02 octobre 2008
Make Mine Music
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Make Mine Music is the eighth full-length film of the Disney studios. Released on the 15th of 1946 in the United States, it is the first film released during the post-war years. During almost four years, Disney studios had been requisitioned by the American army to create propaganda cartoon movies as well as others speaking about the friendship between the United States and the Latin America (Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros), patriotism was then current ! These various films allowed the studios to continue its activities during the war but engendered only very few profits, European market being totally closed. The solution was to realize low-cost films (Pinocchio, Fantasia or Bambi had cost a real fortune). And so during still some years the studio only released "package" films. Package films were in fact a series of short films put the one behind the others in order to create a full-length film of one hour and a half. Inaugurated in 1943 with Saludos Amigos, this style continued until 1949 with The Adventures of Ichabod and M. Toad.
Make Mine Music is composed with eleven short films of uneven quality. Some are real jewels: : The Martins and the Coys, All the Cats Join In, Casey at the Bat (which will continue in 1954 with, Casey Bats Again), Peter and the Wolf, Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet, The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met. On the other hand, other are boring and rather inferior : Blue Bayou (realized as a continuation of Fantasia), Without You, Two Silhouettes, After You've Gone. The good short films were more numerous, we can say that this film remains interesting for any animation passionate.
Make Mine Music takes also part of the rare full-length animated films Disney didn't released in DVD in France (as Song of the South). It's a bottom when we know that Disney France set up a number collection which will never be complete (Make Mine Music is the number eight and Song of the South the number nine). The reason of this absence is apparently due to a law problem about the French soundtrack of the film, the soundtrack where we could find the voice of Edith Piaf on the short film Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet. The Americans had more luck than us, the film released there but truncated by one of its short films, The Martins and the Coys, considered too violent and making the apology of firearms!
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