#21 Robin Hood

A different sort of talking-animal film than its immediate predecessors, Robin Hood avoids the problems of The Aristocats by fully anthropomorphizing its animal cast, giving us a world where the animals don't act like people, they simply are the people. The decision gives the story of Robin Hood a whimsical element, while also allowing the artists and animators to play around with a wide variety of anthropomorphic animals: the citizens of Nottingham are mainly woodland creatures, while the soldiers are imposing hippos, elephants and rhinos.

All the key players from any telling of Robin Hood's story are present. Robin Hood himself manages to be a charming protagonist, while Little John, voiced by Phil Harris, essentially comes off as a retread of Baloo from The Jungle Book, though it's not necessarily detrimental. Prince John, meanwhile, is given a comically effeminate interpretation, with Sir Hiss (basically a discount version of Kaa) practically functioning as his battered spouse; the gay subtext between the two is hard to ignore. The Sheriff of Nottingham has the potential to function as a more threatening counterpart to the foppish prince, but that potential is diluted considerably by the use of voice actor Pat Buttram, whose reedy midwest twang is decidedly non-threatening. Maid Marian is there as well, though she exists purely as a love interest to be rescued by Robin Hood, doing nothing in any of the film's (quite fun) action sequences.

Though Robin Hood is, overall, a fun children's film (and a decidedly better one than The Aristocats), it does represent a few bizarre decisions on the part of the filmmakers, most notably with the voice acting: half the characters are appropriately English or Scottish (though their accents do seem a bit affected and less-than-genuine), and the other half speak in undisguised rural American accents, a bit confusing for a film based on a notable English legend (though not without precedent, as witnessed by Arthur in The Sword in the Stone). Additionally, the songs are chiefly American country/folk (with a bit of surf guitar thrown in during the actions scenes), and the film is narrated by folk singer Roger Miller. One is left to wonder just why Disney felt the need to subtly Americanize one of England's most iconic legends; it does detract a bit from what is otherwise an enjoyable film, though not a particularly artistically groundbreaking one.

#20 The Aristocats

The first film produced after Walt Disney's death, The Aristocats proved positive that the Silver Age was well and truly over, managing to encapsulate all of the problems with talking-animal movies. At least Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians had some restraint; their animal protagonists did, in fact, act like animals. They didn't run around wearing clothes, or play instruments, or bloody well hijack a motorcycle and drive it, all of which occur at some point during The Aristocats. It doesn't even make sense in context, since the humans for the most part treat the animals as just plain animals, and yet the Madame is apparently unfazed by her cats painting and playing the piano.

Speaking of the Madame, can we all agree that people who leave material inheritance to their animals are uniformly terrible? And yet the audience is supposed to be completely on board with the Madame's decision, leaving her butler, Edgar, as the villain for wanting to gain her inheritance before the cats. Sure, it's probably greedy of him, but can you blame a long-suffering servant who is apparently viewed as less-deserving to his employer than her animals? It's yet another example of the Lady and the Tramp problem of vilifying humans for not putting animals on the same social level as humans, a conceit which instantly falls apart upon consideration for obvious reasons.

As for the titular Aristocats, they're all irritatingly precious on every level, being the animal equivalent of the sheltered upper class. Thomas O'Malley, voiced by Phil Harris, is at least a bit more appealing as a character, but not by much. There's also a pair of rich-English-twit geese and their sloppily drunken uncle, a gang of swinging cat musicians (who inject some desperately needed energy into the dull and badly-paced plot with the number "Everybody Wants To Be A Cat"), and two dogs who, despite living in France, have Southern accents for some reason, and who apparently attack passing motorists with zero actual motivation. Meanwhile, the quality of the animation takes a step backward from The Jungle Book, with the Madam especially being a pencil-line ridden mess.

Yes, The Aristocats is cute, but that's really all it is. It has very little substance or enjoyment to be found for any audience but small children, and only succeeds in being saccharine. As an entry in Disney's canon, it's a decidedly weak one.

#19 The Jungle Book

The last film produced during Walt Disney's lifetime, The Jungle Book is a worthy end to Disney's Silver Age. There's no trace of the animation and plotting problems that plagued The Sword in the Stone; The Jungle Book instead proves to be a fitting return to form.

The animation style is more polished here than in the previous two films, refining the xerography style with less visible pencil lines and an overall cleaner aesthetic. The backgrounds, meanwhile, are illustratively painted, capturing the various environs of the jungle, from river to wasteland to the monkeys' temple. The script, not usually the most notable part of Disney films, stands out here, filled with snappy and snarky dialogue. The songs are doubtlessly the best of the entire Silver Age: "The Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You" carry an upbeat swing style, "That's What Friends Are For" is a fusion between barbershop and a Beatles track, and Kaa's sinister number "Trust In Me" perfectly encapsulates the character.

And speaking of character, the entire cast of The Jungle Book are characterized and acted to perfection, with not a single weak link. In addition to the leads, Mowgli, Baloo, and Bagheera, there's Colonel Hathi, the elephant with the sensibilities of a blustering British imperial commander; Kaa, the iconically slippery and frequently abused python; King Louie, the swing-jazz styled orangutan voiced by Louis Prima (there could probably be something said about the characterization of the monkeys as African-American swing types, but it's really not mean-spirited or detracting from the film); the vultures, originally intended to be voiced by the Beatles and clearly modeled after them; and Shere Khan, voiced by George Sands as a perfect smooth-voiced British villain, sophisticated yet menacing.

