POP! SIX! SQUISH! CICERO! LIPSCHITZ!

Melody Time

33 in x of animated feature film history Release: May 27th, 1948 Country: USA Directors: Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Wilfred Jackson

Made up of sequences set to popular music and folk music, Melody Time is, like Make Mine Music before it, the popular music version of Fantasia. 

The film consists of 7 musical segments––Once Upon a Wintertime (sung by Frances Langford), about two romantic young lovers in December; Bumble Boogie (performed by Freddy Martin and His Orchestra), a surrealistic battle for a solitary bumble bee as he tries to ward off a visual and musical frenzy; The Legend of Johnny Appleseed (narration and voices by Dennis Day); Little Toot (sung by The Andrews Sisters), based on the story of the same name by Hardie Gramatky, in which a small tugboat wants to be just like his father; Trees (performed by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians), a recitation of the 1913 poem ‘Trees’ by Joyce Kilmer; Blame It on the Samba (featuring The Dinning Sisters and organist Ethel Smith), in which Donald Duck and José Carioca meet the Aracuan Bird, who introduces them to the samba; and Pecos Bill (with Roy Rogers, Bob Nolan, and the Sons of the Pioneers), the tale of Texas’ famous hero.

Melody Time is considered to be the last anthology feature made by the Walt Disney Animation Studios. 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.’

This was the last film The Andrews Sisters took part in. They sang throughout the 10 minute segment known as Little Toot. Andrews Sisters member Maxine said: ‘It was quite an experience. On the wall at the studio they had the whole story in picture form. Two songwriters played the score and Walt Disney explained it to us. It was a new thing for Disney. We sang the narrative. It was very exciting to work with Disney-he was such a gentleman.’

The two children who hear the story of Pecos Bill (Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten) also appear together in Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart. Patten also appears in Fun and Fancy Free.

At the time of its release, the film received ‘generally unfavorable reviews’. However, a 1948 review for The News-Sentinel said the ‘charm and skill’ that one had to expect from Disney is ‘delightful entertainment’ for all children.

Melody Time was the last feature film to include Donald Duck & José Carioca until the 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

(source)

Clips of Melody Time are available on YouTube.

UPDATED: 5/27/18

千夜一夜物語 / Senya Ichiya Monogatari A Thousand and One Nights

152 in x of animated feature film history Release: Jun. 14th, 1968 Country: Japan Director: Eiichi Yamamoto

This film features nudity, sexual content, and a brief depiction of rape.

Aladdin (or Aldin), a poor traveling water seller, falls in love with Miriam, a slave girl on auction in Baghdad; when she’s sold to the police chief’s spoiled son, Aladdin steals her, and the pair are imprisoned in a wealthy man’s mansion. When the man is killed, Aladdin is blamed and sent to prison. Meanwhile, Miriam gives birth to a daughter––Jalis––and dies. Escaping jail, Aladdin goes on a series of adventures for 15 years, eventually returning to Baghdad as the rich sailor Sinbad. He becomes king, but loses favor after commanding his citizens to build a tower to heaven. He also falls in love with Jalis, not knowing she is his daughter, and attempts to force her to join his harem. When his true identity as Aladdin is revealed, he is sentenced to death, but escapes to the desert and again becomes a poor water seller.

“Prior to this film, animator Osamu Tezuka had made films aimed primarily at children. Tezuka wanted to show that animation could be for all age groups and all interests. In the late 1960s, he decided to produce features for adults that were erotic, but in good taste.

Using the full resources of his animation studio, Mushi Production, the staff was said to reach a gigantic 60,000 people, including art director Osamu Dezaki ad character designer Takashi Yanase. 

The story, developed by Tezuka with credited assistance by Kazuo Fukasaka and Hiroyuki Kumai, was a loose hodgepodge of some of the A Thousand and One Nights (a series of Middle Eastern folktales assembled between the 8th and 14th centuries) as translated by Sir Richard Francis Burton. Burton kept the adult sexuality and obscenity of the original, and so did Tezuka’s version––though with his own updates and experimentalism.

A Thousand and One Nights was a critical success in Japan as an imaginative and experimental film. It featured an intelligent adult story with psychedelic rock music. The often stylized and abstract animation was combined with occasional brief live-action footage.

However, it was largely ignored outside of Japan; The reputation of animation as ‘just for kids’ was too strong. Distributors in other countries who admired it did not see how it could be successfully marketed. Tezuka’s faithfulness to the original tales was seen as more of a flaw than something to be admired. The film was also not well received in the Middle East because of its nudity and eroticism, as well as the way in which the main character was portrayed, such as eating pork and drinking wine despite being Muslim. 

The film predates the more successful release of Fritz the Cat, the first American X-rated animated film, by three years.”

(source) (source)

POSTED: 1/03/19

animated gals - Ma Na’s Daughter 孔雀公主 / Kong que gong zhu (The Peacock Princess)

1963 China Jin Xi

filed under: China, 1960s