THE RELUCTANT DRAGON (1941)

Walt Disney’s first feature release after three under-performing ‘legacy’ pics (PINOCCHIO, FANTASIA, and later BAMBI) failed to repeat the overwhelming success of SNOW WHITE, leaving brother Roy to balance the debt-ridden books before DUMBO came out.  (Far less costly, DUMBO easily earned out.)  Hence, this portmanteau pic, generally written off as a ‘place holder.’  Insubstantial then/dated now.  Not so fast.  While something of a curate’s egg: half behind-the-scenes look inside the studio at their just opened campus (like a dream of a MidWest Liberal Arts College) and the other half holding two shorts (one ‘Goofy’; one still in storyboard form), plus a two-reel adaptation of the Kenneth Grahame title story,* these main attractions may be no more than run-of-the-mill Disney, but the so-called ‘dated’ view on all those old analogue techniques, along with the sheer loveliness of the new studio grounds & buildings shortly before a bitter animators strike soured things at Disney for the rest of Walt’s working life, are a priceless window into a brief labor/management Hollywood idyll.  Robert Benchley is our guide, he’s supposedly there to tell Walt about ‘The Reluctant Dragon’ as a possible film project, but he’s really there to show off an idealized ‘California Cool’ work environment and low-rise ‘modern’ architectural æsthetic.  The most fun is inside the Foley Sound Room (part of the first two-reels shot for some reason in monochrome, the rest is TechniColor); most gasp-worthy a look at the humongous MultiPlane Animation Camera.  (It’s how they got 3D effects thru analogue techniques.)  And look for Alan Ladd as sketch artist/baby ‘wrangler’ in the storyboard sequence, along with Walt, still the young, lean, tie-less bohemian, in the screening room.  Simplified for entertainment purposes & gagged up, but enough unique stuff in here all the same.  Worth it just to see the staff making the colored ink supplies from scratch.  Animators at the other studios must have been dreaming of the precise shade of green they’d have to choose from to show their envy.

ATTENTION  MUST BE PAID:  *After SNOW WHITE’s startling commercial success, PINOCCHIO, FANTASIA and BAMBI wouldn't go into profit for decades.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Disney would do better by Kenneth Grahame in a superb abridgement of THE WIND AND THE WILLOWS which makes up the first half of THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD/’49.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-adventures-of-ichabod-and-mr-toad.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Progressive attitudes 1941 style perfectly captured when an Asian woman is singled out in ‘life drawing’ class.  The gag is they’re not drawing nude models, but an elephant.  Yet when Benchley gets a closer look, her pachyderm sketch shows caricatured Asian features.