With the end of Walt Disney's life, so too ended the Silver Age of Disney. The next two decades would prove to be an uneven period for the studio, producing some good films and some less so, before they would finally recapture the spirit of the Golden and Silver Ages with the Disney Renaissance.

#18 The Sword in the Stone

Disney's adaptation of T.H. White's Arthurian novel is, unfortunately, considerably less exciting than its source material would suggest. The sword itself barely factors into the plot, being used only as a way of wrapping up things at the end, leaving the rest of the story to focus on Arthur's training under Merlin (though what exactly Merlin thinks he's training Arthur for is a bit ill-defined, since he doesn't seem to know that Arthur is the prophesied king).

Merlin himself is an enjoyable character, far less imposing and dignified than most depictions. This version, while still dispensing sage advice, is decidedly more whimsical, dropping frequent references to 20th century technology, which, while amusing, definitely break the film's immersion a bit. The better scenes in the film are those with Merlin transforming himself and Arthur into fish and squirrels to impart his lessons - the fish scene gives us an encounter with an impressively imposing pike, while the second gives us the rather adorable encounter between Arthur and a female squirrel. Speaking of Arthur himself, Disney made the baffling decision to have him voiced by three different actors, none of whom sound very much alike. The audience is left to deal with the jarring result of having Arthur's voice suddenly switch from high and boyish to a weak pubescent croak, sometimes within the same scene. There seems to have been no consideration given as to which actors would record which scenes, and the result is quite possibly the worst voice acting job in Disney's canon.

Artistically, the film is a bit lacking as well. The xerography techniques employed for the animation in 101 Dalmatians return here, but while it fit the contemporary style of that film, here it's just unremarkable. The backgrounds, too, lack the fine detail of Sleeping Beauty or 101 Dalmatians, and seem merely treated as... well, backgrounds, something not to be looked too closely at. There also seem to be points (most notably in the fish scene) where the animation seems sharply discontinuous from the background, as if the cells were lit unevenly or trimmed at the edges.

All in all, The Sword in the Stone is decidedly one of Disney's weaker films. Following the artistic triumph of Sleeping Beauty and the contemporary British charm of 101 Dalmatians, this may have been bound to be a bit of a letdown. It's disappointing to consider that this was the last film released during Walt Disney's lifetime, but, as we will see, the Silver Age had a bit more magic left in it.

#17 101 Dalmatians

One can only imagine what Disney's staff thought of being tasked with animating not only 101 dogs, but 101 spotted dogs for an entire movie. Nonetheless, they rose to the task, leaving us with 101 Dalmatians, Disney's second dog-centric film, though a far more compelling, exciting, and appealing one than Lady and the Tramp. Here, what little romance there is is dealt with right at the beginning, devoting the bulk of the story to kidnap, rescue, and adventure.

As Disney's first film set in the present-day of its release, the film charmingly captures the atmosphere of early-60's London. The backgrounds have a distinctly illustrative quality, on par with those in Sleeping Beauty, though less fantastical and with a decidedly contemporary feel. The animation is a bit more roughly-drawn than earlier Disney films, with pencil sketch lines frequently visible, though it doesn't detract from the quality of the film so much as contribute to the scrappy, sketchy quality of the aesthetic.

In terms of characterization, the film succeeds brilliantly, with the voice cast all coming off as charmingly English. One of the biggest strengths is the animal supporting cast, all of whom are delightfully memorable (most notably the cat, Sgt. Tibbs, and the two London hoods, Jasper and Horace, who provide the comic relief, slapstick, and stream of British-isms). The standout, though, is without a doubt Cruella De Vil. A flamboyant, domineering diva, Cruella is yet another triumph of character design for a Disney villain, viciously petty enough to demand killing 99 puppies for a coat, yet somehow still funny while she shrieks and slaps around her henchman.

Though lacking the spectacle of some of Disney's more grand-scale fantasies, 101 Dalmatians still manages to be a fine film in its own right, managing to be a charmingly British romp of an adventure story. Perhaps its most notable feature might be its animation style, which introduced the technique of xerography, a practice Disney would rely on frequently for several decades afterward.

#16 Sleeping Beauty

The pinnacle of Disney's Silver Age (and quite possibly of Walt Disney's entire career), Sleeping Beauty is one of the films that make you remember why people love Disney so much in the first place.

Hands down one of Disney's great artistic achievements, it's an absolutely beautiful film. Every background is a meticulously detailed work of art, almost approaching the level of a Miyazaki film, showing the influence of medieval tapestry work and old illuminated texts. The animators even make use of layered backgrounds, to fantastic effect. The quality of the animation is exemplary as well, achieving a level of graceful fluidity and smoothness of motion not seen since Snow White.

