Make Mine Music (1946)

Today, we had a nice respite from the general disappoint that has been “the wartime movies.” We got the pleasure to watch Make Mine Music. As expected from a wartime film, this is a collection of animated shorts. Unlike previous examples, however, it’s relatively good and easy to follow. And the animation is generally good.

Original Poster Sourced via IMDB

Summary: As mentioned previously, this is another anthology film. In general, the theme is that every piece is tied with music. It’s almost like they were trying to do another Fantasia, but with more contemporary music. There’s no frame story and each short is self contained, so it’s just a relatively relaxed watch.

As this is an anthology film, I will review each short independently.

Blue Bayou:

This was a nice, calm animation to watch. This piece stands out from the rest because the art, particularly the background art, are beautiful. The animation, however, is a bit limited, with very little movement. The animation isn’t bad per se, just limited. The glowing effect on the two birds gives me a reminiscence of later Don Bluth Studios animation. Supposedly, the backstory for this short is that it was originally intended for Fantasia, but it was scrapped. It had different music originally. This explains why the backgrounds are so beautiful. Just a nice piece to start off with.

All the Cats Join In:

This short is basically the exact opposite of “Blue Bayou,” with simplistic art and backgrounds, but much better, fluid animation. Instead of being a nice, calming piece, this was energetic and fun. There’s this sort of theme that the animation is moving too fast for it to be illustrated properly, with a “Duck Amuck”-esque pencil filling in the scene as it goes on. In general, I just liked it as a fun, pleasant short.

Without You:

I almost forgot this short. Abstracted visuals; it had a feeling similar to some of the more abstract shorts from Fantasia, such as the “Toccata and Fugue.” Overall, just an okay short.

Casey at the Bat:

This is one of the better shorts of movie. A retelling of Ernest Thayer poem “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888.” You probably remember it from a high school English class. This short is an odd one compared to the rest of the movie, as the musical element is downplayed. The poem is sorta “sung” but it’s not consistent. The animation is good, but this definitely feels out of place. This short can stand on its own if it were released as a normal short.

Two Silhouettes:

This is basically “Without You” as mentioned above, but with two rotoscoped dancers dancing over the backgrounds. Again, basically forgettable.

Sourced via IMDB

Peter and the Wolf:

This is probably the best piece of the whole film. It’s also probably the most memorable piece. Just a good animated adaptation of Peter and the Wolf. If you haven’t seen a rendition of Peter and the Wolf, it is basically a story that’s told with musical accompaniment. Different instruments in the music represent different characters in the story. Basically, tells the story of a young boy, named Peter, who goes out to hunt a wolf and makes some animal friends along the way. Stuff happens and, long story short, he eventually captures the wolf. Good animation and music, just a fun short.

After You’ve Gone:

This is just a nice piece of animation. Basically, just some jazzy music with dancing musical instruments. The animation and art gives me the feeling of a mix of the moving broomstick from “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and the abstract, dancing animation of “Toccata and Fugue.” A decent watch.

Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet:

This was probably my favorite short of the movie. It’s just a cute little love story of two hats set to one long song. The animation is perfectly serviceable, but, for some reason, the sentiment of the short really hit me. Like I said, this is a cute short, but its happy ending isn’t earned without drama. About halfway through, this short gets really sad and almost, I might say, scary in a rather “serious” kind of way. But in the end, everything works out.

The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met:

This is another good short. Fun story about a whale that can sing opera. An opera owner goes out to find this whale, thinking that the whale swallowed an opera singer and he could save the opera singer. Once he find the whale, you watch as the whale goes through his career as an opera singer, doing a great job and becoming world famous. At the end, you find that was just a fanciful dream as he is harpooned by the opera owner. Spoiler: the whale dies. A bit of a downer to end the film on, but it’s a great animation with really good snippets of different opera music.

All in all, that’s Make Mine Music. Not the best film we’ve seen so far, but it was still pretty good and definitely better than the last couple of entries. The whole thing clocks in at just over an hour, so it’s worth the time it takes to watch. I would recommend this film.

-CJ

Sourced via IMDB

This week we took a look at Make Mine Music. Like Saludos Amigos, and The Three Caballeros I’ve never seen this move before. I went in to this hoping to see something different than the messes we’d been greeted with for the last two weeks, and I was pleasantly surprised. Make Mine Music is a collection of short films, with collections of jazz pieces all mixed in. It’s not the best film out there, and it’s far from my favorite, but it’s a nice change of pace from what we last watched.

The Martins and the Coys

For anyone that may have seen this short in the past, we’ll be reviewing it later if we can find it. The US release for this short has been removed due to “Comic Gunplay”.

