August 16, 2010

Move Monday: Make Music Mine

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Make Mine Music is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on August 15, 1946. It is the eighth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. During the Second World War, much of Walt Disney's staff was drafted into the army, and those that remained were called upon by the U.S. government to make training and propaganda films. As a result, the studio was littered with unfinished story ideas. In order to keep the feature film division alive during this difficult time, the studio released six package films including this one, made up of various unrelated segments set to music. This is the third package film, following Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros.

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-The Martins and the Coys featured popular radio vocal group, King's Men singing the story of a Hatfields and McCoys-style feud in the mountains broken up when two young people from each side fell in love. This segment was later cut from the film's video release due to comic gunplay.

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-Blue Bayou featured animation originally intended for Fantasia using the Debussy musical composition Clair de Lune.

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-All the Cats Join In was one of two segments to which Benny Goodman contributed. An innovative shot in which a pencil drew the action as it was happening, and in which 1940s teens were swept away by popular music.

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-Without You was a ballad of lost love, sung by Andy Russell.

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-Casey at the Bat featured Jerry Colonna, reciting the famous poem by Ernest Thayer, about the arrogant ballplayer whose cockiness was his undoing. caseyatthebat1thumb

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-Two Silhouettes featured two live-action ballet dancers, David Lichine and Tania Riabouchinskaya, moving in silhouette with animated backgrounds and characters. Dinah Shore sang the title song.

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-Peter and the Wolf was an animated dramatization of the 1936 musical composition by Sergei Prokofiev, with narration by actor Sterling Holloway. A Russian boy named Peter set off into the forest to hunt the wolf with his animal friends: a bird named Sasha, a duck named Sonia, and a cat named Ivan.

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-After You've Gone again featured Benny Goodman and his orchestra as four anthropomorphized instruments who paraded through a musical playground.

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-Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnett told the romantic story of two hats who fell in love in a department store window. When Alice was sold, Johnny devoted himself to finding her again. The Andrews Sisters provided the vocals.

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-The Whale Who Wanted To Sing At the Met was the bittersweet finale about a Whale with incredible musical talent and his dreams of singing Grand Opera. A mysterious operatic voice is heard by mariners far out at sea. Professor Tetti Tatti goes to investigate and finds Willie, singing beautifully, sometimes with three voices at once. But the Professor assumes he has swallowed an opera singer, who he proceeds to try to rescue. Nelson Eddy narrated and performed all the voices in this segment. As Willie the Whale, Eddy sang all three male voices in the first part of the Sextet from Donizetti's opera, Lucia di Lammermoor. In the end Willie was harpooned and killed, but the narrator softened the blow by telling the viewers that he sang on in heaven.

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Be sure to vote in our GDP Blog Poll on our side bar (top) for your Favorite Short Featured in Make Music Mine

Pictures and Information from Disney Shorts

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