Make Mine Music {1946}

{Animated Disney Film #8 of 52}

Make Mine Music is yet another segment or package film from Disney. Which means it's not one solid story, but lots of shorts put together into one film. I have to be honest and say that I'm getting pretty tired of these...this is the third in a row, and I think there are two more coming up! I just want a real story again. :)

This film includes nine short parts. Well, technically it includes ten, but the first one has apparently been edited out. It was a sort of Hatfields and McCoys story that was seen as too violent for kids.

So the first section on the DVD is Blue Bayou, which is basically like a 1940s lullaby. It's very slow and sleepy. Not exactly the best way to kick off a film, Disney! :)

The next part was better: All the Cats Join In. Not cats as in kitty-cats, but cats as in 1940s slang for a hip person. It's about teens and popular music...Benny Goodman did the music so it's a lot more upbeat and fun than the previous part. As a fan of big band music, I loved the music. The story and animation was good, too. (Except for one part. In this section, a pencil is drawing the story as it's happening. There are a lot of couples dancing to the music. The pencil draws one girl who is very hippy, and the boy near her won't dance with her. Apparently because her hips are too wide. She pouts at the pencil, which then erases a bit to make her thinner. The boy then gladly dances with her. Was that necessary? I don't think so. Maybe I was extra-sensitive about that because I'm a pear-shaped girl myself. :)

Next up was a ballad called Without You. It was pretty and I liked the music...but I just can't see kids being into this kind of thing?

Then there was Casey at the Bat. I've always heard about it, so I was curious to see it. The ending was very unexpected! :) Next was Two Silhouettes. Eh. I did like Dinah Shore's singing, though. Then Peter and the Wolf, which was narrated by Sterling Holloway (always a good thing!). It was pretty good, though it felt like the story was a bit underdeveloped. But I guess it's supposed to be a classic. After that, there was another bit by Benny Goodman called After You've Gone. I really enjoyed the big band music...it just didn't last long enough.


The next two parts were the weirdest sections of the whole movie, but they were also my favorites. Go figure. :) The first is a love story, sang by the wonderful Andrews Sisters. It's a love story between a fedora and a blue bonnet. Yes. My favorite part was a love story about two hats. What does that say about me? I'm not sure. It was just really charming. :) The two hats are side by side in a store window, and they fall in love. But when someone purchases one of them, they're separated. Will they ever meet again? Oh, the drama. :)


And the final part was The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met. No, I'm not joking. I couldn't even make something like this up. I don't like opera at all, but this was interesting because it was pretty goofy and Nelson Eddy sang all of the roles. That was awesome. There is a whale named Willie who sings opera. A man thinks that he swallowed an opera singer, so he decides to kill him (and presumably save the singer?) with a harpoon. The crew on the boat try to stop him, and we see images of the whale singing in famous opera houses in front of huge crowds. I thought these things were really happening, but apparently not. Because, at the end, the man kills Willie with the harpoon! Seriously! I couldn't believe how depressing the end was. They tried to lessen the blow by showing Willie happily singing in heaven, but I did not expect it to end like that. Sorry for spoiling it, but I had to mention that.

So...Make Mine Music started off very slowly, but it had a couple of lovely sections at the end. (Minus the fate of poor Willie the whale!) But I'm getting tired of these package films, so I probably wasn't able to appreciate it as much as I might have otherwise. Hm.

Up next is yet another package film: Fun and Fancy Free.

Until next time,