On this day, 1940, the premier of “Fantasia” took place. The general public and usual riff raff had to wait until the next day. The idea of it came to Walt Disney as a result of a Silly Symphonies short with Mickey Mouse doing the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Mickey’s popularity was beginning to fade and Walt was looking for a way to promote him. He wanted the best to put it together, and when he met Leopold Stokowski, the conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony, Leo loved it; so much that he offered to work for nothing. Not his symphony members: Walt had to pay them $18,000. With the exception of the “Apprentice” Stokowski was given freedom to pick what he thought would be appropriate songs to go along with the ideas presented. And the Disney crew also developed a new sound system dubbed Fantasound which made “Fantasia” the first stereo movie. Movie critics loved it. Music critics not as much. They all praised the sound, but many didn’t like the picture concepts that went with the music. So what the heck is wrong with hippos in tutu’s? Regardless, it lost money because of two factors: It couldn’t be shown in Europe thanks to the war, and the sound system, while great, cost local theaters a ton of money to have installed. It’s been released a ton of times and is available on most of the home movie formats so it ended up making a pretty good financial return. The movie wasn’t without controversy with the first stink over the scene with the centaurettes. A dark one is polishing the hooves of a white one. I don’t remember any names, but that was a conflict, too: stereotyped names. The dark centaurette was named “Sunflower”. I suppose I don’t remember it because it got cut from the later videos. And lots of musical ideas got cut. Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” was one – I would have loved to see what they might have done with that one.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 08:13:31 +0000
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