TCM’s Treasures from the Disney Vault: December 2015
TCM’s Treasures from the Disney Vault debuted last December and has now been going strong for a year. Every quarter, Leonard Maltin takes over TCM for an evening of Disney programming. The word “Treasure” does not denote “classic,” but rather celebrates some of the more obscure, less mainstream content the Walt Disney Company has produced. On December 17th, Disney once again takes over the network. Many will sadly miss this, spending the evening at their local theater enjoying Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. But as a collector of Disney films, I have assembled a look ahead at what you can expect from the evening’s lineup including some fun facts to help you determine when to tune-in or which programs to set your DVR for.
8:00 PM – So Dear to My Heart
So Dear to My Heart is a charming musical from 1949 about young Jeremiah and his black sheep Danny, whom he decides to enter into competition at the county fair. This turn-of-the-century piece recasts Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten from Song of the South, who were Disney’s only contracted actors at the time. The primary adult actors are Burl Ives and Beulah Bondi, both wonderful in this picture. The film features many charming original songs, but it was “Lavender Blue” that became a top ten radio hit and earned it an Academy Award nomination for Best Song (it lost to “Baby It’s Cold Outside”).
Filming began in 1946, before Song of the South was even released, and was originally to include many more sequences where animated characters entered the live action world. However, by the end of the two and a half years of production, the final film features animated segues starring characters from Jeremiah’s scrapbook, but is mostly an all live-action feature. Disney did not yet have a robust live action department, and while the talented Disney artists, such as Mary Blaire, contributed to the look of the film, Walt Disney borrowed talented veteran filmmakers from other Hollywood studios to produce it.
I highly recommend tuning in or DVR-ing this film. Perhaps more than any other Disney film, it’s a more personal movie for Walt Disney as it takes place on a Midwest farm around the turn of the century. Walt took up his hobby of model building on this film and was active on set during the train shooting due to his love of steam engines. Many point to this production as the start of his tinkering with the idea of what became Disneyland. And while it isn’t set in winter or at Christmastime, it’s a story about human kindness and that’s what this season is all about.
9:30 PM –Animated Shorts
Last year, Treasures from the Disney Vault kicked off with three classic animated shorts set in wintertime (Santa’s Workshop, On Ice, Chip & Dale). To kick off the rest of the evening’s winter programs, the shorts have been moved to 9:30. This 30-minute programming block again features three shorts, all of which are set in winter at some point in the story.
Rescue Dog is a 1947 short starring Pluto as an arctic rescue dog. When a playful seal gets in his way, Pluto gets upset and tries to retaliate. But when Pluto gets into trouble, the seal is the one who truly comes to the rescue.
The Grasshopper and the Ants is an early Technicolor Silly Symphony from 1934 that retells one of Aesop’s classic fables. While the ants work and prepare for winter, the grasshopper goofs off and plays his song. Left alone in the cold, the ants show him some generosity and allow him to share their harvest. The gag where the grasshopper is so cold he turns blue was new to audiences when this came out, as it was one of the earliest cartoons produced in color. Pinto Colvig, the voice of Goofy, voices the Grasshopper and this is the debut of “The World Owes Me A Living,” which became the Goof’s theme song.
Corn Chips features Chip & Dale facing off against Donald Duck once again in this 1951 short. It’s wintertime and Donald Duck can’t get any peace as Chip and Dale steal his popcorn. His quest to retrieve his popped snack proves futile as the chipmunks outsmart him over and over again.
This is another must-see portion of the evening. Presumably all three shorts will be displayed in their most recent HD restorations. While The Grasshopper and the Ants and Corn Chips are available on Blu-Ray, this should be the HD premiere of Rescue Dog.
10:00 PM – Babes in Toyland
Disney’s version of Babes in Toyland is a personal favorite of mine and is always part of my Christmas movie playlist. However, it seems that growing up with it is a prerequisite to enjoying it as an adult. I’ve yet to find anybody who has fallen in love with it beyond adolescence. It was not a success when it debuted in 1961, but thanks to regular TV airings around Christmastime it became a holiday favorite for many families.
Set in Mother Goose Village, the crooked man Barnaby plots to split up Tom Piper and Mary Quite Contrary to gain access to her dowry. After kidnapping Tom and setting the family’s sheep free, Mary and her family follow them into the Forest of No Return where they find shelter in a toy factory. But when Barnaby follows them there, they will have to enlist an army of toys to get their happy ending.
It’s fitting that Babes in Toyland is airing on the same night as So Dear to My Heart because this was the first full fledged live action musical Disney made since 1949. The melodies are all from the Victor Herbert operetta, but with new lyrics and arrangements by Disney studio songwriters George Bruns and Mel Leven. Disney pulled out nearly all of their top talent to star, including Annette Funicello, Tommy Kirk, Kevin Corcoran and Henry Calvin. Teen crooner Tommy Sands was cast opposite Annette and during production on this, the pair also recorded the theme song for The Parent Trap.
In many ways, Babes in Toyland pays homage to the great MGM musical spectaculars of the 1940’s and early 1950’s. Borrowing some of MGM’s former talents, including Ray Bolger and Ed Wynn, this musical was shot entirely indoors and features some amazing choreography and costumes. Despite its faults, it features some wonderful performances, particularly Bolger in one of his view villainous roles. The iconic “March of the Toy Soldiers” sequence has lived on for decades as a staple of Christmastime at Disney Parks around the world.