Blue Bayou

This section of film feels the most out of place in the movie. It’s a nice piece, the music is easy on the ears, but the animation is out of place with everything else. This piece was originally cut from Fantasia and it’s pretty obvious. The backgrounds lack fine detail, and have the blurry detail that other shorts from Fantasia had. There’s also a lot of glimmering effects, and the two egrets that are the main focus are very bright and clear compared to any other aspects of this short. I really liked this piece, but it does feel off when compared to the rest of this movie.

All the Cats Join In

This piece felt kinda standard to me. It depicts a bunch of teenagers going to a soda shop, and dancing to a jukebox. Everything in this piece is drawn in with a pencil, that breaks the 4^th wall, but that’s not a bad thing by any means. Compared to Blue Bayou it’s incredibly bright and flashy with it’s use of color, and high upbeat jazz music. I wanted to like it more, but I think what let me down about this, is the lack of detail in the people. They all just look like someone you’d see in a Tom and Jerry, or Loony Toons cartoon from this time. Looking at it that way, this piece seems like it just doesn’t belong.

Without You

Overall, I’d say this was the most forgettable piece of this entire film. Again, it has a lack of fine detail, and it’s overly abstract. It feels like it could’ve been scrapped from Fantasia as well, but there’s no focus, no movement, or anything really engaging. I’d even go so far as to say it’s animation is lazy. This short is easily my least favorite of the bunch.

Casey at the Bat

Animation wise Casey at the Bat brings back the standard stuff that we’ve seen from Disney with Saludos Amigos, and The Three Caballeros. There’s not much to say here, the story, and animation are standard for the time. The thing that feels most off about this, is that it’s more of a dramatic reading, not a song. Like everything so far it just feels out of place in this film.

Two Silhouettes

I’d hoped we’d seen the last of the bad rotoscoping from Disney, but I guess not. Two Silhouettes is exactly what it sounds like. Two Silhouettes dancing over some brightly colored back grounds, that are actually really well done. I’d rather just look at the back grounds than the black figures on the screen, because they just end up taking away from everything. The movement is way to fluid, and it just takes away from the back ground art. I would’ve been happier with this just showing me background art for the entirety of this piece.

Sourced via IMDB

Peter and the Wolf

This is the only short from this movie that I’ve seen before. Again, everything is pretty standard animation wise, but it fits in so much better than Casey at the Bat. At the start of the short, we’re shown that every character has a musical instrument attached to them. The story is fairly standard, but there are some changes to the story to make it more kid friendly. This is one of my favorites of this movie, but I think it’s more or less due to nostalgia.

After You've Gone

This piece feels like it belongs in Fantasia. It’s bright, feels like a jazzed up version of Tocatta and Fugue. It’s got a lot of abstract elements from Fantasia going on in it, but the back grounds are all beautify detailed, the animation is well done, and it comes together incredibly well. The whole segment is focused on a set of instruments, just wandering through a musical playground. I feel that this could easily be a stand alone short. It’s fun, colorful, and it’s got a lot of personality.

Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet

This film took a surprising turn for the better around the last for shorts. I knew a little bit about this section, and I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it turned out better than I expected. The story depicts a pair of hats who fall in love at the store, but when Alice is purchased, Johnnie is left behind. The two eventually find each other and are reunited in a happy end. Music and animation wise, this short really gets it all together.

Finale: The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met

Who at Disney decided to close this movie out on something depressing? The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met follows a whale named Willie, an opera singing whale, who wants nothing more than to be a star. The movie opens on the latest discovery about a singing whale, and if the rumors are true or not. A talent named Tetti-Tatti agent thinks that there must be someone stuck in the wale, and goes out to hunt for it. They eventually find Willie, and he sings for the people in the boat, showing off his skills. We’re then treated to a look into Willies career, and we see him at the Met and other places singing and performing to crowds of people. Oh but wait… that was all a lie. It turns out that whole montage was just a “what if” scenario. Instead, we find that Tetti-Tatti harpooned and killed Willie. The end goes on to say that Willie will still sing in heaven, and the movie closes out. It leaves me with a sense of dissatisfaction. Everything in this movie has had a mostly happy ending. So why are we left with an unhappy one at the end of the film?

Over all I’m actually pretty pleased with Make Mine Music. The first half is something I’d mostly skip over, but the second half is overall pretty great. I wish there was more consistency with this film, because it ends up feeling like some kind of out of place Fantasia. Art styles are all over the place, and half of the film feels abstract, while the other half has well defined stories, plots. I wish they’d either stayed fully abstract, or fully defined. If they had this may have over taken Dumbo as one of my more liked films.

-AJ

Sourced via IMDB