Melody Time (1948)

This week, we’ve got yet another “package film,” Melody Time. In a way, Melody Time is a bit of a sister film to Make Mine Music. At least, in my eyes. Yet again, we have a film that tries to be a new Fantasia with more modern/pop type music. While there are some legitimately great shorts here, I felt that this movie just isn’t as good as Make Mine Music. That isn’t to say that it is bad, just that it didn’t succeed in as many places as Make Mine Music.

Original Poster Sourced via IMDB

Summary: As with Make Mine Music, there’s no frame story here. It’s just a collection of shorts set with music. Like previous anthology films, I’ll review each section independently.

Once Upon a Wintertime:

In general, this was on okay short. The basic story is just a love story set in wintertime, we the date of a boy and a girl is also reflected between two rabbits. At first, the lady rebuffs the advances of the boy, but then she is endangered. With a little help from the carriage horses, the boy and his rabbit counterpart save their respective dates. Its a cute little short, but the energy is a little low. I wouldn’t have picked this as an opener. I would also say that the animation is a bit strange, as it is a bit incongruent. Certain parts of the animation, particularly in the main characters, don’t match with the backgrounds. It isn’t so distracting that it ruins the short, but it can be a little off putting. Overall, just a decent little piece.

Bumble Boogie:

This ended up being the “All the Cats Join In” of this film, for me. I didn’t know what to expect when it started, but the jazzy music and interesting animation drew me in and kept me interested. This is basically just an animation of a bee buzzing around over a jazzy version of “Flight of the Bumblebee.” Simple, engaging and fun, this ended up being one of my favorite shorts of the film.

The Legend of Johnny Appleseed:

This is a musical rendition of the famous American Folklore tale. I’m not really sure how I felt about this. Like “Once Upon a Wintertime,” the animation is a little janky, with the characters quality at odds with background quality. I also don’t think this was a particularly compelling rendition of this story. John Chapman was a real person and the folklore version of Johnny Appleseed is good material to craft a fun story around, but I feel this short just dilly-dallys. I don’t know. I just wasn’t interested.

Little Toot:

I’m glad we get to hear the vocal stylings of the Andrews sisters again. They did the music for the “Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet” bit in Make Mine Music. This is the story of little tugboat, the eponymous Little Toot, who likes to mess around in the harbor, instead of tugging boats. He causes a big ocean liner to crash into the city, so he is banished from the city. In his banishment, he saves another ocean liner from a really bad situation and is welcomed into the harbor again. In a way, this story reminds me of “Pedro” from Saludos Amigos. The animation is good, giving me glimpses of what Disney will be able to do in the future in either Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland. Overall, it’s a pretty good short. Not great, but definitely worth the watch.

Trees:

The sort of spiritual successor to “Without You” or “Two Silhouettes” from Make Mine Music. As such, it’s hard to say much about it. Just pretty visuals of abstracted trees set to some music. Unfortunately, the last of anything happening in this short makes it a bit forgettable.

Blame It on the Samba:

While I am glad to see Donald Duck and José Carioca again, I really didn’t want to be reminded of The Three Caballeros. This just feels like another trippy part of that movie that didn’t make the cut then. With this showing back up, I really wonder if that movie was just particularly well received and successful. I don’t see it, honestly. As for this short, it's just a remind of what might end up being my least favorite Disney movie.

Pecos Bill:

Like the Johnny Appleseed bit before, this is a musical rendition of the popular American Folklore character. Unlike the previous short, however, this one is fun. A lot of fun. Whereas the Johnny Appleseed short took itself a little too seriously, “Pecos Bill” tells the story of the rootinest-tootinest cowboy in all of Texas and his exploits which shaped the very land itself. What is a little concerning is that the version we have, and the version currently commercially available, apparently censors a lot of this short due to Pecos Bill smoking. Because of this, the part about Pecos Bills most well known exploit, lassoing a tornado, has been cut out. It's just a shame, really. It also ends on a bit of a downer. Considering this is the last part of the movie, it means the whole movie ends on a bit of a downer. Take that for what you will. All in all, a really good short; well worth the watch.

As for the whole movie, I felt it was good, but not as good as Make Mine Music. Some of the shorts are really good, and some of them are really bad. There’s a lot of good ideas for what could potentially be a good, well-themed movie, but they aren’t developed enough. For example, if you made a whole movie of shorts of American Folklore characters, that’d really be something. Or, at least, if you took all the good shorts from this and Make Mine Music, you’d have a really good movie. Unfortunately, what we have is two halves of this good movie with some filler in between.

And with that, we’ve only got one more “package” film to go, but I think we’re through the woods here. I’m looking forward to writing next week about The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

-CJ

We’re finally at the second to last packaged film. Going into Melody Time, I had hopes that it would take some of the aspects from Fun and Fancy Free and Make Mine Music to make a film of shorts that belonged together. However that doesn’t seem to be the case. After reviewing Melody Time, I’d say this movie just falls apart before it really takes it’s first step. I will say, it’s not a bad film, but it just doesn’t come together very well. Lets take a dive into this.