If you’ve never seen Babes in Toyland, now is the perfect time. It’s clear that Disney learned a lot while making it, lessons that paved the way for Mary Poppins to be “Practically perfect” just three years later. Also of note to film buffs is that Toyland was the result of Disney’s attempt to make a film based on the L. Frank Baum Oz books, recycling much of the cast and crew from the scrapped Rainbow Road to Oz film. In fact, Ray Bolger’s talks with Disney began because he was to reprise his role as the Scarecrow in that picture which was cancelled as Walt realized nothing would be able to compare with the MGM classic.
The night is still young, continue to the next page to finish the evening's lineup.
12:00 AM – Never Cry Wolf
Leonard Maltin usually says goodnight during his introduction in the 10:00 hour, so from here on out he will likely be absent. Disney was struggling in the 1980’s to stay relevant with its film content. During this period, the company fought off several hostile takeover attempts and in order to diversify, Ron Miller led them in a direction away from family entertainment in an attempt to appeal to adults. Touchstone Pictures was established in February 1984, 1 month after Never Cry Wolf was released. Had the adult branding existed just one-month prior, this would have likely been the first Touchstone film. Instead, it is the first film under the newly labeled “Walt Disney Pictures” brand.
Never Cry Wolf tells the true story of Farley Mowat, a biologist sent to Alaska to study the habits of wild wolves to determine if they were responsible for the declining caribou population. In a landscape full of men trying to strike oil to get rich quick, Smith spends much of his time in solitude until a few members of the Inuit tribe take interest in his research efforts and help him to better understand the wild animals.
Featuring some beautiful cinematography, impressive staged animal action, and a great performance by Charles Martin Smith, Never Cry Wolf is a must-see. However, interested audience members should be prepared for a lot of unnecessary nudity, including brief full frontal during several shots. There are also some uncomfortable moments when Farley tries to match his diet with the wolves. Also be prepared for a typical 1980’s synthesized score, the only real giveaway that this film takes place in that decade.
2:00 AM – White Wilderness
This Academy Award winning nature documentary from 1958 was one of the last films in the popular True-Life Adventures film series. The series began a decade prior in 1948 and when Disney’s distributor RKO refused to release the first short, Walt created the Buena Vista Distribution Co. RKO’s refusal to distribute Seal Island would cost them dearly when Disney decided not to renew the contract, now that Walt had his own distribution company.
Like all True-Life Adventures, White Wilderness begins with an animated introduction that eventually leads into live action. The footage was shot over a three-year period in Canada. James Algar was an animation director with a passion for animals; He directed all of the True-Life Adventures, including this one. Narrator Winston Hibler was not an actor, but was a Disney writer who wound up producing and narrating all of the Disney nature films from this era.
In this overview of arctic animals, the viewer is introduced to walruses, polar bears, beluga whales, wolves, caribou, oxen, wolverines and lemmings. For the most part, the animal action is authentic and Hibler’s narration tends to be comedic. However, the True-Life Adventures series sometimes staged, or “faked,” action and White Wilderness features the most infamous example of this. The lemmings depicted weren’t found in the wild, but were purchased from an Inuit tribe. The myth that they will follow their leader off a cliff was dramatically forced in this film, an act that has never been observed in the wild.
3:30 AM – Polar Trappers (Short)
White Wilderness is only 72-minutes long. That means between the end of that film and 3:30, there will be 18-minutes of TCM commercials before this short, which will only fill half of its 15-minute timeslot. 1938’s Polar Trappers was the first time Donald Duck and Goofy had been paired together without Mickey Mouse.
Both Donald and Goofy are trying to trap animals in the arctic. Goofy has set his sights on a walrus, while Donald attempts to lure a penguin for his supper (don't think too much into that). Their unsuccessful antics result in hilarious consequences.
4:00 AM – The Island at the Top of the World
In the spirit of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Island at the Top of the World Is a Jules Verne-esque adventure film that spent six troubled years in production. A lot was riding on the film, which Disney expected to be a gigantic box office success. When it failed to make an impression, the studio returned to formulaic films and didn't attempt anything so risky again until after Star Wars changed the landscape of filmmaking (how fitting that it airs the same night that a new Star Wars film debuts in theaters).
Four explorers unite on an adventure to save one of their sons, who disappeared on an archeological quest to find a lost viking island. Sailing aboard the airship Hyperion, the explorers discover that the island is still inhabited by viking descendants. However, their appearance gets them all in trouble as the vikings are willing to kill to prevent the outside world from discovering their secret location.
I'm curious if Island at the Top of the World would have been more successful today after recent hits like Thor and Frozen have brought Norwegian heritage into mainstream media. The film's screenplay was written by John Whedon, grandfather of Joss Whedon who wrote and directed Marvel's The Avengers and its sequel, both of which featured Thor. A statue of that same Norse god can be seen in this film. This was the final film produced by Winston Hibler (for other works, see White Wilderness).
When The Island at the Top of the World was released in 1974, Disney already had a sequel in development and an entire land in the works for Disneyland called Discovery Bay, whose E-Ticket attraction would have been based on the film. However, the Discovery Bay plans were semi-realized twenty years later when Disneyland Paris opened. In place of Tomorrowland is Discoveryland, a Jules Verne inspired future which features the Hyperion docked in a hangar as the entrance to the Videopolis Theater.
And with that, another Treasures from the Disney Vault draws to a close. In all, I think this is the best job Leonard Matlin has done so far in terms of creating a cohesive evening of entertainment where each film thematically compliments the next. I hope you've enjoyed this look ahead (or behind, as the case may be) and I can't wait until the next time Disney takes over TCM for an evening.