Disney classic with something for everyone”.
Walt Disney
Melody Time is considered to be the last anthology feature made by the Walt Disney Animation Studios. These package features were little-known short-film compilations that Disney produced and released as feature films during World War II. They were financially and artistically lightweight productions meant to bring in profits to allow the studio to return to fairy tale single-narrative feature form, an endeavour which they successfully completed two years later with Cinderella. While the shorts contrast in length, form, and style, a common thread throughout is that each is accompanied by songs from musicians and vocalists of the ’40s. This sets it apart from the similarly structured Fantasia, whose segments were set to classical music instead. As opposed to Fun and Fancy Free, whose story was bound to the tales of Bongo and Jack and the Beanstalk, in this film Walt Disney has let his animators and his color magicians have free rein.
Rose Pelswick, in a 1948 review for The News-Sentinel, described the film as an ‘adventure into the intriguing make-believe world peopled by Walt Disney’s Cartoon characters”. It also explains that “with the off-screen voice of Buddy Clark doing the introductions, the episodes include fantasy, folklore, South American rhythms, poetry, and slapstick”. A 1948 review by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described it as a “mixture of fantasy, abstraction, parable, music, color, and movement”.
Once Upon a Wintertime
This segment features Frances Langford singing the title song about two romantic young lovers on a winter day in December, during the late 19th century. The couple are Jenny and Joe (unlike most Disney cartoons, Jenny and Joe lack spoken dialogue). Joe shows off on the ice for Jenny, and near-tragedy and a timely rescue ensues. This is intertwined with a similar rabbit couple.
Bumble Boogie
This segment presents a surrealistic battle for a solitary bumblebee as he tries to ward off a visual and musical frenzy. The music, courtesy of Freddy Martin and His Orchestra (with Jack Fina playing the piano), is a swing-jazz variation of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee, which was one of the many pieces considered for inclusion in Fantasia.
The Legend of Johnny Appleseed
A retelling of the story of John Chapman, who spent most of his life roaming the Midwestern United States (mainly Ohio and Indiana) in the pioneer days, and planting apple trees, thus earning his famous nickname. He also spread Christianity. Dennis Day narrates (as an “old settler who knew Johnny well”) and provides the voices of both Johnny and his guardian angel.
Little Toot
The story of Little Toot by Hardie Gramatky, in which the title protagonist, a small tugboat in New York City, wanted to be just like his father Big Toot, but could not seem to stay out of trouble. The Andrews Sisters provide vocals.
Trees
A recitation of the 1913 poem Trees by Joyce Kilmer, featuring music by Oscar Rasbach and performed by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. The lyrical setting accompanies animation of bucolic scenes seen through the changing of the seasons. To preserve the look of the original story sketches, layout artist Ken O’Connor came up with the idea of using frosted cels and rendering the pastel images right onto the cel. Before being photographed each cel was laminated in clear lacquer to protect the pastel. The result was a look that had never been seen in animation before.
Blame it on the Samba
Donald Duck and José Carioca meet the Aracuan Bird, who introduces them to the pleasures of the samba. The accompanying music is the 1914 polka Apanhei-te, Cavaquinho by Ernesto Nazareth, fitted with English lyrics. The Dinning Sisters provide vocals while organist Ethel Smith appears in a live-action role.
Pecos Bill
The finale follows about Texas’ famous hero Pecos Bill. Raised by coyotes, he became the biggest and best cowboy that ever lived. He out hissed the Rattlesnake. And learned about all of the animals. It also features his horse Widowmaker, who’s been saved by the vultures that try to eat him. He brought the rain from California to save Texas from the drought. But when he woke up from the river, he heard a cow mooing. There was the band of evil rustlers stealing the herd of cattle. But they didn’t know the herd they stole was Bill’s. So he lassoed them and knocked out all of their teeth one by one. The Rustlers were now finally reformed and started to sing, “Yippee-I-Yay!” Then, Bill and Widowmaker traveled through the desert. He got a stick and then he dug the rio grande. And it recounts the ill-fated romance between Bill and a beautiful cowgirl named Slue Foot Sue, with whom he fell in love at first sight until a jealous Widowmaker made Sue to get literally stranded at the Moon at their wedding day. This retelling features Roy Rogers, Bob Nolan, the former’s horse Trigger, and the Sons of the Pioneers telling the story to Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten in a live-action frame story.
Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Joshua Meador & Robert Cormack (1946)
Casey at the Bat
Peter and the Wolf
The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met
Make Mine Music is a 1946 animated musical anthology film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is the 8th Disney feature animated film, released 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.
The musical short stories included in the Make Mine Music anthology include The Martins and the Coys, Blue Bayou, All the Cats Join In, Without You, Casey at the Bat, Two Silhouettes, Peter and the Wolf, Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet, and The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met.
