Main Cast: Benny Goodman, Sterling Holloway, Dinah Shore, David Lichine
Release Year: 1946
Country: US
Run Time: 67 minutes
Plot
In his first postwar animated feature, Walt Disney attempted to repeat the Fantasia formula, substituting "pop" music for the Classics. Make Mine Music consists of ten unrelated cartoon vignettes, each one featuring a popular recording artist. "A Rustic Ballad" is the story of the Martin-Coy hillbilly feud, narrated musically by the King's Men. "A Tone Poem" is an impressionistic interpretation of the song "Blue Bayou", sung by the Ken Darby chorus and rendered artistically by Disney's ace animators. "A Jazz Interlude", done in "sketchbook" style, is performed by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra, and features the jitterbug specialty "All the Cats Join In". Jerry Colonna is next on the program in "A Musical Recitation", offering his own inimitable version of "Casey at the Bat". "Ballad Ballet" features Ballet Russe stars Tatiana Riabouchinska and David Lichine, dancing to Dinah Shore's vocalization of "Two Silhouettes". "A Fairy Tale with Music" turns out to be Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf", narrated by Sterling Holloway. Next, Benny Goodman and company return with a surreal visualization of "After You've Gone", followed by "A Love Story", which features the Andrews Sisters' rendition of the ballad "Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet." The hilarious "Opera Pathetique" finale finds Nelson Eddy narrating the story of Willy, "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met". Better in its individual components than its sum total, Make Mine Music was drubbed by critics, who felt that Disney had abandoned his "artistic" aspirations in favor of crass commercialism, but performed reasonably well at the box office, inspiring several more "omnibus" animated features. In later years, the ten individual segments would be released as separate short subjects, both theatrically and as episodes of Disney's various TV series (where the original narration was often supplanted by the unfunny interpolations of Professor Ludwig Von Drake). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Nelson Eddy - Narrator; The Andrews Sisters; Andy Russell - Vocalist ("A Ballad in Blue"); Jerry Colonna - Narrator ("Casey at the Bat"); The Pied Pipers; Pinto Colvig - Animal Sounds; The King's Men
Credit
Elmer Plummer - Art Director, Mary Blair - Art Director, John Hench - Art Director, Jack Campbell - Animator, Les Clark - Animator, Eric Larson - Animator, Hal Ambro - Animator, Bill Justice - Animator, Milt Kahl - Animator, Ward Kimball - Animator, Hal King - Animator, John Lounsbery - Animator, Fred Moore - Animator, Cliff Nordberg - Animator, Ken O'Brien - Animator, George Rowley - Animator, Harvey Toombs - Animator, Judge Whitaker - Animator, Don Patterson - Animator, John McManus - Animator, John Sibley - Animator, Brad Case - Animator, Tom Massey - Animator, Ollie Johnston - Animator, Hugh Fraser - Animator, Ed Benedict - Animator, Clyde Geronimi - Director, Joe Grant - Director, Jack Kinney - Director, Hamilton Luske - Director, Joshua Meador - Director, Robert Cormack - Director, Eliot Daniel - Composer (Music Score), Charles Wolcott - Composer (Music Score), Bobby Worth - Composer (Music Score), Allie Wrubel - Composer (Music Score), Ray Gilbert - Composer (Music Score), Alec Wilder - Composer (Music Score), Charles Wolcott - Musical Direction/Supervision, Walt Disney - Producer, Joe Grant - Producer, Homer Brightman - Screenwriter, Walt Disney - Screenwriter, Dick Huemer - Screenwriter, Dick Kelsey - Screenwriter, Tom Oreb - Screenwriter, Erdman Penner - Screenwriter, John Walbridge - Screenwriter, James Bodrero - Screenwriter, T. Hee - Screenwriter, Henry Creamer - Featured Music
The Martins and the Coys features popular radiovocal group, King's Men singing the story of a Hatfields and McCoys-style feud in the mountains broken up when two young people from each side fall in love. This segment was later cut from the film's video release due to comic gunplay.
All the Cats Join In is one of two segments to which Benny Goodman contributed. An innovative shot in which a pencil draws the action as it is happening, and in which 1940s teens are swept away by popular music.
Peter and the Wolf features narration by actor Sterling Holloway. A russian boy named Peter sets off into the forest to hunt the wolf with his animal friends: a bird named Sasha, a duck named Sonia, and a cat named Ivan.
Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnett tells the romantic story of two hats who fall in love in a department store window. When Alice is sold, Johnny devotes himself to finding her again. The Andrews Sisters provide the vocals.
The Whale Who Wanted To Sing At the Met is the bittersweet finale about a Sperm Whale with incredible musical talent and his dreams of singing Grand Opera. But short-sighted impressario Tetti-Tatti believes that the whale has simply swallowed an operasinger, and chases him with a harpoon. Nelson Eddy narrates and performs all the voices in this segment. As Willie the Whale, Eddy sings all three male voices in the first part of the Sextet from Donizetti's opera, Lucia di Lammermoor. In the end Willie is harpooned and killed, but the narrator softens the blow by telling the viewers that he sings on in heaven.
Make Mine Music's sole home video release was on VHS and DVD on June 6, 2000 under the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection title. Before, two of its segments were released on home video individually with addition cartoons added to them in the 80's and 90's. This release is edited to remove "The Martins and the Coys" in it because it has "graphic gunplay not suitable for children." No other release has been scheduled.
