The Reluctant Dragon

"The Reluctant Dragon" got a somewhat hostile response from critics when it first came out. To some degree, I can understand the negative reaction. For one thing, it often comes more like an advertisement for the Disney company instead of an original story. Also, while the movie promises to answer some questions to its audience about how cartoons are made, it doesn't go into that much depth about the subject. And some of what it presents is wrong, from hiring actors to play cartoon staff to suggesting that the audio for a cartoon is made after the animation is done. It also doesn't help that while Robert Benchley was a funny guy elsewhere, the material given to him as the movie's pseudo-host just isn't that funny.

But if you are an animation buff and/or a Disney buff, the movie does have its rewards. There are occasional legitimate peeks into the Disney company at the time, and those peeks do have some interest. And while the live action footage is mostly disappointing, the animated sequences do deliver - not just the title cartoon, but also "Baby Weems" and the Goofy cartoon. I don't know if kids would sit still for the entire movie, but those certain adults I mentioned at the start of this paragraph should find the movie has its rewards.

Humorist Robert Benchley is at home. His wife convinces him to sell the rights for his story 'The Reluctant Dragon' to Walt Disney. She drags him to the studio and leaves him there. He wanders around the studio and discovers the animation process along the way. Finally he meets Walt Disney himself.

This starts as a black and white live action fictional drama. The fact that it's not animation made it less than successful originally. However it's fascinating to see where Disney began and what it looked like. It's a studio tour dressed up as a little story. This is terrific as a time capsule and a fun way to see how it was made. This is probably a good movie to show new hires at the time. After 25 minutes, the movie turns into technicolor with some animation. Goofy has a cartoon about how to ride a horse. The final section has the Reluctant Dragon cartoon. This movie has a bit of historical values but as a story, this is rather bland.

I happened upon this film during a late night when nothing else was on TV, and couldn't have been happier that I came across it.

In this, we're taken behind-the-scenes of Disney studios circa 1941, and given a humorous (and, I'm sure, highly fictionalized) tour of the studio and its various departments. While I've always been a fan of Disney's animation, I'd never been given a glimpse of the animators themselves, and I always thought that they deserved to be as well known as the Warner Brothers stable of talent. Well, here they're given a chance to hog the spotlight (as Disney himself doesn't show up until the final few moments of the film) and show off their talents.

Not only is this a good chance for you to see how some of your Disney favorites were brought to screen, the linking device with comic Robert Benchley is charming throughout, and the attitude is more than a little self-deprecating (playing up the notion that one is indoctrinated into the "Disney way of life" in working for the Mouse, Benchley's guide is portrayed as a militarily-garbed, wormy little walking Disney Rule Book). The animation itself is great (as is usual for Disney of this vintage) and the live-action work is funny in a way that most Disney live-action works aren't. All of this adds up to a most rewarding, and highly neglected, classic from the Vaults of Disney.

This little classic spends just short of an hour touring the Disney Studios in the company of Robert Benchley, the humorist who acts like a big kid in a candy store (and is thus the perfect guide for something like this).

We see how the cartoons are made, moving from the recording studio - where the real-life voices of Donald Duck and Clara Cluck sing an aria - through to clay models of the characters to be animated - the sound effects dept. (we see the full Casey Junior sequence, some of which ended up in 1941's 'Dumbo') - the scenario department (we see a whole cartoon - Baby Weems - in storyboard format) - the animation department (we see a cartoon feature on riding a horse, and see Donald Duck showing us how he walks) - and much more. There's also a neat segue from black and white to Technicolor.

'The Reluctant Dragon' is a book which Benchley hopes to pitch to Disney, only to find the film has already been made; the last 20 minutes of this feature is the cartoon about the (rather camp) dragon, and a classic bit of Disney work.

The whole movie is engrossing and a fantastic overview of the state-of-the-art work being done by the Disney Studios at the beginning of the 40s.

Disney film incorporating several animated shorts with live-action tour of Walt Disney's studio in Burbank, California. Robert Benchley gives a colorful "performance" as a guest of Walt's (who makes a cameo), meeting animators and storyboard-editors while pitching the movie idea of a shy dragon. This picture, more a playful stunt than a memorable entry in the Disney canon, features some gorgeous animation and a lovely switch from black-and-white to color early on. It's more likely to appeal to nostalgia-crazy grown-ups however, instead of restless kids. Look for appearances by Goofy, Donald Duck, Bambi, and...Alan Ladd?! **1/2 from ****