The film also gives us one of Disney's greatest villains in Maleficent, the dark fairy. Forgetting the Wicked-style treatment given to the character in the Angelina Jolie-helmed Maleficent, the original take on the character is pure, unadulterated evil on a level Disney has rarely approached since. Maleficent manages to dominate every scene she appears in, with a commanding presence that radiates menace and legitimate threat. The scenes in her castle allow Disney's artists to try their hand at some sword-and-sorcery style action and environments, with a bit of inspiration from "A Night on Bald Mountain." The film's climax, with Maleficent transforming into a beautifully menacing dragon, is one of Disney's most epic and suspenseful. In addition to Maleficent, the three good fairies are excellently conceived characters as well, managing to be amusing and sympathetic without every being annoying.

Although the romance between Prince Philip and Aurora suffers from most of the usual Disney tropes (love at first sight, the contrived coincidence of their meeting), its hardly enough to detract from the overall appeal of the film. Capping off Disney's fairy-tale trilogy started by Snow White and Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty is a masterpiece of artistry and animation, and one of the true high points of Disney's canon.

#15 Lady and the Tramp

Leave it to Disney to take a scene of two dogs sharing a plate of spaghetti and turn it into one of the most iconic romantic moments in film history. It's all the more interesting considering that Lady and the Tramp doesn't really focus on the romance at its core; rather, it's more concerned with examining the life of its canine protagonist, and how the arrival of a baby complicates the master/pet relationship.

The issue with films that personify animals is, of course, that one has to write around the fact that actual animals don't have human emotions; as a result, any story running with the concept has to be at least somewhat divorced from reality. This might be why the film, which keeps its action largely at the dogs' level, spends a lot of time in the first half trying to make the audience feel sorry for animals in situations that, in real life, we would barely pay attention to (one could say the same about Toy Story's overall attitude toward toys, but at least Toy Story manages to be compelling enough for the audience to ignore it). As a result, it occasionally comes off as emotionally manipulating the audience. As for the romance between the titular Lady and Tramp... like most Disney romances, it's less than perfectly presented. The buildup is there, and it's fairly well-executed, but then there's the falling apart (when Lady learns that the Tramp is a womanizer with a long history), then the climax (easily the best parts of the film, laden with evocative, atmospheric lighting as the Tramp fights the terrifyingly drawn rat), and then... they're in love again! And they're having puppies! It's ultimately a bit too clean of a wrap-up to the relationship that really should be taking center stage.

The film does manage to succeed better on some ends. The voice acting is one of the strongest elements, with the dogs' voices and accents perfectly matching their breed and personality (the best is probably Bill Thompson as Jock, easily the film's most appealing character). The dogs are charmingly drawn for the most part, managing to be identifiable breeds while still retaining enough animated expressiveness. Not fairing as well are the two Siamese cats, with their cringingly broken-English voices, or Aunt Sara, fulfilling the kid-movie stock character role of the authority figure who punishes the protagonist while remaining blindly oblivious to legitimate problem-creators (and who apparently has never realized that her animals are a pair of domestic nightmares from Hell).

Interestingly, Lady and the Tramp manages to have some genuinely dark moments. The fights are appropriately visceral, the climax is legitimately tense, and the scenes in the pound are some of Disney's darkest, acknowledging the bleak existence of stray dogs and even daring to bring up the specter of euthanasia (albeit briefly, and never mentioned again). It's enough to make one wonder what kind of film Disney could have made had they capitalized on the grimmer material and made a more straight-faced look at the life of dogs. As it is, Lady and the Tramp still has a bit too much fluff, and not enough focus on the romance that should be at the core of the plot.

#14 Peter Pan

Disney's take on another beloved English classic, Peter Pan strives to define itself apart from its source material (and the parade of other adaptations). Eschewing the stage tradition of having Peter Pan played by a woman, the studio cast frequent Disney star Bobby Driscoll in the title role, drawing him as decidedly male (though admittedly elfin). This adaptation also dispenses with some of the darker elements of J.M. Barrie's work in favor of light, escapist adventure.

And it's quite the adventure to be had. Peter Pan seems determined to capture every childhood fantasy in one film: learning to fly, a wild, untamed island to explore, fighting pirates, the prospect of never having to grow up. The voice casting is superb; the endlessly charming Kathryn Beaumont returns as Wendy, and the rest of the cast achieve the rare feat of having child voice actors that are all talented, giving their characters distinct personality without falling into the "annoying child actor" trap. Captain Hook, meanwhile, earns a spot in the pantheon of Disney villains, characterized by a mix of piratical swagger and theatrical flamboyance.

While there's plenty of fun and adventure at hand, other aspects of the film stick out as glaringly antiquated - specifically, its treatment of the Indians. They're all grossly caricatured, invoking every bad stereotype about Native Americans, and treated as little more than an amusing sideshow. The character designs are either ugly or cartoonish, with the exception of Tiger Lily, who only exists to be captured, rescued, and then dance around looking pretty. On the subject, the film isn't great with its treatment of women, either; Tinkerbell and the mermaids all become homicidally jealous at the mere presence of Wendy, who manages to be a solid, level-headed character until Tiger Lily enters the picture, and then she stalks off in a huff as well. What exactly is it about Peter Pan that seems to make every woman around him become obsessed with him?

