What if you could go on a drug trip with no harm? What if imagination was capable of producing better results than alcohol? A book read more often by adults than actual children, Alice in Wonderland, was transformed into a movie that children can enjoy with grownups. Here at last the experiments with licit craziness in the War years were vindicated. This is a film of joyous sanity unleashed from the external world without slipping the boundaries of morality. This... Read more

She is irresistible and if you have not seen the film recently: strong and virtuous. Cinderella is an object lesson in a good attitude toward outrageous fortune. Unrealistic story telling has caused us to forget the basic fairy tale truth: good things come to people who learn to be good without good things. We can rage again the machine and become an angry person nobody wishes to know or humble ourselves and find joy in simple tasks. Cinderella reminds us... Read more

This movie haunted my dreams as a child. There may be a more frightening scene to today’s kids than Ichabod being chased by the “headless horseman,” but if so I pity any kid who sees it. This is a wholesome fear . . . the kind of fear a kid should have. There are boogie men in the world and there is worse advice than running home after it is dark. The fear isn’t warped or unreasonable. Nobody has to tell... Read more

Melody Time shows Walt at the bottom of the animation barrel. He had turned his attention toward experiments in educational films, live action, and was coming back to the insane idea of a theme park, Disneyland, and the missing genius shows for the first time. Melody Time actually has two delightful sequences I saw as a child: Johnny Appleseed and the story of Pecos Bill. On the other hand, the first sequence is scarcely animated and reminds one of the nadir of... Read more

 “If you have seen one old Disney package movie,” complained a member of my house, “you have seen them all.” This is not true, but lackluster present advertising makes it look that way. If we compare the animation, writing, and innovation in these package films to movies like Minions or Kung Fu Panda, then it is true that each Disney film contains more genuine artistry, wit, and development in one segment than any of those terrible films combined. There are also... Read more

World War II changed everything, but what if you just missed the War? What if for the rest of your life older brothers or dads fought and you simply  grew up in the peaceful world they made? Just as the generation that came of age in 1866 must been thankful to have missed the Civil War, so the kids of 1946 must have been glad senior year did not mean getting shipped to Europe or the Pacific . . .... Read more

Three Caballeros is an experimental movie, a licit drug trip disguised as an animated movie. Walt did not control his studio in World War II, the government did, but Walt refused to surrender creativity. This is another “package” movie… a series of cartoons thinly linked together as birthday presents to Donald Duck. If you think your great-grandfather lived in creatively sterile times, watch this film and compare the risks Walt took with the Ninties Disney revival. I love Aladdin, but it is a 1950’s... Read more

Walt had a bad War, not of course as bad as Cousin Paul (D-Day, Bulge, German POW), but creatively hard. Walt was too old to fight having done his bit in the Red Cross in World War I, but his studio was signed up by the government to make propaganda. His Education for Death remains my favorite way to start kids thinking about Nazism and the evils of totalitarianism. Donald Duck in a Nazi nightmare reminded us that we could... Read more

Is Bambi a girl? This is the question that will separate those who have not seen the film, a group too numerous, from those who have seen it. This is the most gentle film ever made. The pacing is slow, but not slow as in boring or stupid, slow as in unfolding like a flower. Many of us may no longer be capable of a gentle film. World War II was raging while it was made and it changed us.... Read more