Each week, THN takes a look back at one of the Walt Disney Animated Classics. The ones that the Walt Disney Company showed in cinemas, the ones they’re most proud of, the ones that still cost a bloody fortune no matter how old they are. The really good ones get through more editions than the Star Wars trilogy, and that’s saying something.
This week it’s time to head south of the border. Saludos Amigos!
1953/ 42 Minutes
Directed by Norman Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts
In early 1941, before the United States joined World War II, the US Department of State commissioned a Disney goodwill tour of South America. This was intended to lead to a movie being shown in the US, Central, and South America as part of the ‘Good Neighbor Policy’, set up by President Franklin Roosevelt, in an attempt to improve relations between the States and Latin America.
Disney was chosen for this because several Latin American governments had close ties with Nazi Germany, and the US government wanted to counteract those ties. Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters were popular in Latin America, and Walt Disney acted as ambassador. The film itself was given federal loan guarantees, because the Disney studio had over-expanded just before European markets were closed to them by the war, and because Disney was struggling with labour unrest at the time, including a strike that also affected the production of DUMBO.
SYNOPSIS: Walt leads a team of Disney employees on a goodwill trip to South America, much of which is filmed and makes up a good half of the movie in the style of one of those slightly patronising documentary movies. As they learn and observe the people and places, the movie segues into four animated shorts inspired by their trip:
Lake Titicaca features Donald Duck, vacationing at the eponymous lake on the border of Peru and Bolivia. Much the same as a bunch of other Disney shorts, Donald explores the locale and interacts with the locals, as the Narrator talks incessantly, often directly influencing Donald’s actions and reactions.
Pedro is the tale of a young, anthropomorphic airplane, living with his parents in an airfield in Chile. Pedro makes his first dangerous flight across the border to collect the mail, and through a series of near-accidents, almost doesn’t make it back. Almost.
El Gaucho Goofy is in many ways the ‘pilot’ for Disney’s popular ‘How To’ series, and sets up the formula for the archetypal Goofy toon; this time he’s a cowboy who is pulled (literally) from the American West to Argentina to learn the ways of the native Gaucho, his Latin American counterpart.
The final segment, Aquarela de Brasil, is a bit more abstract, heading back down the FANTASIA route; it begins with a vibrantly rendered Brazilian jungle, and various plants transforming into birds and, uh… growing lips, before Donald makes a downright surreal reappearance from a flower. He’s then introduced to newcomer José Carioca, a smooth-talking, samba-obsessed parrot, who takes Donald out of the jungle and into Rio for the night of his life.
At only 42 minutes long, the ending is quite abrupt. You expect it to go on a little longer than it really does, but such is the packaged style of the picture, you’re sort of left wanting more. None of it really disappoints, but you get the feeling they’re holding some stuff back for another feature. Which, of course, they are, but they could have done a better job of hiding the fact.
Lessons Learned
1. South America is a beautiful part of the world.
2. You’d be surprised how similar life is amongst different cultures.
3. Latin music is kinda sexy.
THE HERO
We get four heroes, one for each short, and each of them does their thing without really setting the world alight. However, José Carioca deserves a special mention, if only for his brilliant impression of Donald.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnZPz4qg49w&feature=youtu.be&t&start=204]
THE HEROINE
It’s a bit hard to discern whether some minor characters are male or female, such is the way they’re drawn and animated. However, one character is referred to outright as female; Pedro’s mother, a medium sized cargo plane that, well, does absolutely sod all. She can’t fly to get the mail because she has high oil pressure, or something.
THE VILLAIN
No real villains here, as it’s an educational sojourn south of the border. Having said that, Nature itself seems to be the closest we have to a ‘bad guy’. In the Pedro short, the mountain Aconcagua is portrayed as a great, and real danger to flying, with violent sudden storms and downdrafts almost bringing the little plane down.
SIDEKICKS/HENCHMEN
More a collection of minor characters interacting with the hero of the short. You could argue Donald is José’s sidekick in the final short, as it’s he who takes a back seat as he’s shown around the city.
PLOT
It’s basically an old-style documentary film interspersed with animated shorts inspired by the trip, rather like the final film of a media studies course. The only short with any real plot is Pedro, and even that’s pretty standard Disney short fare.
LAUGHS
Quite a few actually, mostly because it’s Donald Duck and Goofy doing what they do best. A few others creep in here and there, and again, José gets a mention for his Donald impression.
SCARES
Aconcagua is actually pretty damn scary for a lump of rock with a static face drawn on it. Even though you know Pedro’s going to make it, it’s a pretty harrowing experience, helped along by the narrator, Fred Shields’ telling of the tale.
MORAL/ EDUCATIONAL VALUE
At the time it was probably something quite interesting to the American people, but these days it comes across as a little patronising. Not quite as bad as ‘look at these strange people and their funny ways’, but it’s pretty close at times. You do pick up a little about the geography down there and some of the parallels across the border are quite surprising, but at the end of the day it’s more of a curiosity.
MUSIC/SONGS
Now, I love me a latin beat, and the score, composed by Edward H Plumb, Paul J Smith and Charles Wolcott, is full of toe-tapping tunes. The score was nominated for three Acadamy Awards in 1943, for Score, Original Song and Sound Recording.
LEGACY
Admit it, have you heard of this one? It was a rather dark time for the Disney studios, and for the world in general, but the Disney roadtrip into South America provided the genesis for not only Saludos Amigos and its follow-up, The Three Caballeros, but also other short films, including a female armadillo which featured in a 1943 Pluto cartoon, Pluto and the Armadillo.
It also helped in its way to improve relations between the Americas, which is always a good thing; nobody wants to be in America’s bad books; they might come and liberate your ass.
One segment also went to give Latin America one of it’s most popular comic characters;
The ‘Pedro’ segment went on to inspire the Chilean cartoonist René Ríos Boettiger (‘Pepo’) to create, in 1949, his most famous character: ‘Condorito’. He was a bit miffed that a baby plane had become the unofficial cartoon mascot of his nation, and created Condorito to redress the balance. It worked; the comic is still running to this day, with a growing readership around the world.
FINAL SCORE 35/53
(By about March we should have enough movies on this list to bother with a scoreboard.)
Any thoughts, questions, complaints? As the Candlestick said, ‘Be our guest’