At its core, the story of Peter Pan is a timeless one, touching on quintessential childhood fantasies and themes that most people can relate to. While this take on it may have aged poorly in some respects, there's plenty to appreciate about it as well. While Disney's own 2003 live-action take recaptured the spirit of the tale without the 1950's baggage, it might be worth revisiting in animated form; with such a universally appealing narrative, Peter Pan provides plenty for imaginative artists (and audiences) to work with.

#13 Alice in Wonderland

There have been numerous adaptation of Lewis Carroll's work over the years, but Disney's adaptation (combining elements from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass) manages to be the most iconic. Managing to capture the bizarre, quickly moving atmosphere of the novel, Alice manages to be one of Disney's best-looking films to that point, partly due to the immense variety of imaginative settings and characters.

Alice herself is a perfect innocuously inquisitive protagonist, voiced with essential English charm by Kathryn Beaumont. The film unfolds at an almost relentless pace, quickly jumping between odd situations and encounters with strange characters in a way that almost feels like a road movie. Unlike most adaptations of Alice, this one doesn't attempt to force a cohesive narrative or conflict onto the proceedings, instead embracing the wandering nature of Carroll's story to good effect. While there are a few songs, they're mostly forgettable, with the fantastic visuals taking center stage.

The most iconic scene, the encounter with the Queen of Hearts, is unfortunately not one of the better ones. While the Queen herself is imposingly bombastic, the fact that her whole schtick involves screaming over everyone wears on the audience quickly. The trial sequence, meanwhile, devolves into disjointed, nonsensical insanity at an even higher degree than the rest of the film, with the King of Hearts being an annoying twit, Alice herself acting far more hardheaded than any other point in the film, and the proceedings basically ending up with everyone yelling at each other. It's a somewhat disappointing conclusion to an otherwise imaginative and fun film, but nonetheless, Alice in Wonderland stands as an enjoyable film, and one of Disney's productions most firmly ingrained in pop culture.

#12 Cinderella

The Silver Age of Disney began in 1950 with the release of Cinderella, in many ways a spiritual successor to Disney's previous fairy-tale adaptation, Snow White. Despite the similarities between the two, Cinderella clearly shows how Disney had evolved since the release of their first film: the plot is more cohesive, and Cinderella herself is a far more interesting and compelling character than Snow White.

The art style is best described as grand-scale, with the royal palace settings painted enormously, dwarfing the human occupants with their elegance. Even the domestic scenes of the mansion, when shown from the perspective of the mice, capture the necessary sense of scale. The mice themselves, meanwhile, largely steal the show, injecting some humor with their antics. The supporting cast is strong in general, with the bombastic King and his battered Duke being far more amusingly expressive than the more photorealistic Cinderella and Prince. The villains, meanwhile, fall a bit short; while Lady Tremaine manages to exude an air of restrained menace, the stepsisters and the cat Lucifer are all more irritating than threatening, managing to repulse every other character in the film other than themselves.

While the plot definitely follows a narrative structure better than some of the Golden Age films, it embodies many of the tropes Disney's fairy-tale stories have come to be criticized for. Once again, "love at first sight" is in full effect, with Cinderella and the Prince falling in love literally only by looking at each other, before even knowing each other's name. The entire plot of getting the Prince a wife, meanwhile, is put into motion by the King's determination to have grandchildren and frustration with his son for not getting married sooner. Thus, we have a relationship that arises due to factors completely apart from the control of either of the participants, with neither of them really initiating anything and the relationship having no real tangible basis. In short, it's the prototypical (or perhaps stereotypical) Disney princess narrative that Brave and Frozen would deconstruct 50 years later.

Despite its flaws, Cinderella is still an artistic achievement for Disney. Managing to reestablish Disney as a purveyor of animated features after the package film era while illustrating its evolution since the Golden Age, Cinderella once again redefined Disney for a new period of its history.

#11 The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

The final film of the package film era, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad ends things on a high note. Once again returning to two stories (retellings of The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) the writers, artists and animators are given more space to let stories unfold and develop characters, doing once again what Disney does best: telling timeless stories with their signature charm and talent.

"The Wind in the Willows" recounts the troubles of the manic Mr. Toad, and how his friends, Rat, Mole, and Badger, help him reclaim his home from a gang of weasels. The characters designs are all charmingly expressive, perfectly anthropomorphizing the animal cast. Mr. Toad himself is excellently voice-acted by Eric Blore, although Badger and Rat decidedly sound like Americans unsubtly trying to imitate a Scottish and British accent. The plot moves along at a quick pace, and the final scene of the escape from Toad Hall is fun, energetic and filled with slapstick.

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," meanwhile, excels at capturing the atmosphere of autumn in early America. Ichabod Crane himself is an amusing protagonist, though his (and by extension, the film's) attitude toward Katrina van Tassel of winning the girl to win her father's estate is solidly a product of the original story's time (though it doesn't detract too much from the film). Where "Sleepy Hollow" truly shines, though, is at its ending; Ichabod's ill-fated final ride through the forest builds suspense and tension like a horror film, culminating with the arrival of the Headless Horseman, Disney's most evocatively dark character design since Chernabog. The menace of the Headless Horseman lends the film an abruptly dark ending, leaving narrator Bing Crosby to close with, "I'm getting out of here," as the film fades to black.

