Following on from Disney animated features: the golden age (1937-42) , and skipping over the "package films" of the Forties, here's a little pack of postwar fantasies. I chose to cut this off with Sleeping Beauty, because after that there's a real paradigm shift in terms of animation budgets and priorities which translates itself into the style of the film. Arguably, it's as big a gap as the one that separates these five from the almost impossibly lush storybooks of the previous collection.
So basically, this is "the Fifties"; the title is poetic license, as the Mickey Mouse club only debuted in 1955 (along with Disneyland). Also in this same era, the "live action plus some animation" approach of some of the Forties pictures (Song of the South, etc.) is scrapped and the studio begins cranking out live-action kiddie films in earnest, beginning with 1950's Treasure Island. Not counting nature pictures, I count some forty-three such features before another they release another one with cartoons in it - 1964's Mary Poppins! I mention all this just to emphasize that, interestingly, the films around which the studio has arguably built its "timeless family classics" brand are actually a slim, slim minority of its actual output in the same period. Cinderella saved the studio, but Alice flopped, and one suspects that if it weren't for Walt's own great fondness for animation, some more reasonable person might have said "look, let's stick with Davy Crockett sequels" and the Disney canon would end right there.
The last ones were mostly films I had seen within the past year; with these, the only one I've seen since childhood is Sleeping Beauty (and I wasn't much impressed). Are the others worth giving a go?
Poll Results
Option | Votes |
Alice in Wonderland July 26, 1951 | 16 |
Lady and the Tramp June 22, 1955 | 6 |
Sleeping Beauty January 29, 1959 | 6 |
Cinderella February 15, 1950 | 2 |
Peter Pan February 5, 1953 | 2 |
― Doctor Casino, Sunday, 2 February 2014 00:40 (ten years ago) link