Reluctant Dragon, The (1941)
Director: Alfred Werker (live action), Hamilton Luske (animation)
Animated cartoons have been entertaining audiences almost as long as
there have been motion pictures, but have you ever wondered how an animation
studio makes these colorful creations? Well that is exactly the focus of Walt
Disney’s feature The Reluctant Dragon.
Although the title harkens thoughts of yet another fairytale-like cartoon,
which is actually the truth as at the conclusion of this feature, the movie
actually focuses on providing audiences with an fanciful inside look at the
operations of the then newly constructed Walt Disney Studio in Burbank, CA.
The Reluctant Dragon is a
live action and animated feature that provides look into the many operating
departments of a working animation studio, showcasing a live action tour with
various animated shorts mixed in concluding with an extended animated short
about a peaceful dragon who wishes not to fight the frightened village’s
knight. Actor Robert Benchley finds himself on the Disney Studio lot to pitch a
children’s story to Walt Disney for a possible future project. Distracted Benchley
is detoured through the various departments of a veritable magical factory that
brings some the most colorful cartoons to life. Benchley is introduced to the
numerous facilities for modeling, scoring, foley effects, as well as the camera
department, ink and paint, storyboarding, and even encounters real Disney
animators and the voice of Donald Duck, Charles Nash. When Robert Benchley
finally finds Walt it is revealed that Walt was already in the final stages of
producing “The Reluctant Dragon” which is being showcased in the screening room
where they meet. As a conclusion we watch extended short for which the title of
the feature is comes from which features the tale of a passive dragon forced to
stage a battle with a knight to convince a frightened village that he was defeated
and reforms so that he can live in peace with the villagers.
If one comes into this feature thinking they will be receiving the very
same quality as Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs or Pinocchio, you will be
greatly disappointed. What you actually get in this movie is a mix of a live screwball
live action comedy that leads to animated shorts. This film is far from the
expectations Disney had built up for his feature length films, but that is not
to say it is not entertaining.
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| An example of how this film presents the studio as a magical place. |
What we do see in this motion picture is a look into Walt Disney’s
brand new studio which was built on the massive profits of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The campus is spirited and filled with kinetic energy as our vicarious
host, Robert Benchley, discovers the many processes on production for an
animated picture. Almost as if living in a wonderland of Willy Wonka, the
Disney Studios is painted up to be a magical place where every job is new,
creative, and fun. The film even takes a chapter out of The Wizard of Oz as Benchley has a moment of turning from black and
white to Technicolor when he enters the inner sanctums of the studio. Basically
in the end we get a grand advertisement for Disney products wrapped in a nearly
75 minute package.
The Reluctant Dragon was the
result of timing and bad luck for Walt Disney. Despite the capabilities of
producing highly artistic animated features, Disney felt the sting of the box
office failure of Fantasia. With a
big loss from their recent feature, the shrinking European markets due to war,
and a terrible animators strike at the studio that troubled Walt, Disney needed
a cheap product that would turn profits to help the studio’s sagging pocket
book. The film as well cites inspiration from many fan letters about wanting to
see how their favorite animated pictures are made; therefore Walt and his team
produced this feature that did just that in a very Disney-like fashion.
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| Walt Disney with Robert Benchley. |
Many other studios such as MGM and Paramount had done various shorts
subject films displaying the numerous departments and the various stages of
working a film through the motion picture factories that the studios were at
the time. These visual tours tended to be dull and were presented more as
educational shorts than anything fun or entertaining with the exception of the
occasional star sighting or cameo. Here Disney presents his studio through rose
colored glasses, almost as if its employees are living animated characters in
themselves working in a land of childish playful whimsy.
Along with this tour we are presented a package of short subjects,
therefore making this feature the first “package film” in a long string of
films the Disney Studio would produce during the very financially trying period
of the 1940s. The film features the Goofy short “How to Ride a Horse,” a quick
sneak peek at the up-coming releases of Dumbo
and Bambi, Benchley conversing with
Donald Duck as well as his actual voice actor Charles Nash, and showcases the
short by which the film gets its title. The animation throughout is of Disney short
subject quality, below the superiority of the prior feature length pictures. The
total time of animation outweighs the live action segments, however it can be
said that the live action is far more memorable than the silly cartoons that
fill most of the movie.
To make the picture Disney would hire for the first time an outside
director, Alfred Werker, from 20th Century-Fox in order to direct
the live segments, while animator Hamilton Luske, the supervising director from
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,
overlooked the animated sequences. Robert Benchley was a well-known humorist
and screen comedian that would bring familiarity to the live segments as his
humor allows for fun to ensue in his discovery of inner workings of this
dreamlike studio. To add to the whimsy of the picture is a small time supporting
actress Frances Gifford playing a pretty studio inker who also helps in the
sound effects department who aids Benchley on a portion of his journey. Also
featured in brief appearances are valued Disney artists Ward Kimball, Fred
Moore, and Norm Ferguson; no names to most movie lovers, but major players in
the shaping of various Disney styles from the early days of the studio and the
future decades.
The motion picture opened to the sight of picket lines from the
striking animators who felt Walt Disney was unjustly not allowing his work
force to unionize. Sympathizers would line the sidewalks of Los Angeles based
theaters to spread the news of how they felt of their studio head and what they
believed were his unfair practices towards his workforce, stating on sign “The
Reluctant Disney.”
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| An inker fills in the color for an animation cell of Bambi. |
For audiences eager to view the next Disney feature most came away from
the theater with disappointment. Expecting more fairytale instead of a screwy
live action comedy mixed with four average Disney shorts left audiences and
critics with a bad taste in their mouths. This type of entertainment would be
of similar quality to that of Disney’s later venture into television in the mid
to late 1950s which in itself was highly praised as an anthology series enjoyed
by viewers for its superior quality for television programming, however that
would be years away and in a different medium. Expectation was the downfall of
this feature.
The quality of entertainment is there as Disney teaches his audience
about the cartoon production process in a fun and enjoyable way, but what
audiences wanted at that time from Disney was not what they received.
Even though the film was made relatively inexpensively on Disney terms,
the poor reviews and bad press from the animators’ strike resulted in a loss at
the box office. Things were not looking good for Disney with the result of
another flop. The studio would eventually settle the strike, but Walt was so
jaded by the events that he would lose interest in his animated features. Dumbo and Bambi, the two up-coming features given sneak peaks in The Reluctant Dragon, would go on the
produce meager profits while still suffering from the immediate struggles of
limited audiences due to World War II.
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| Benchley enjoys the work of animator Ward Kimball. |
The Disney Studio would fall into a massive lull as America joined the
struggle in overseas. The War Department would partially take over the studio, commissioning
Disney to produce propaganda and war time training films on extremely low
budgets, while Disney had his animators focusing on quailty. To make up for the
loss of income the studio would begin to produce more package films, movies
consisting of an arrangement of original extended shorts with a loose theme, to
keep the animators working on their practice of storytelling while the feature
length division of the studio was handcuffed by the economy of the time. It
would not be until the 1950s, several years after the war, when Disney
animation would revitalize the higher quality feature length features.
The Reluctant Dragon is more
or less a forgettable feature in the library of Walt Disney features, but has
its cult following among deep-rooted Disney fans as a look into the fanciful
studio when Disney and his key animators was younger, and before Walt became
more of a face personality with his anthology television series in the
mid-1950s. During the run of that series Disney would continue to give
television audience fictionalized tours of his enchanted studio and it was
perhaps in part thanks to this feature that aided in the style of what that
series would become as it entertained the future baby-boomer generation.
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