Along with Fun and Fancy Free, Ichabod and Mr. Toad is a standout of the package film era. Despite being an occasionally rough period in Disney's history, some flashes of Disney's creative genius were still able to shine through. By 1949, though, World War II was over, and Disney once again had the money and prestige it needed to go back to making feature-length films. With the package films in the past, the Silver Age of Disney was about to begin.

#10 Melody Time

Returning to the "pop-Fantasia" style of Make Mine Music after the more narratively inclined  Fun and Fancy Free, Melody Time is yet another compilation film. Not that it's necessarily bad - it's more consistent in its quality than its spiritual predecessor, Make Mine Music, but while it never hits that film's boring lows, it never quite matches its high points either.

That's also not to say Melody Time it totally without merit. "Bumble Boogie" gives us a swing-jazz take on "Flight of the Bumblebee" with a bee zipping through a visual interpretation of the music, marrying upbeat music to punchy visuals. "Blame it on the Samba" throws Donald Duck and Jose Carioca into a colorful, South American-themed number that admittedly feels a bit like an outtake from The Three Caballeros. "The Legend of Johnny Appleseed," "Little Toot," and "Pecos Bill" are all typical Disney shorts - good, but nothing particularly new or exciting.

And that's the real trouble with Melody Time. It's nothing new, and because it's nothing new, it's honestly hard to talk about. While the package films as a whole are light on innovation, Melody Time genuinely offers nothing that any of the other package films haven't already. Luckily, it would the last of its kind; after the unevenness (and lack of memorability) of the package film era, it would take only one more before Disney returned to narrative filmmaking for good.

#9 Fun and Fancy Free

Quite possibly the best of the package films, Fun and Fancy Free released in 1947 and restricted itself to two stories, feeling quite restrained after the glut of shorts present in Make Mine Music. Jiminy Cricket returns in the framing segments, presenting us with the stories of "Bongo," a love story about two bears, and "Mickey and the Beanstalk," the last time Walt Disney himself would voice his most iconic creation.

"Bongo" is an enjoyable little story about a circus bear running away to the wilderness and falling in love with a girl bear. The environments are all quite beautifully painted, but essentially retread territory present in Dumbo and Bambi. Interestingly, the sound design of "Bongo" is one of its standout features, with a variety of amusing slapstick sound effects. It's quickly dwarfed, however, by "Mickey and the Beanstalk," hands-down one of the best shorts of the package film era. Tonally, it's midway between the Golden and Silver Ages of Disney, making it feel more like a true part of Disney's evolution than any of the previous package films. The sequence of the beanstalk growing around Mickey, Donald and Goofy's house and lifting it up into the sky allows the animators to flex their talents, while a fun sequence of the three running around on the giant's table and eating his giant food allows the artists to ply their skills.

The odd part about "Mickey and the Beanstalk" (and the part that detracts somewhat from it) is its presentation. The tale is recounted by comedian-ventriloquist Edgar Bergen at a party attended by Luana Patten and his own puppets, Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. Bergen's narration is consistently punctuated by snarky asides from the dummies, practically giving the film a built-in riff track and breaking any immersion the story could have had. The entire segment is further broken up by frequently cutting back to the live-action scene at the party, which, while not inherently bad, certainly doesn't add anything that would have been missed.

Despite its flaws, Fun and Fancy Free manages to be a standout of the package film era, recapturing some of the essential Disney style absent from previous films. Maintaining a consistency of tone and quality, it feels more like a complete product than merely a compilation. While the package film era was an odd period in Disney's history, Fun and Fancy Free stands out as an entry truly worthy of its place in Disney's canon.

#8 Make Mine Music

The third of the package films dispenses with any kind of framing device for its segments, serving purely as a compilation with no overarching story. Make Mine Music presents ten animated shorts (the most of any of the package films), each with music performed by contemporary artists of the day - somewhat like a 40's-pop Fantasia. However, Fantasia manages to hold up well today partly due to its use of timeless classical pieces as its basis. The contemporary musical stylings of Make Mine Music, by contrast, date the film; while some of the segments may have aged well, the same cannot be said for the music.

As for the segments themselves, they're a decidedly mixed bag. The first, "The Martin and the Coys," starts the film off on a sour note by being decidedly charmless, recounting a feud between two hillbilly families. The high points of the film include Disney's classic take on "Peter and the Wolf," "Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet," a love story about two hats that exemplifies the charm and originality of the best Disney shorts, and the closer, the surprisingly poignant "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met." Two segments featuring the talents of Benny Goodman, "All the Cats Join In" (a look at teenagers caught up in the spirit of swing) and "After You've Gone" (with the instruments running around and dancing to their own music) provide some upbeat attitude and still hold up relatively well. The rest of the segments are chiefly abstract animation over vocals, and end up being merely dull, dragging down the pacing and tainting the overall quality of the film.

