Peter and the Wolf (1946 film)
An animated dramatization of the 1936 musical composition by Sergei Prokofiev, produced by Walt Disney, with Sterling Holloway providing the voice of the narrator. It was originally released theatrically in 1946 as a segment in Make Mine Music. It was re-issued the following year accompanying a re-issue of Fantasia (as a short subject before the film), then released separately on home video in the 1990s.
This version makes several changes to the original story, for example:
- During the character introduction, the pets are given names: "Sasha" the bird, "Sonia" the duck, and "Ivan" the cat.
- As the cartoon begins, Peter and his friends already know there is a wolf nearby, and are preparing to catch him.
- The hunters get names at a later point in the story: "Misha", "Yasha" and "Vladimir".
- Peter day-dreams of hunting and catching the wolf and exits the garden carrying a wooden "pop-gun" rifle with the purpose of hunting the wolf down.
- At the end, in a complete reversal of the original (and to make the story more child-friendly), it turns out that the duck has not been eaten by the wolf. (The wolf is shown chasing the duck, who hides in a tree's trunk. The wolf attacks out of view, and returns in view with some of the duck's feathers in his mouth and licking his jaws. Peter, the cat, and the bird assume the duck has been eaten. After the wolf has been caught, the bird is shown mourning the duck. The duck comes out of the tree trunk at that point and they are happily reunited).
In Belle's Tales of Friendship, The Disney version of Peter and the Wolf is featured and narrated by Belle instead of Sterling Holloway.
This version of Peter and the Wolf was featured in House of Mouse and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and an audio recording of this version with expanded narration by Sterling Holloway was released on Disneyland Records (DQ-1242).
The film offers a rather positive view of Russians, and the Russian language features rather prominently.
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