Showing posts with label disney films. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disney films. Show all posts

August 20, 2010

Bambi - 1942

Bambi Ii


Bambi Double-Sided poster
27 in. x 41 in.

Buy at AllPosters.com
Framed   Mounted


The last of the classic, early Disney animated features - a 'coming of age' tale of a young male deer growing up in the world to be a magnificent stag. Taken from a Felix Salten tale, Bambi first learns to walk and adventurously explore his world under the watchful eye of his parents, dealing with trivial problems, such as walking on ice with his new friends, Thumper (a rabbit) and Flower (a skunk). In one of the more heartbreaking scenes in film history, Bambi's mother is killed by a human hunter, and suddenly the young fawn is forced into adulthood, led away by his stag father - ("Your mother can't be with you anymore. Come. My son"). Bambi must deal with a devastating forest fire, and he learns to court a doe named Faline, as well as fight other bucks for her attention. Bambi is not only a charming tale, but also uncompromising, recalling an earlier Disney film with surprisingly dark themes and scenes, Dumbo (1941). The doe-eyed characters would become the chief inspiration for anime characters in Japan.

July 27, 2010

Pinocchio - 1940

Pinocchio and Jiminy - Friendly Fun


Pinocchio and Jiminy - Friendly Fun Framed Art Print
12.5 in. x 15.5 in.

Buy at AllPosters.com


The second full-length animated feature classic from Walt Disney Studios - about a wooden puppet who yearns to be a real boy. Based on a story written by Carlo Collodi in the 1800's. Beautifully drawn with technically-superior animation and memorable characterizations - Geppetto the kindly woodcarver, Figaro the cat, Cleo the goldfish, Stromboli the puppeteer, Monstro the whale, the Blue Fairy, Lampwick - and obviously Jiminy Cricket and Pinocchio. The carver's creation - a puppet boy, is turned into a flesh-and-blood boy, with the stipulation that he must be brave, unselfish, and learn right from wrong in order to earn real life. The boy is accompanied by his conscience, Jiminy Cricket for his adventures. Pinocchio is tempted by a conniving fox J. Worthington Foulfellow, exploited by a puppet master Stromboli, and sent to Pleasure Island (where naughty boys are turned into donkeys) for truly terrifying experiences and a daring rescue from the belly of a monstrous whale. Includes Jiminy Cricket singing the future Disney theme song "When You Wish Upon a Star."

July 4, 2010

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - 1937

Snow White - Two Hearts as One


Snow White - Two Hearts as One Framed Art Print
10.875 in. x 13.875 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com


Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) is the first full-length animated feature (83 minutes in length) in color and with sound, one of Disney's greatest films, and a pioneering classic tale in film history. It was financed due in part to the success of Disney's earlier animated short, The Three Little Pigs (1933). Although dubbed "Disney's Folly" during the three-four year production of the musical animation, Disney realized that he had to expand and alter the format of cartoons.

It was the first commercially successful film of its kind and a technically brilliant, innovative example of Disney animation. It was also the first film to release a motion picture soundtrack album. The story was adapted from the original Brothers Grimms' Fairy Tales, but in a bowdlerized or sanitized version, without overt sexual references or violent content. Disney's version of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale was the second of its kind - the first was a five-minute Snow White (1933) starring Betty Boop (with an appearance by Cab Calloway).

It was the first Disney film distributed by RKO Studios (this arrangement lasted until 1953, when Disney established its own distribution company - named Buena Vista). In late 1994, Snow White was finally released on VHS home video (and laser disc) and sold 10 million copies in its first week of sale. After three weeks of availability, it sold over 17 million copies, and would soon surpass the all-time champ, Disney's Aladdin (with 24 million copies sold since its late-1993 release). It eventually sold 50 million copies worldwide, the best-selling cassette of all time. It was the last of the early Disney animated films released for home video, following Pinocchio (1940), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Cinderella (1950). [Snow White was later released for the first time on DVD, in late 2001.]

June 16, 2010

Fantasia - 1940

Sorcerer Mickey: Fantasia Magic


Sorcerer Mickey: Fantasia Magic Art Print
12 in. x 16 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com
Framed   Mounted


Fantasia (1940), a Disney animated feature-length "concert" film milestone, is an experimental film integrating eight magnificent classical musical compositions with enchanting, exhilarating, and imaginative, artistically-choreographed animation. The conceptual framework of the individual pieces embraces such areas as prehistoric times, the four seasons, nature, hell/heaven, the themes of light vs. darkness and chaos vs. order, dancing animals, classical mythology, and legend.

This Disney production was an ambitious experiment to try to popularize classical music, especially by accompanying it with animation. Originally, the film was to consist of only The Sorcerer's Apprentice segment, but it was expanded to include the full anthology of shorts. And it was slightly controversial for its depiction of bare-breasted centaurettes in the Pastoral Symphony segment and other stereotypical racial depictions. [At the request of the Hays Production Code, the figures were garlanded with flower bras for cover-up after swimming in a brook.

Also, in later releases of the film, in the Pastoral Symphony segment (again), two black Nubian/zebra centaurs who attend the Bacchus celebration were edited out, along with a female pickaninny centaurette with braided hair who shines the hoof of a white female centaurette.] Other segments, such as Ride Of The Valkyries, Swan of Tuonela, and Flight of the Bumblebee were storyboarded but never fully animated, and thus were never put into production for inclusion in future Fantasia-style releases.