DISNEY’S LIVE-ACTION MUSICAL LEGACY
Walt Disney’s expansion into live-action movies was slow and gradual. He used live action in The Reluctant Dragon (1941) as a way to string together unrelated cartoon segments. He also used it in such movies as Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart, but he couldn’t quite make the leap away from making a film without any animation.
(So Dear to My Heart is a good example: the movie was supposed to be entirely live action, but Walt’s distributor at the time, RKO, felt a Disney film would not sell unless it had at least some animation in it. So Walt reluctantly added several minor cartoon sequences. The consensus among film critics is that the animation segments keep the movie from being any better than it is because they seem to intrude unnecessarily on the live action.)
In 1949, with a war-ravaged England freezing payments due to American film companies, the Disney Studio decided to use the money it had made there (money that could only be spent in England) to begin producing live-action motion pictures in the United Kingdom.
The first to be made was Treasure Island (1950), based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel. Walt spent a couple of weeks in England watching the filming, and upon his return told his animators how much fun he’d had and how much easier it was to do live action than animation. The animators saw the writing on the wall. Said one, “We realized that as soon as Walt rode on a camera crane, we were going to lose him.”
Naturally that wasn’t true. He didn’t abandon his animators or animation (Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan are testament to that). But he was taken with the idea of getting into the live-action movie business. After all, he could make them faster and cheaper than animated features and, more importantly, he could make more of them (several a year, as opposed to animated films, which took several years).
However, Walt approached the process of live-action movie making differently than other studios, applying knowledge and principles he’d learned from his years in animation to the production of the live-action pictures.
One example was his use of storyboarding, which involves laying out the entire movie using hand-drawn scenes that are placed on boards so that the sequence of action or events can be planned prior to shooting any film.
Another was the use of songs. Not only did Walt believe they should be a part of his live-action movies, he also felt they should be used the same way as in his animated features. That is, they should be an integral part of the story, moving it forward without bogging it down.
One of the first songs to appear in a Disney live-action movie was a little sea chantey sung by the unlikeliest of singers. When one thinks of Kirk Douglas, “singer” doesn’t immediately come to mind, but there’s Douglas crooning “A Whale of a Tale” in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). The song was written by Norman Gimbel and Al Hoffman (the same Hoffman who, with Jerry Livingston and Mack David, had written songs for Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland).
Before he hired the Sherman brothers as staff songwriters in 1961, Walt Disney had two options when it came to writing songs for his movies. He could either hire outside songwriters or he could turn to his music department, which wasn’t a problem when he just needed scores or melodies, but words were another problem. His music staff was made up of composers, not lyricists. So, for the words, the staff composers usually turned to anyone who was ready, willing and able, be they animator, scriptwriter, story editor or, in the case of “Old Yeller,” the Studio nurse.
For Old Yeller (1957), Disney music director Oliver Wallace turned to Gil George to help him write the title song, performed by Jerome Courtland over the opening credits. George in reality was Disney Studio nurse Hazel George, who proved such a handy musical wordsmith that she also provided the lyrics for songs in the Disney movies Westward Ho the Wagons!, Perri and Tonka.
Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959) features “Pretty Irish Girl,” a short ditty written by Wallace and Larry Watkin (who earlier had written the screenplay for Treasure Island).
Okay, so what makes it so special? Well, “Pretty Irish Girl” is sung by a young Scottish actor who, although unknown at the time, would later gain a little more notoriety playing a character who goes by the name of Bond… James Bond. That’s right, this is your chance to hear Sean Connery sing. Featured here is an original demo version, never-before-released.
In 1961 the Disney Studio released its first live-action musical, Babes in Toyland, which was based on Victor Herbert’s classic 1903 operetta and included new music by Disney staff composer George Bruns (whose work was nominated for an Academy Award).
The film starred teen heartthrobs Annette Funicello and Tommy Sands as the storybook sweethearts Mary Contrary and Tom Piper, but it was the villainous Barnaby, played by Ray Bolger (of the Scarecrow in Wizard of Oz fame), who stole the show, especially with his rendition of Herbert’s “Castle in Spain.”
Although the first film songs Richard and Robert Sherman wrote for Disney were for 1961’s The Parent Trap (including “The Parent Trap”), the first effort of theirs to actually appear in a Disney movie was some lyrics they wrote to the tune “Sweet Betsy of Pike.” The newly remodeled song became the “Medfield Fight Song” for The Absent-Minded Professor (1961).
Thereafter, their assignments became increasingly meatier and included the song scores for such features as The Sword in the Stone, Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
One of their first efforts at writing a musical came in 1962 when they wrote the song score for In Search of the Castaways. The movie featured four tunes, including “Enjoy It,” which found Maurice Chevalier and Haley Mills performing while standing in a tree.
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While Walt Disney was casting Swiss Family Robinson, he viewed a movie called Tiger Bay starring well-known British actor John Mills, whom he was considering for the role of the father. But while watching Tiger Bay he was struck by the performance of a young actress who just happened to be Mills’ daughter. Wasting no time, Disney immediately signed 13-year-old Haley Mills to a contract, and a year later she made her Disney debut in Pollyanna. Over the next five years, Mills played twin sisters in The Parent Trap, sang a duet with Maurice Chevalier while stranded in a tree in In Search of the Castaways, crooned with Burl Ives in Summer Magic, got mixed up in international intrigue in The Moon-Spinners and owned a pretty smart feline in That Darn Cat. As for her father, he ended up getting the role in Swiss Family Robinson. Perhaps Haley put in a good word for him.
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Their next musical, Summer Magic (1963), was even more ambitious. Featuring seven songs, including “On the Front Porch,” the movie served as something of a dress rehearsal for Mary Poppins, which would come a year later.
Perhaps the most interesting song the Sherman’s wrote for Disney, in terms of who performed it, was “The Monkey’s Uncle” from the 1965 movie of the same name. The film itself is a lighthearted youth comedy starring Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello. The song, written with a popular surf beat, features Annette Funicello on lead vocals and the Beach Boys on soaring backing harmonies.
The Shermans created a jazz-flavored title tune in the style of “Mack the Knife” for the 1965 film That Darn Cat. Although Bobby Darin sings the title song in the film, it was this version by actor-songwriter Bobby Troup that was featured on the Disney album release and made it onto the pop charts. Troup may be better known as the writer of the 1964 hit “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” as well as his starring role in the 1970s television series Emergency!
In 1966, flush with confidence over the success of Mary Poppins (and the popularity of such other grand musicals as My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music), Walt Disney put the Sherman brothers to work on a big-budget, live-action musical he had planned called The Happiest Millionaire (1967).
The movie was based on a 1956 Broadway play of the same name, but the stage show had not been a musical. Enter the Shermans. They penned 12 songs for The Happiest Millionaire, including “Fortuosity,” performed by Broadway star Tommy Steele, who was upstaged during the number’s reprise by a live alligator.
“Walt knew his people and their potentials better than they knew themselves. Most importantly, Walt gave each of his pictures heart, that indefinable quality that ultimately touches our emotions.” ~ Richard and Robert Sherman