Acting Librarian of Congress David Mao announced the annual selection of 25 motion pictures to be named to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. These films, which epitomize the diversity and richness of the nation’s cinematic heritage, have been identified as motion pictures that deserve to be preserved because of their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance. Among the selections are two shorts by Walt Disney Productions.
The Old Mill (1937)
This cartoon, produced by the Walt Disney Company as one of its Silly Symphony entries, depicts a community of animals—mice, doves, bats, bluebirds and an expressive owl—battling a severe thunderstorm that nearly destroys their home in an abandoned windmill. Directed by Wilfred Jackson, the film acted as a testing ground for audience interest in longer form animation as well as for advanced technologies, including the first use of the multiplane camera, which added three-dimensional depth. It also featured more complex lighting and realistic depictions of animal behavior that would be perfected in “Snow White,” “Fantasia” and “Bambi.” The dazzling imagery was complemented by Leigh Harline’s compelling orchestral scoring inspired by a Strauss operetta. In “The 50 Greatest Cartoons Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals,” edited by historian Jerry Beck, Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston recalled, “Our eyes popped when we saw all of The Old Mill’s magnificent innovations—things we had not even dreamed of and did not understand.” The film won an Academy Award for best animated short in 1937, and the studio won an Oscar for its revolutionary camera.
The Story of Menstruation (1946)
Sponsored by Kimberly-Clark, the makers of Kotex, this title was produced by the Walt Disney Company through its Educational and Industrial Film Division. Distributed free to schools and girls’ clubs with an accompanying pamphlet titled “Very Personally Yours,” the film used friendly Disney-style characters and gentle narration to “encourage a healthy, normal attitude” toward menstruation. Although a few such educational filmstrips were available before World War II, this version was seen as more progressive than previous offerings and, according to advertisements in “The Educational Screen,” it replaced superstitions with “scientific facts” and dispelled “embarrassment.” Some contemporary scholars, however, take issue with the approach. Sean Griffin of Southern Methodist University’s Division of Film and Media Arts and author of “Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company from the Inside Out” suggests that Disney’s abstract representation of the body “‘bleaches’ the more ‘unsavory’ parts of the lesson, such as making the menstrual flow white instead of red.” According to Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of “The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls,” approximately 93 million American women, mostly teenagers, viewed this film between 1946 through the late 1960s.