“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.”
Abel Green of Variety
“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.”
Harrison’s Reports
“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.”
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times
“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.”
The Three Caballeros is a 1944 live-action animated musical produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It was the 7th Walt Disney animated feature film, and it marks the 10th anniversary of Donald Duck and plots an adventure through parts of Latin America. It is notable for being one of the first feature-length films to incorporate traditional animation with live-action actors.
The film is a series of self-contained segments, strung together by Donald Duck opening birthday gifts from his Latin American friends. Several Latin American stars appear, including singers Aurora Miranda and Dora Luz, as well as singer and dancer Carmen Molina.
The film was produced as part of the studio’s goodwill message for Latin America. The film stars Donald Duck, who in the course of the film is joined by old friend José Carioca, the cigar-smoking parrot from Saludos Amigos, who represents Brazil, and later becomes friends with a pistol-packing rooster named Panchito Pistoles, who represents Mexico.
This film was directed by animation great Norman Ferguson, who was a central contributor to the studio’s artistic development in the 1930s into the 40s. He created Pluto, Peg-Leg Pete, the Big Bad Wolf, and was the primary animator for the witch in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Sequence directors for the film included Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, and Harold Young.
Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson & Hamilton Luske (1951)
Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and based on the Alice books by Lewis Carroll. The thirteenth release of Disney’s animated features, the film premiered in London on July 26, 1951, and in New York City on July 28, 1951. The film features the voices of Kathryn Beaumont as Alice, Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat, Verna Felton as the Queen of Hearts, and Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter. Walt Disney first tried to adapt Alice into a feature-length animated film in the 1930s and revived the idea in the 1940s. The film was originally intended to be a live-action/animated film; however, Disney decided to make it a fully animated film in 1946.
The film was considered a disappointment on its initial release, therefore was shown on television as one of the first episodes of Disneyland. Its 1974 re-release in theaters proved to be much more successful, leading to subsequent re-releases, merchandising and home video releases. Although the film received generally negative critical reviews on its initial release, it has been more positively reviewed over the years.
In fall 1945, shortly after the war ended, Disney revived Alice in Wonderland and hired British author AldousHuxley to re-write the script. Huxley devised a story in which Lewis Carroll and AliceLiddell (the inspiration for Alice) were misunderstood and persecuted following the book’s publication. In Huxley’s story, stage actress EllenTerry was sympathetic to both Carroll and Liddell, and Queen Victoria served as the deus ex machina, validating Carroll due to her appreciation for the book. Disney considered child actress Margaret O’Brien for the title role. However, he felt that Huxley’s version was too literal an adaptation of Carroll’s book. Background artist Mary Blair submitted some concept drawings for Alice in Wonderland. Blair’s paintings moved away from Tenniel’s detailed illustrations by taking a modernist stance, using bold and unreal colors. Walt liked Blair’s designs, and the script was re-written to focus on comedy, music, and the whimsical side of Carroll’s books.
Around this time, Disney considered making a live-action-and-animated version of Alice in Wonderland (similar to his short Alice Comedies) that would star Ginger Rogers and would utilize the recently developed sodium vapor process. Lisa Davis (who later voiced Anita Radcliffe in One Hundred and One Dalmatians) and Luana Patten were also considered for the role of Alice. However, Disney soon realized that he could only do justice to the book by making an all-animated feature and, in 1946, work began on Alice in Wonderland. With the film tentatively scheduled for release in 1950, animation crews on Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella effectively competed against each other to see which film would finish first. By early 1948, Cinderella had progressed further than Alice in Wonderland.
A legal dispute with Dallas Bower’s 1949 film version was also under way. Disney sued to prevent release of the British version in the U.S., and the case was extensively covered in Time magazine. The company that released the British version accused Disney of trying to exploit their film by releasing its version at virtually the same time.
Hobo Moon Cartoons aims to preserve the beloved Halloween classics of yesteryear for future generations to enjoy!
Spend this Devil’s Night with Mickey and the gang as they attempt to eradicate three ghosts from an abandoned haunted house. Lonesome Ghosts is a 1937 Disney animated cartoon, released through RKO Radio Pictures on December 24, 1937, three days after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs made its debut. It was directed by Burt Gillett, written by Dick Friel, and animated by Izzy Klein, Ed Love, Milt Kahl, Marvin Woodward, Bob Wickersham, Clyde Geronimi, Dick Huemer, Dick Williams, Art Babbitt, and Rex Cox.
This short marked the first use of one of Goofy’s catchphrases, “Somethin’ wrong here!”.
Clyde Geronimi, Jack Hannah & Wilfred Jackson (1956)
Happy Halloween!
