3 new Walt Disney Treasures DVD collections slated for release

February 21st, 2008 by Scott Marks

Destino (2003)

The Disney Vault is once again ajar. Walt Disney Home Entertainment announced the new lineup for their highly coveted Walt Disney Treasures collection. The year’s releases include Chronological Donald, Vol. 4, Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow and Destino.

The latest Donald Duck anthology will showcase the tail end of the irascible Mr. Duck’s career. The 31 cartoons in the set were produced between 1951 and 1961 and include all of Don’s CinemaScope shorts presented in their original widescreen aspect ratio for the first time on video.

Later period Donald, particularly when teamed with chipmunks or nephews, is not exactly the duck that laid the golden egg. A complete list of titles has yet to be issued, but for sentimental reasons, I sure hope they include Donald in Mathmagic Land and Donald and the Wheel. My first and only viewing of these shorts was at the Roosevelt Theater in downtown Chicago. I was six at the time and am still curious to understand why my parents made be don a sport coat and tie to see a couple of cartoons.

Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow first aired as three separate episodes on Disney’s weekly TV show under the title The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, was later edited for theatrical releases in England and the U.S. This DVD set includes all three of the original TV episodes plus the theatrical version of the film that was released in England. Never had any interest in Dr. Syn. With the exception of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, live-action Disney, particularly the stuff produced for TV, is anathema.

There’s gold to be mined in the Destino set. It all began in 1946 as a collaboration between Uncle Walt and famed surrealist painter Salvador Dali and was originally intended as a newfashioned experimental work to be included in a compilation film. Disney and Dali met in 1945 at a dinner party hosted by Jack Warner. At the time, Dali was working on the dream sequence from Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound. The two artists expressed mutual admiration and it wasn’t long before they came up with the project.

Fifteen seconds of footage was produced before the short was abandoned due to financial constraints. Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney rediscovered the project while making Fantasia/2000 and this meeting of legends finally saw the light of day in 2003.

It’s a stunning 7 minute short, easily the best work of animation the studio has attached its name to this decade. Destino played the festival circuit and was eventually picked up by Landmark Theaters and shown as a short subject before The Triplets of Belleville. Their press release described the film as “set to a Spanish song, devoid of dialogue and without a linear story line. It follows a dark-eyed ballerina on a journey among strange objects through a desert landscape in a dreamlike atmosphere. It is a love story as only Dali could envision it, complete with images of ballerinas, baseball players, melting clocks, tuxedo-clad eyeballs, ants that turn into bicyclists, and two giant heads carried on the backs of the Fates (represented as giant turtles.)”

How does a 7 minute cartoon justify a 2 DVD tin? Also included is an all-new feature-length documentary that examines the surprising partnership between Dali and Disney plus two new featurettes; “The Disney That Almost Was,” an examination of the studio’s unfinished projects; and “Encounters with Walt,” which addresses the surprisingly diverse group of celebrities and artists who were attracted to Walt Disney’s early work.

All three collections are due to hit store shelves on November 11.

Tags: Chronological Donald, Collectors Tins, DESTINO, Donald Duck, DR. SYN, dvd, Salvador Dali, Vol. 4, Walt Disney, Walt Disney Treasures

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Disney’s Long Overlooked Masterwork: THE THREE CABALLEROS (1944)

November 7th, 2007 by Scott Marks

The Three Caballeros (1944)

Directed by Norman Ferguson

Written by James Bodrero, Homer Brightman, Del Connell, William Cottrell, Bill Peet, Elmer Plummer, Ted Sears, Ernest Terrazzas, Roy Williams and Ralph Wright

Running Time: 69 min.

Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1

Rating:

Critics and animation fans aren’t the only ones to slight The Three Caballeros. It remains the only Disney animated feature never to receive a studio re-release.

Made during the war as part of the government’s good neighbor policy, this follow up to Saludos Amigos is a dazzling Technicolor triumph. Critic Dave Kehr was puzled over why Fantasia was reissued for the acid generation of the 1970s and this sat on the shelf. Even without the aid of LSD this is a much more hallucinogenic experience, and none of that stuffy classical stuff. This time, we Mambo!

It’s a plotless, free-form melange of color, movement and music as we follow Donald Duck, Jose Carioca and Panchito on a dazzling tour of our neighbors south of the border. The DVD is more than acceptable, but you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a dye transfer Technicolor print of this projected on a big screen. Whether my former History of Animation students knew it or not, that 16mm gray track print I showed was one of the greatest gifts anyone ever game them.

It had been twenty years since Disney combined live action and animation for his Alice cartoon series. This article from the September 1944 issue of Popular Science discusses the difficulties involved when color is added to the mix as well as the incorporation of the legendary Multiplace Camera.

Thanks to modernmechanix.com for the use of their scans!