Make Mine Music

Make Mine Music
Original theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jack Kinney Clyde Geronimi Hamilton Luske Joshua Meador Robert Cormack
Produced by	Walt Disney
Written by	Walt Disney James Bordrero Homer Brightman Erwin Graham Eric Gurney T. Hee Sylvia Holland Dick Huemer Dick Kelsey Jesse Marsh Tom Oreb Cap Palmer Erdman Penner Harry Reeves Dick Shaw John Walbridge Roy Williams
Starring	Nelson Eddy Dinah Shore Benny Goodman The Andrews Sisters Jerry Colonna Sterling Holloway Andy Russell David Lichine Tania Riabouchinskaya The Pied Pipers The King's Men The Ken Darby Chorus
Studio	Walt Disney Productions
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Release dates	April 20, 1946 (1946-04-20)
Running time	76 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Make Mine Music is an animated anthology film produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres on April 20, 1946. It is the 8th 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. It received mixed to positive reviews, though its first segment, The Martins and the Coys, was panned by critics due to its overuse of violence.

The musical director was Al Sack.^[1]

The film was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.^[2]

Film segments

This particular film has ten such segments.

The Martins and the Coys

This segment 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. It was edited out in the NTSC home media version because it had parts too intense for children, while in the PAL version, it was kept.

Blue Bayou

This segment featured animation originally intended for Fantasia using the Claude Debussy musical composition Clair de Lune from Suite bergamasque. It featured two egrets flying through the Everglades on a moonlit night. However, by the time Make Mine Music was released Clair de Lune was replaced by the new song Blue Bayou, performed by the Ken Darby Singers. However, the original version of the segment still survives.

All the Cats Join In

This segment 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.

Without You

This segment was a ballad of lost love, sung by Andy Russell.

Casey at the Bat

This segment featured Jerry Colonna, reciting the poem also titled "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer, about the arrogant ballplayer whose cockiness was his undoing.

Two Silhouettes

This segment 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.

Peter, Ivan the cat and Sasha the bird realize that they have crossed the line upon meeting the wolf. Sonia the duck remains oblivious

Peter and the Wolf

This segment was an animated dramatization of the 1936 musical composition by Sergei Prokofiev, with narration by actor Sterling Holloway. A Russian boy named Peter sets 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. Each character is represented with a specific musical accompaniment as follows:

Peter: String Quartet
Sasha the Bird: Flute
Sonia the Duck: Oboe
Ivan the Cat: Clarinet
Grandpa: Bassoon
Hunters: Kettledrums
The Wolf: Primarily horns and cymbals.

After You've Gone

This segment again featured Benny Goodman and The Goodman Octet as eight anthropomorphized instruments (Piano, Bass, Drums, Clarinet, Trumpet, Trombone, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax) who paraded through a musical playground.

Johnnie Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet

This segment told the romantic story of two hats who fell in love in a department store window. When Alice was sold, Johnnie devoted himself to finding her again. They eventually, by pure chance, meet up again and live happily ever after together, side by side.The Andrews Sisters provided the vocals. Like the other segments, it was later released theatrically. It was released as such on May 21, 1954.^[3]

The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met

The bittersweet finale about a Sperm Whale with incredible musical talent and his dreams of singing Grand Opera. A legend is spread throughout the city that there is an opera-singing whale, but as it is seemingly disproven, it is assumed that the whale has swallowed an opera singer who is the one the sailors are actually hearing sing. The short-sighted impresario Tetti-Tatti believes this and sets out to destroy Willy, the newspapers announcing that he was going to see. Whitey, Willy's seagull friend, excitedly brings Willy the newspaper, all of his friends believing that this is his big chance, so he goes out to meet the boat and sing for Tetti-Tatti. He finds them, and upon hearing Willy sing, Tetti-Tatti comes to believe that Willy has swallowed not one, but THREE singers (due to his having three uvulae), and chases him with a harpoon on a boat with three crewmen. Upon hearing the whale sing, the crewmen try to stop Tetti-Tatti from killing the whale, as they want to continue listening to him sing, even to the point of tying up Tetti-Tatti and sitting on him, however he still manages to escape and fire the harpoon gun. In the end, Willie was harpooned and killed, but the narrator then explains that Willy's voice will sing on in Heaven. 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.

Cast

Home video

Make Mine Music was originally released on laserdisc in Japan on October 21, 1985, and on VHS and DVD on June 6, 2000 under the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection title. This release was edited to remove "The Martins and the Coys", because it had "graphic gunplay not suitable for children." Before, two of its segments (Willie the Operatic Whale, and Peter and the Wolf) were released on home video independent of the original feature, in company with original animated shorts in the 1980s and 1990s. The Japanese laserdisc includes all the cuts made to the VHS/DVD versions. No unedited release has been scheduled in America. European Region 2 DVDs also include the unedited feature, but was not released in the United Kingdom, making it the only classic unavailable. A UK release has been set, for the first time, on DVD from July 15th 2013.

It is the only film in the Disney Animated Classics canon never to see a release on Region 4 DVD in Australia. Also it has never been released on digital format (DVD or Blu-ray) in Italy making the only Disney Canon Classic to be unavailable for Italian market.

See also

• List of animated feature films

References

External links

• Official website
• Make Mine Music at the Internet Movie Database
• Make Mine Music at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Make Mine Music at Rotten Tomatoes