Even moreso than the preceding package films, Make Mine Music is purely a compilation, and not truly a film. Its good segments showcase the best defining qualities of the classic Disney shorts; its bad ones are scarcely worth a second glance. Ultimately, the audience would be better off treating this collection of shorts for what it is - a collection, not a film - watching the highlights and ignoring the filler; despite the presence of some quality material, Make Mine Music is too uneven to succeed as a whole.

#7 The Three Caballeros

Serving as a spiritual sequel (if not necessarily a direct one) to Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros is similarly themed around Latin America, spotlighting Brazil and Mexico. Despite being a package film, it manages to do a better job than its predecessor of tying its separate pieces together into a cohesive whole. The overarching story revolves around Donald Duck receiving a package from Latin America for his birthday. The various things he discovers within provide the impetus for the segments that make up the film. As a result, Caballeros feels a bit like a cross between Saludos Amigos and an extended Donald Duck cartoon.

As for the segments themselves, they're decidedly middling. The opener has Donald viewing a film reel, which recounts the story of a penguin named Pablo leaving Antarctica for the Galapagos, a humorous depiction of various exotic South American birds, and a story of a young "Gauchito" and his flying donkey. It's diverse, charming, and easily the best part of the film. Next, Jose Carioca returns to take Donald on a tour of Baia, Brazil, in a bit that seems a bit too similar to "Aquarela do Brasil." We're also introduced to some live-action dancers interacting with the animated cast, though the live-action elements have aged far less well than the animation.

Following the arrival of Panchito, a Mexican rooster, the three Caballeros are taken on a tour of Mexico through some live-action footage that feels decidedly like a travelogue. Eventually, they arrive on Acapulco Beach, where Donald proceeds to run around chasing women in swimsuits, in a scene that feels more than a bit uncomfortable today. In the final sequence, Donald falls in love with the floating head of Mexican singer Dora Luz, with the animation abandoning all logic and diving headfirst into abstract surrealism. By the end of the film, it's devolved into merely a series of things happening, with virtually no cohesion or consistency.

Needless to say, The Three Caballeros has not aged well. Saludos Amigos is at least interesting for its historical value and manages to work in a fair amount of charming animation and creative ideas. The Three Caballeros, by comparison, quickly squanders its strong beginning on dated live-action material and concepts recycled from its predecessor, and ultimately winds up being rather boring. Saludos Amigos is enjoyable when viewed from a certain perspective; The Three Caballeros is simply a weak entry in Disney's canon.

#6 Saludos Amigos

In 1941, Disney sent a team of animators and artists on a tour of South America with the goal of making a film as part of Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy of goodwill between the US and South America. The result of their journeys was Saludos Amigos, the first of Disney's package films - compilations of shorts with a framing device to tie them together. In the case of Saludos Amigos, the framing material consists of live-action documentary footage of the Disney team's journey, making the film seem a bit like a 1940's-era travelogue at times, although it does offer a fascinating look at the animators creating characters and settings from the inspiration around them, essentially making the film a chronicle of its own production.

The shorts themselves are all themed around the culture and locations of South America. First is "Lake Titicaca," essentially a travelogue spoof starring Donald Duck, with Disney's favorite misanthrope getting roundly abused - amusing, but typical of Donald cartoons. Next is "Pedro," about a mail plane setting off on his first flight. It's cute, but inconsequential. "El Gaucho Goofy" gives us Goofy as the device for comparing the American cowboy to the Argentine gaucho, with antics ensuing. The finale is "Aquarela do Brasil," with a paintbrush creating a lush rainforest landscape, and featuring Donald Duck being introduced to Brazil by the parrot Jose Carioca (the pair would return in The Three Caballeros).

Ultimately, there's not much to say about Saludos Amigos. Since the package films aren't truly narrative films, but compilations, it's difficult to critique them as anything but the sum of their parts. While the shorts are all of the good quality one could expect from Disney, none are truly exceptional. Saludos Amigos is best viewed as a piece of Disney history; in terms of artistic value or originality, it offers little.

#5 Bambi

The last film of Disney's Golden Age, Bambi perfectly showcases the artistry present in Disney's early days. The background of the forest settings are beautifully painted, showing the full range of the seasons in lush, painterly detail. A sun-filled meadow, a cold, wintery forest, a forest fire in full motion - all of the settings are fantastically rendered. The film also allows the animators to show off the evolution of their talents - the animals are all more realistically animated than the more stylized ones present in Snow White and Dumbo. The standout scene, at least from a filmmaking perspective, is the fight between Bambi and a rival deer, drawn in a deeply shadowed, evocative style that drives home the primal atmosphere of the battle.

Interestingly, Bambi doesn't really have a plot. It just follows a series of episodes in the life of Bambi, from birth to adolescence, and finally, fatherhood. But of course, there's one thing everyone remembers from this film: the death of Bambi's mother. It's not hard to see why; it's one of the rare children's films to address the reality of death. What truly makes it unique is its conciseness: after wandering through the snow, Bambi finally comes across the Great Prince, who simply tells him, "Your mother can't be with you anymore." And really, that's all it needs; death encapsulated in a single statement. Not an elaborate explanation, not any "inspirational message... just one line, and then life goes on. The only thing that can really be said against the scene is that is transitions too quickly to the next, resulting in a bit of mood whiplash and not entirely giving the scene breathe as much as it should.

