Make Mine Music

Make Mine Music:

What a great collection of stories! I watched it fairly recently with my Dad and some other family at his house in Pinon Hills. I still cry at the "Johnny Fedora" and "Willie The Whale" stories. I grew up watching these and so many Disney cartoons and movies on our old 16 millimeter projector. We still have it, but it needs a bulb. My nephew Kurt brought this cartoon up on DVD. It was great to see my Dad's "name up in lights," so to speak, at least for animation credits. He loved seeing it again, altho' his eyes aren't so good now at age 92. But he is still hanging in there.

These "potpourri" musicals Disney made in the late 40's are usually variable, but this feature's my favorite among that whole batch. The Disney guys are always at their best in animation emphasizing characterization, and those musical sketches stressing this are the ones that work best. But one of the centerpieces here always struck me as Disney at his all-time worst: his attempts to duplicate the artistic success of "Fantasia" with a jumbled treatment of "Peter and the Wolf." I have yet to see a successful visualization of this piece....better to hear it on records, since this is largely a "theater-of-the-mind" piece, geared to help youngsters learn about some of the instruments of the orchestra. The Disney guys turn it into pure sap. But "Casey at the Bat," "Johnny Fedora & Alice Bluebonnet," "The Martins & the Coys," and especially "All the Cats Join In" and "Willie the Singing Whale" more than make up for what surrounds them.

Unable to initially return to making true animated features like "Pinocchio" and "Bambi" after the Second World War, Disney turned to making "package features". Like "Fantasia", these films strung together various shorts and featurettes into a feature-length anthology. Between their release in the 1940s and the DVD age, these films were rarely, if ever, shown in their entirety. Instead, the individual segments were re-released as stand-alone pieces, some of which became quite popular. It's understandable why this was done. Whereas the individual elements of "Fantasia" have a similar enough artistic vision to be kept intact as a single experience, the package features do seem like a line of random, individual shorts that have been strung together. As such, the films can seem quite uneven and somewhat unsatisfying collectively.

In particular, "Make Mine Music" stands out as being one of the most inconsistent package features. It consists of ten shorts, all relying heavily on music. Some of the shorts are fairly conventional, story-driven, while others are quite experimental. The real stand-out pieces are "Peter and the Wolf" (initially considered for a sequel/continuation of "Fantasia") and "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met". The stories are engaging, and they are absolutely charming, although "Peter and the Wolf" relies a bit too much on narration. It comes as no surprise that these two shorts became the film's most famous segments. Special mention should also be given to "Blue Bayou", which uses footage from a deleted segment of "Fantasia" that was to be set to Debussy's "Clair de Lune" (here, though, it's set to a love ballad).

Other segments, however, vary. "The Martins and the Coys", which was rather stupidly removed from the American DVD, is not bad but hardly memorable. "After You've Gone", an interlude featuring anthropomorphised musical instruments, means well but falls quite flat, ultimately appearing as not much more than filler. "All the Cats Join In" and "Without You" equally seem like experimental filler, yet both are more successful. "Casey at the Bat", on the other hand, contains too many self-indulgent gags and overly caricatured animation to be of any real artistic or entertainment merit, a fact not helped by Jerry Colona's obnoxious narration. The two other segments, "Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet" and "Two Silhouettes", are so cutesy that they become nothing but pieces of unadulterated kitsch.

Ultimately, the only people I would recommend "Make Mine Music" to would be the people who would only be interested in it - Disney fans and animation buffs. To everyone else, as with a good number of package films, it would probably be best seeing individual segments, which is how these films work best.

Animated anthology movie from Disney. They made several of these during and after World War II. It's a fun movie with cartoons of varying quality but none are bad. Many of these cartoons were released later as theatrical shorts. There are ten segments. The most popular of them is probably "Casey at the Bat," a recitation by Jerry Colonna of the famous poem. It's a funny, wacky baseball cartoon that was one of my favorites as a kid (seen on a compilation video). Other well-known parts include the Disney version of "Peter and the Wolf," "The Martins and the Coys," which is now considered politically incorrect by those who make such determinations, and "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met," featuring Nelson Eddy. These are all fine cartoons, though the last one has a surprisingly downbeat ending. The 'worst' shorts are the ones that have no real story, just offer a few minutes of animation to some song, almost like a music video of sorts. "Blue Bayou," "Without You," and "Two Silhouettes," for example. They aren't bad shorts, just slight. They feel like time filler. My two favorite shorts in the whole movie are "All the Cats Join In" and "Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet." 'Cats' is an energetic big band number with Benny Goodman music playing while a pencil draws the action as it happens. It's creative and cute with a surprisingly sexy part. You'll have to watch it to see what I mean. 'Fedora' is a sweet story about two hats (yes, hats) falling in love and becoming separated. This is narrated through song by the great Andrews Sisters. Overall, some nice little shorts that should please old-school Disney fans. Good animation and music. A very pleasant movie that will leave you with a smile on your face.

One of Walt's early package films and not bad at that! Some segments are cloyingly hokey, of course, but most shorts are surprisingly playful and charming. The highlights: "The Martins and the Coys" is full of stereotyping and comic gunplay and simply fun to watch; "Casey at the Bat" is a whirlwind of poem recitation; the two Benny Goodman segments feature nice tunes and "Peter and the Wolf" and, particularly, "The Whale Who Wanted To Sing At the Met" are two of Disney's best cartoons.

Just skip the padding and enjoy this compilation!

7 out of 10 triple-voiced Nelson Eddys