‘Who ever heard of an operatic whale?’
‘The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met’
The first Disney picture to come out following the Second World War, Make Mine Music (1946) is an animated mash-up of opera and jazz, romance and revenge, folklore and fairy tale. Strongly resembling the 1940 musical Fantasia, these 10 self-contained stories are creative and fun, though much has been changed since its original release.
Make Mine Music was the first of 4 ‘package films’; there hadn’t been enough resources or manpower to continue making full length features during the war so smaller ideas remained undeveloped, they were too long to be shorts and too short to be movies, so were bundled together (1). Some found this approach a bit all over the place compared to Fantasia (2) but with more freedom to collaborate with musicians and different genres included throughout it feels far more vibrant.
However, some of the more problematic scenes were in need of updating so you won’t be able to find a version of the film today as it appeared in 1946. Some copies that exist don’t even have all 10 of the original stories in them. One of the segments (‘Martins and The Coys’) was cut from the first VHS and DVD releases because of its use of gunplay (1), although I would have argued the casual references to domestic abuse were more worrying. Another needed reanimating in parts due to the over sexualised nature in its depiction of teenagers, in the new edition you’d hardly notice where the issues were. (This is from the ‘All the Cats Join In’ story which is probably my favourite despite still having some questionable messages concerning body image).
Due to the timing of its release, Make Mine Music notably includes a Russian story: ‘Peter and the Wolf’. The USA and the Soviet Union were allies for much of WWII and the hostilities which would lead to the Cold War wouldn’t start until 1947 (1). So Sergei Prokofiev’s story was sympathetically told, retaining the Russian names and following the plot almost exactly but for the fate of Sonia the duck whose demise became a lucky escape instead (3). It is thought that Prokofiev wrote this as a political allegory: Peter represents Peter the Great, and therefore Russia, whilst the wolf is Hitler as Adolf means noble wolf in German (1).
‘It’s June in December, if you just remember, that true love will come shining through.’
‘Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet’
The more classical pieces of music include a deleted scene from Fantasia and the heart-breaking story of ‘The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met’. In a cruel twist and against the grain of other Disney films, there is a terribly sad ending (I won’t reveal, you’ll have to watch it!), which despite being absolutely unprepared for, made me enjoy the film more as a whole as it confirmed how different and special all the stories were.
I had not heard of Make Music Mine before last year, and it remains incredibly hard to find; it is, at time of publication, the last hand-drawn animation that is not available on Disney + (4), and depending where you are in the world you might only find an adulterated version. I honestly loved it, for its quirky and individual stories which would have been otherwise rejected and wonderful music which feels less highbrow than Fantasia but just as exciting.
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Make Mine Music. (1946) Film. Bob Cormack, Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Josh Meador. Dir. USA: Walt Disney Productions.
- ‘Make Mine Music’. IMDB. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038718/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt
- Jerry Beck. ‘Disney’s Make Mine Music on Records’. Cartoon Research. 9 Aug 2016. https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/disneys-make-mine-music-on-records/
- Demos Euclid. ‘Default Disney: Make Mine Music (1946)’. Hilarity By Default. 6 Jun 2017. https://hilaritybydefault.com/2017/06/06/default-disney-make-mine-music-1946/
- ‘Western Animation/ Make Mine Music!’. TV tropes. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/MakeMineMusic
Make Mine Music is available on DVD. See Find the Films for where to watch or buy it.
Cine-Blah 