In essence, Bambi was a perfect way to cap off the Golden Age of Disney. It was a period of technical innovation and artistic experimentation, all on display here in a setting that allowed artist and animator alike a space to show the best of their abilities. By 1942, the year of Bambi's release, World War II was underway, and Disney would see their talents and budgets repurposed for the war effort. The Golden Age had ended, and the Package Film Era would soon begin.

#4 Dumbo

Dumbo serves as the point of birth for one of Disney's staple plot concepts: take an adorable tiny animal and make them suffer horribly (and really, what's more adorable than baby elephants?). It's also one of the few films to have a silent protagonist; the animators do the work of making Dumbo emote purely through action and expression, while Timothy Q. Mouse serves as the driving force behind the plot and provider of exposition. The pair of them are a perfectly charming duo, making up for the rather thin and extremely short plot (which seems to be a hallmark of Golden Age Disney). The rest of the animals and humans are stylized, but appealing, although some of the character models seem to have been cribbed from either Pinocchio or "Dance of the Hours."

The biggest strength of Dumbo is Disney's ever-present ability to wrest genuine emotion of of seemingly any material. Dumbo himself is just such a sympathetic protagonist for whom nothing goes right for the majority of the film that it's impossible for an audience not to connect with him (seriously, I cannot stress this enough, Dumbo is the most adorable thing ever designed by Disney). Visually, the colorful, whimsical circus atmosphere is captured perfectly through the artwork and music (I haven't touched on it much, but the music in early Disney films holds up remarkably well, far better than most films of the time). The animators do still take some time to indulge themselves, notably in the sequence of setting up the circus in a rainstorm (it seems like there has to be at least one rainy scene in every Disney film) and the notorious "Pink Elephants on Parade," rendered in a striking color-on-black style.

However well most aspects of Dumbo hold up, it was still made in 1941, and some antiquated cultural attitudes are bound to come through - specifically, a group of crows intended as African-American caricatures that break the playful mood of the film somewhat for modern audiences. It's a bit off-putting, but not enough to drag the film down. While brief and definitely best enjoyed by children, Dumbo still manages to be as charming today as it ever was.

#3 Fantasia

Fantasia might stand as Walt Disney's most ambitious, artistic, and forward-thinking project. Eschewing dialogue and traditional narrative, Disney produced a collection of shorts, each a visual interpretation of a piece of classical music, each one introduced by Deems Taylor with music conducted by Leopold Stokowski. It was, in the words of Taylor, a "new form of entertainment," a marriage of music and animation. It was an exploration of a new frontier for animation, an attempt to elevate it to new levels of artistry. It was, perhaps, one of the first animated art films.

We open with "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," beginning with the live-action orchestra performing, sometimes in silhouette form, and segueing into dreamlike abstract animation. "The Nutcracker Suite" uses nature as its performers, with fairies, fish, flowers, and some delightfully charming mushrooms. The iconic "Sorcerer's Apprentice," intended to rejuvenate the popularity of Mickey Mouse, is the most traditionally structured of the pieces on display, and was originally intended as a standalone short. "The Rite of Spring" recounts the evolution of life on Earth, climaxing in a beautifully primal battle between a Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, and ending with a surprisingly straight-faced depiction of the extinction of the dinosaurs. "Meet the Soundtrack" is an odd little aside featuring a waveform personifying the sounds of the orchestra, and seems a bit thrown-in. "The Pastoral Symphony" depicts a very much Disneyfied version of Greek mythology, full of unreasonably cute fauns and pegasuses, but nothing particularly memorable (apart from originally having some racially-questionable black centaurs that were excised in later releases). "Dance of the Hours" gives us a variety of dancing animals, but again, nothing too original.

The finale, though, is where Fantasia truly shines. "Night on Bald Mountain" gives us the sublimely menacing Chernabog leading a succession of ghosts and demons out of their graves in a frenzied dance. The short's use of dramatic lighting and scenery is exceptional, capturing the gothic atmosphere of German expressionist films. Its counter is the subsequent "Ave Maria," serving as a symbolic defeat of the evil by the holy, though it's a bit of a weak ending after the atmospheric power of "Bald Mountain."

The truly exceptional thing about Fantasia is that, while it was already one of the most artistically high-minded and ambitious animated films produced at that point, Disney intended it to be merely a starting point for an ongoing project. The original concept was to rerelease the film every year, with a new short replacing one of the originals. Though this concept was ultimately defeated by financial concerns, it's an indication of just how genuine Disney's artistic ambitions were. Fantasia stands as the greatest product of those ambitions, a uniquely high-minded and ahead-of-its-time entry in the Disney canon.

#2 Pinocchio

Coming just three years after Snow White, Pinocchio already shows important evolution for Disney. The story is more substantial, focusing on Pinocchio's development as a character, and there are fewer scenes that feel dispensable, with even those serving to showcase the richly detailed animation Disney's staff was capable of (the masses of clocks in Geppetto's workshop and the schools of fish underwater come to mind).