Once Upon a Wintertime

I want to know why Disney chose this piece to open up on. It’s not particularly great on it’s own, and it feels strange to open up on a winter theme. I may have understood if this film opened in Nov, Dec, or Jan, but this released in May. It feels like it would’ve fit in later on, but it just feels strange and out of place here, and the animation doesn’t help in any way. Both the humans and animals lack any of the classic Disney feeling. They’re overly simplified, and the stylistic choice really harms this film in areas. There are areas where noses, or other small details are gone completely, and it’s pretty noticeable. The story is standard for a Disney short. Two sweethearts are out skating, and the ice breaks underneath them. The guy saves the gal, and everyone is happy. This opening sequence just left me disappointed, and I really wasn’t looking forward to the rest of the film, but it mostly turned around from here.

Bumble Boogie

This is what I may have expected Disney to open up on. “Bumble Boogie” is a jazzed up rendition of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumble Bee.” While there’s not really a plot here, the level of imagination is cranked up here. We get a bee running through a hectic mishmash of musical notes, score pieces, and musical insects. One of my favorite parts of this short was actually a large caterpillar, or centipede made of piano keys. The way it moves, and acts really gives it a feeling of life, and you can see the danger that it poses to the bee. While this is a shorter clip, it’s probably one of my favorites.

The Legend of Johnny Appleseed

This is one of the few shorts I’ve seen from this movie on it’s own. We’re back to some of the low cut animation here, though the quality seems better than “Once Upon a Wintertime.” That being said, the animation feels all over the place here. Back grounds are very simplistic, some animals are detailed, while others turn into strange blobs. Johnny is really the most detailed character throughout the entire clip. While I don’t really like the animation, I do appreciate that they chose to include this section. The story is good, and the music works very well with this.

Little Toot

Now we’re back to full on traditional Disney short animation. We’re presented with a bit of a “Little Engine that Could” type story, sung by the Andrew Sisters. We’re presented with a young tug boat that keeps getting into trouble. Eventually he gets kicked out of his harbor, and redeems himself by helping another boat get to safety. I cant say much about this style wise. The animation is standard affair, and nothing really sticks out, other than we go from a happy cartoon, to boat hell. When Toot is cast out we get rough stormy waters, and buoys that boo him. With the exception of the next clip, I’d say this is one of the forgettable pieces of this movie.

Trees

Trees is a very forgettable short. It takes the 1913 poem “Tree” by Joyce Kilmer, and puts it to music over a setting of changing trees through the seasons. It comes off feeling like cut stock from Bambi, and just feels boring all around. Looking into this short, there were some changes being made to the cells in the animation directly. Pastels were being used on the cells, then laminated in clear lacquers to protect them before being photographed. This does lend a very unique feeling of the animation when you look deeply enough at the artwork. However, when it moves so quickly, and the main focus is being pulled away by the swirling leaves, you happen to miss much of the background work.

Blame It on the Samba.

I thought we were done with this kind of stuff when we finished The Three Caballeros, but apparently not… “Blame It on the Samba” looks like it was directly cut from The Three Caballeros. All the way down to the awful live action that plagued that movie. Again, we’re met with classic Disney animation, however everything here seems incredibly washed out. I could see this just being age, and the fact that cells may have degraded, but it’s pretty off putting. “Blame It on the Samba” faces many of the same issues that plagued The Three Caballeros, it’s just a mess of bright colors dispersed with some samba music. I will say, I do actually dig this song; it’s catchy and it’s been rattling in my head for the last few days. I don’t really mind this short on it’s own, but it feels strange that they’d just throw it in here. The music doesn’t really seem to flow with the other tunes we’re given, and it ends up feeling pretty out of place.

Pecos Bill

Our last short Pecos Bill, was probably my most favorite. Some parts of this short have been cut (Disney's attempt to censor smoking), and I really wish everything had been left in. That being said, this short has it all. Good animation, fantastic story, and a really catchy song. It goes over Pecos Bill and how he changed Texas by digging the Rio Grand, and lassoing storm clouds form California to stop droughts. After seeing this and Johnny Appleseed, I really wished that they’d just made a movie of American Folklore, especially since “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was either finished or in the works for release the next year.

My overall thoughts on this is that is has decent ideas, but none are overly well executed with the exceptions of “Pecos Bill”, and “The Legend of Johnny Appleseed.” Art styles are all over the place here, and the music doesn’t particularly fit together. I really wish they’d just kept this as a folklore piece, or had made some type of effort to make this fit together. I’d even take some kind of over-arcing narration, or some kind overlaying story that would explain why these shorts are being shown. However, the lack of any kind of attempt to fit these shorts, prevent me from really appreciating this film. I’d tie this with Saludos Amigos for one of my least favorite Disney films.

-AJ