Saludos Amigos (1942)
Walt Disney and his artists whisk audiences away to South
American in this short animated package feature. The film stands as an
assemblage of band new short subjects centered on the exhibition of a select cultures
and customs South America nations discovered during a visit by Walt Disney and
a team of his artists to the neighboring continent. Despite the film consisting
of a rather short running time and its overall lacking the high artisanship of
Disney’s prior full length animated features displayed, this intercultural
minded package movie proved effective enough to warrant a sequel during a
difficult time for the animation studio.
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| Doanld Duck and his new friend Jose Carioca. |
Saludos Amigos is
an animated feature showcasing cultural aspects of South American counties
through a package of four short subjects. While on a goodwill trip to South
American Walt Disney and a select group of his artists where inspired by the
people, colors, and culture of the nations of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and
Peru. The result was a series of four cartoons. Assembled together along with
footage of what Walt and his group experienced comes this feature. The shorts
share the following: We visit Lake Titicaca in Peru through the eyes of Donald
Duck. Next is a story of a small anthropomorphic airplane who must brave a
mighty storm over the Andes to deliver the air mail in a region of Chile. Goofy
shares the customs of the native gaucho, which is likened to that of Argentina’s
version of a cowboy. In the final segment Donald Duck is swept away by the
music and art of Brazil with the help of a musical parrot named Jose Carioca.
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| Pedro, the braze baby mail plane. |
Even though this Disney feature lacked the fairytale
qualities and artistic visions of the studio’s most celebrated film up to this
time, it still remains very Disney in style. The film is not much more than a
compilation of four brand new shorts packaged together along with 16 mm color
footage of the recent Disney goodwill visit to various Latin nations, held
together with the aid of narration (Fred Shields). With familiarity for Disney
audiences these shorts consist of a Donald Duck cartoon as well as a Goofy
cartoon. The cute tale of a baby airplane in this feature stands very well even
if it was presented alone, away from being tied to this motion picture. The
Donald Duck and Jose Carioca short could be likened to lesser quailty Fantasia
segment on a lesser scale with a Latin flare as Jose Carioca serenades us to
the sounds of Brazilian while the screen is literally painted with images
inspired by the beautiful country.
As a singular feature the finished product is a bit jumbled.
Any of the four segments could have been short subjects that played separately before
any random feature film at that time. In fact the shorts all would play years
later on television and home video divided from each other like long lost
siblings, but still to the enjoyment of Disney animation before the feature saw
its own home video release as a whole film again. Despite the randomness of the
film and its segments, it was produced for a reason. Saludos Amigos was a product of an important endeavor by the
American government at a time when the United States was unsure what was
happening to the war torn world surrounding them.
In 1941, before the nation had joined World War II, The
United States was a neutral county with fears that Nazi Germany was gaining
sympathizers in the Western Hemisphere which could one day become a threat. In
hopes of gaining allies in South America the State Department formed the Good
Neighbor policy and issued a series of goodwill tours throughout the continent,
in many cases with celebrities in tow, in hopes building bounds with their neighbors
to the south. One of these tours was for Walt Disney and an assemblage of
studio artists. The State Department recognized the popularity of Mickey Mouse
and other Disney characters in these counties and saw this as an opportunity
for a way to gain a further bond with nations and their peoples that American
had not yet built a strong bond with.
At the time Walt was to set on this tour he was clashing
with most of the artists at his studio who were beginning to turn on him as a
massive artist strike over wages had formed outside his studio gates. The
goodwill tour provided Walt with time away from the stress of running a studio,
allowing him to unwind and gain new inspirations while his brother and partner
Roy Disney took this time to settle the strike away from the watching eye of
his creative sibling.
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| Walt Disney (center) dances learns a customary dace on his tour. |
During this tour, which is lightly covered in the live
action segments of the feature, Walt and his artists were introduced to a world
of new customs, cultures, colors, and sounds that would inspire them to grow in
their art. Many of the artists, though not named, are featured in these
segments as their new, vivid artwork they produced is showcased. The memories
from this trip for decades would inspire new styles and color composition in
future Disney films and other endeavors upon further observation of these
artists styles before and after the trip,
The animated segments may have been nothing more that
glorified short subjects, but when the war came to the United States the Disney
studio was being minimized as artists left to fight and the studio’s production
was drastically cut down as most of the facilities on the lot was being used by
the military. Saludos Amigos was a
way to keep the Disney animators working, practicing their craft while
producing relatively inexpensive products for North and South America while the
European markets were closed off during these war years. The result was
oversimplified versions of these cultures with delighted some South Americans, also
insulted others, while educating audiences of the United States that these
nations were not underdeveloped as many unworldly Americans had thought, as were
able to have just glimpses of development of the large building and
sophisticated art these nations had to offer on screen.
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| Goofy manifests what it is like to be a goucho. |
With appearances from popular Disney Characters such as
Donald Duck and Goofy, voiced respectfully by Clarence Nash and Pinto Colvig, Saludos Amigos pleased audiences with the
light whimsy that movie goers and children loved from Walt Disney’s shorts.
With relatively good box office numbers from by North and South American Disney
would do something that Walt was not too fond of in his career, producing a
sequel. 1945’s The Three Caballeros would
also feature Donald Duck and Jose Carioca, while introducing a brand new
character to round out the trio, the Mexican rooster Panchito Pistoles.
Even though the feature attempts to tie all the shorts
together with the loosely assembled travelogue style editing, the feature does suffer
from its randomness and an abrupt ending, leaving very little of a feeling that
one just watched a “feature film.” Unlike most Disney features in the studio’s
history Saludos Amigos would only be
re-released once, that being in 1949 and due to its short run time it would be
package as a double bill with Dumbo,
another shorter Disney feature.
Contemporary audiences may not be aware that this Disney
feature may have even existed as the Disney studio was going through darker
period in feature animation. This would officially be the first in a series of
six “package features” the studio produced during this period of its history, not
counting the half live action, half animated feature The Reluctant Dragon which was more of a visual tour of the studio.
During this period the studio would continue to focus on inexpensive animated
subjects simply to keep the artists in practice and bring in a modest income to
keep the studio afloat finically. However these features lacked the
sophisticated qualities of Snow White
or Pinocchio.
Despite being a far lesser known product Saludos Amigos, or rather the goodwill
tour itself, would prove to be a fruitful experience for the studio artists
that made the excursion. For decades the sights and sounds of the Good Neighbor
tour Walt and his artists experienced continued to inspire their own creativity
as they continued producing further work into the future, ever expanding their
minds on what they can do with their artistic mediums.
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