Hobo Moon Cartoons aims to preserve the beloved Halloween classics of yesteryear for future generations to enjoy!
Clip from Disneyland episode The Great Cat Family narrated by Walt Disney. I love the spooky visuals and gorgeous vintage animation.
Walt talks about the cat family, primarily focusing on lions and domestic cats. It is explained particularly on the cats’ importance to ancient Egypt and how some people would respect them, and others would fear them as superstitious beings.
Walt then shows the cats of fiction by showing clips from his past films. He recounts Pinocchio’s friendship with Figaro, Alice’s pet Dina and meeting with the crazy Cheshire Cat and how Cinderella’s mouse friends barely escaped the clutches of Lucifer. Finally, he shows a classic cartoon featuring Lambert, the “black sheep” of the great cat family.
Until now, only the first 13 minutes with Walt discussing the history of cats in Egypt to their superstitious origins had been available as a bonus on home video releases of The Aristocats. These first 13 minutes were trimmed down, specifically without Walt’s footage, for A Disney Halloween (1983) where it was then followed by the Siamese musical number from Lady and the Tramp, which for whatever reason wasn’t included in this program.
The Ugly Duckling is the titular protagonist of Disney’s 1939 Silly Symphonies short film of the same name. Actually a cygnet (a baby swan), his egg somehow found its way into the nest of a duck family who mistook him for one of their own, and hatched him, only to immediately reject him for not looking the way a duckling should.
Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson & Hamilton Luske (1950)
Have faith in your dreams.
Cinderella is an American animated musical fantasy film from 1950 by Walt Disney and RKO Radio Pictures. It’s based on the fairytale of the same name by Charles Perrault and is the 12th Disney animated feature film. The film was directed by Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, and Wilfred Jackson. Mack David, Jerry Livingston, and Al Hoffman wrote the songs, which include Cinderella, A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes, Sing Sweet Nightingale, The Work Song, Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo, and So This is Love. It features the voices of Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Rhoda Williams, James MacDonald, Luis van Rooten, Don Barclay, Mike Douglas, William Phipps, and Lucille Bliss.
After Fantasia, Pinocchio, and Bambi all bombed in the box office, Cinderella was the greatest success since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Dumbo and helped the studio through their financial burdens.
In 1948, actors were filmed on large sound stages mouthing to a playback of the dialogue soundtrack. Disney had previously used live-action reference on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Fantasia, but as part of an effort to keep the production cost down, the footage was used to check the plot, timing, and movement of the characters before animating it. The footage was then edited frame-by-frame onto large Photostat sheets to duplicate, in which the animators found too restrictive as they were not allowed to imagine anything that the live actors did not present since that kind of experimentation might necessitate changes and cost more money. Additionally, the animators were instructed to draw from a certain directorial perspective to avoid difficult shots and angles. Frank Thomas explained, “Anytime you’d think of another way of staging the scene, they’d say: ‘We can’t get the camera up there’! Well, you could get the animation camera up there! So you had to go with what worked well in live action.”
Walt Disney hired actress Helene Stanley to perform the live-action reference for Cinderella. Animators modeled Prince Charming on actor Jeffrey Stone, who also provided some additional voices for the film. Mary Alice O’Connor served as the live-action reference for the Fairy Godmother.
From Rags to Riches: The Making of Cinderella
By 1950, the Animation Board had settled down to nine supervising animators. Although they were still in their thirties, they were jokingly referred by Walt Disney as the “Nine Old Men” after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s denigration of the Supreme Court. Including Norman Ferguson, the principal animators included Les Clark, Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, John Lounsbery, Frank Thomas, and Wolfgang Reitherman.
Larson was the first to animate the title character whom he envisioned as a sixteen-year-old with braids and a pug nose. Marc Davis later animated Cinderella, in which Larson observed as “more the exotic dame” with a long swanlike neck. Because the final character design was not set, assistant animators were responsible for minimizing the differences. When Disney was asked what was his favorite piece of animation was, he answered, “I guess it would have to be where Cinderella gets her ballroom gown”, which was animated by Davis.
Milt Kahl was the directing animator of the Fairy Godmother, the King, and the Grand Duke. Originally, Disney intended for the Fairy Godmother to be a tall, regal character as he viewed fairies as tall, motherly figures, but Milt Kahl disagreed with this characterization. Following the casting of Verna Felton, Kahl managed to convince Disney on his undignified concept of the Fairy Godmother.
Unlike the human characters, the animal characters were animated without live-action reference. During production, none of Kimball’s designs for Lucifer had pleased Disney. After visiting Kimball’s steam train at his home, Disney saw his calico cat and remarked, “Hey—there’s your model for Lucifer”. Reitherman animated the sequence in which Jaq and Gus laboriously drag the key up the flight of stairs to Cinderella.