At its core, Pinocchio is a childrens' morality tale for the age it was made in, meant to impart the values of being, in the words of the Blue Fairy, "brave, truthful, and unselfish." The plot is driven by Pinocchio's desire to become a real boy by being virtuous, and every misfortune that befalls him is the result of him failing to heed his "conscience" (Jiminy Cricket, who, to the writers' credit, is not simply a moralizer, but a character with flaws and personality). And it's certainly coming from the Grimm-style "scared straight" school of morality tales, because Pinocchio has a considerable concentration of abjectly terrifying content. Over the course of the film, we're treated to Stromboli, the bombastic, scowling (and probably racist by modern standards) Gypsy who abducts Pinocchio and promises to chop him into firewood, the gigantic homicidal whale Monstro, and, of course, the Coachman and the horrific episode of Pleasure Island.

The Pleasure Island sequence and the Coachman bear special note for constituting quite possibly the darkest content of any Disney film (with the possible exception of The Hunchback of Notre Dame). The Coachman sends Honest John and Gideon off on the specific mission of luring boys to Pleasure Island with promises of a no-rules paradise, where their bad behavior somehow turns them into donkeys (in an almost uncomfortably intense sequence) to be sold off en masse with no hope of escape. To a modern audience, it's hard not to read the whole affair as a metaphor for human trafficking, especially since there's no indication in-story that it will ever be stopped. The Coachman is never defeated, only escaped, leaving him to stand as the most unsettling Disney villain.

Suffice to say, Pinocchio is very much a product of its time, and would never get made today. Modern sensibilities would never allow for its grim brand of morality fable, depictions of children drinking and smoking, or a villain as evocative of real-world evil as the Coachman. This is not to say it is a bad film; far from it, Pinocchio is a significant narrative and artistic evolution for Disney, helping further establish the legacy of Disney's Golden Age and the dominance of Disney in the world of the animated film.

#1 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Interestingly enough, this may have actually been the first film I ever saw as a child. Having not seen it in probably somewhere around thirteen years, watching it again was definitely an... interesting experience. Funny how you can go years without watching a film, see it again, and realize you remember every shot, sound effect, and line of dialogue.

First thing to address, Snow White absolutely shows its age. As the first attempt at making a feature-length animated film, it's inherently an experiment. The actual plot of the Queen's attempts to kill Snow White (as an aside, this film has way more explicit references to killing people than you probably remember) unfolds over maybe half the scenes in the film. The rest of the film is chiefly musical numbers serving as fuel for rather charming visual humor. The influence of Disney's background in animated shorts is visible; many of the scenes could practically stand on their own as a string of loosely knitted-together shorts. As a character, Snow White is easily the dullest Disney protagonist: she has barely any actual personality, does nothing of her own agency, and is alternately subservient to the Queen, the Dwarves, and the Prince, who manages to be the only character with even less personality than her. And as for the love story... there really isn't one. The Prince trespasses on the castle grounds to proclaim his love for Snow White in the opening scene based purely on hearing her sing, she later announces that she's in love with him despite knowing literally nothing about him, and then he shows up at the end, administers "true love's first kiss," and they ride off together to live happily ever after, apparently only because the script says so.

And yet, despite its flaws, there are moments of greatness that must have seemed like revelations at the time of the film's release. The Dwarfs and forest animals end up showing far more personality and appeal than Snow White herself (and make the more realistically drawn humans seem out of place by comparison). The lack of plotting is made up for by the film's ability to evoke emotion, ranging from the panicked sequence of Snow White running through the forest to the mounting suspense and terror of the Queen's transformation. Most effective, however, is the scene of the Dwarfs' funeral for Snow White. Disney has earned a reputation for throwing tear-jerky moments in their films, but what makes this one unique is that it's done entirely without dialogue, just a perfect marriage of music and visuals that foreshadows what Disney would go on to do more ambitiously with Fantasia. This is what Disney is at its best: raising and redefining the bar for what animation can be and achieve.

While definitely not Disney's best film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs still stands as an early testament to the spirit of creativity and innovation that would define Disney's Golden Age, and all of its best films for decades to come.

Introduction and First Project

Hello, and welcome to Heathens of Cinema.

I've had the idea to start this blog for a while, and I finally just sat down and got it started.

I'm a filmmaker. I love film. Sure, most people would say they "like movies," but there's a difference. It's about appreciating films as an art form. It's about believing that film can be more than just entertainment. It's about getting overly excited when a film does something totally new or original or reminds you of why you love film in the first place. I love watching films, I love talking about films, and this is the platform for me to do that.

Since I want this blog to have some sense of structure and continuity and not just be a disjointed stream of "what I watched this week," I'll be undertaking this blog as a series of "projects." Basically, I go with a set of films - a director's body of work, a studio's canon, a franchise, etc. - and work through it to completion, giving my thoughts on each film here. And we'll start it off with...

Disney's Animated Canon

There are few entities that have had as big of an impact on film (and, by extension, on pop culture as a whole) than Disney. It was Disney that elevated animation from shorts to full-length films, and for many people, their name remains synonymous with film animation. Over 78 years, Disney has amassed a canon of 54 films, and while it's impossible to get a winner every time out with that kind of output, it still stands as one of the pillars of the animation medium.

And we're going to watch them all.