#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.