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Feature of the Month

The Disney Studio at War

"Creative personnel accustomed to racking their brains for a new switch on some problem near and dear to Donald Duck's personality found themselves commissioned to explain to men at Navy bases all aspects of the functioning and maintenance of the gyroscope, and its relation to the overall functioning of an aerial torpedo." -- Carl Nater, "Walt Disney Studio -- A War Plant," Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, March 1944.

The outbreak of World War II profoundly affected the Disney Studio. The war in Europe cut off the foreign markets that supplied nearly 40% of the Studio's income, exacerbating Disney's financial problems when "Pinocchio" and "Fantasia" failed to duplicate the box office success of "Snow White" in 1940. Within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. Army was billeting troops and storing ammunition in studio buildings for the defense of California. Military security was introduced and everyone, including Walt, had to wear an identification badge.

"The main changes at the Studio were that a lot of the men went into the service and we were not doing the regular freewheeling entertainment that we did before and after the war," recalls Marc Davis, one the key group of Studio animators Disney called "The Nine Old Men." "In an effort to keep his organization together, Walt really made a military reserve of the place. We all had to be thumbprinted and cleared by the FBI and so on to work there."

The animated training film, pioneered by Max Fleischer during WWI, would play a key part in preparing troops and support personnel throughout the war. Tests revealed that trainees learned faster and had better retention when material was presented in animation, rather than in live action or illustrated lectures. Walt Disney seems to have anticipated the importance of animation to the war effort: In early 1941, he produced "Four Methods of Flush Riveting," an instructional film in limited animation for Lockheed, on his own initiative and at his own expense. John Grierson, who organized the National Film Board of Canada, bought the Canadian rights to "Four Methods" and commissioned Disney to produce a training film for a new anti-tank rifle, as well as four shorts urging viewers to buy war bonds.

"I think for a man who was totally involved in the fantasy world we lived in, this stuff brought him to a sudden stop," says Joe Grant, who headed the Model Department, which served as Disney's think tank during the late '30s and '40s. "But once he understood what was necessary, he threw himself into it completely: It was typical of him to be confronted with an entirely new atmosphere and play his role."

By the time the Canadian bond-buying shorts were completed in 1942, the Disney Studio had become an essential industry, operating under the rules of the War Manpower Commission and turning out scores of films for the U.S. military. Prior to the outbreak of the war, the largest annual output of the Studio had been 37,000 feet of film; during fiscal year 1942-43 alone, Disney turned out more than five times that amount -- 204,000 feet of film, 95% of it for government contracts. This unprecedented increase was achieved although nearly one-third of the Studio personnel had joined the military.

"Many of the films were fully animated, although some were diagrammatic," says Davis. "They had one series they called 'The Rules of the Nautical Road,' thousands and thousands of feet that they turned out, done very simply, on what various lights meant and so on. But we really animated many of those things: I did some animation as well as story work on them. We used top-flight people where they were available."

A 26-part, 207-minute introduction to naval signals and regulations, "Rules of the Nautical Road" (1942) was longer than "Snow White" and "Pinocchio" combined. "Rules" was dwarfed by a six-hour filmic maintenance and repair manual for Beechcraft airplanes completed in 1943. Many of the films were in the 5- to 30-minute range, but nearly a dozen projects ran an hour or longer. These films had to be produced quickly and cheaply, often on budgets of $15,000 or less; Disney had spent more on a seven-minute short a decade earlier.

"We made a lot of things for Lockheed," says Ward Kimball, another of the Nine Old Men. "I made one that Elmer Plummer designed about using the torque wrench: Up until the time it was invented, you went by the way the wrench felt when you were tightening a bolt. Well, with aluminum parts, people were tightening nuts to the point that they'd crack with the first vibration. We'd work on these things in between other projects; that was the crazy thing about them. I'd dash out the animation, maybe spend a week on it. I don't know who the characters were, sometimes they were those dull-looking Mr. and Mrs.-type things."

It's difficult to establish how involved Walt Disney was in the production of the military films, as the notes and artwork were considered sensitive to national security and removed from the Studio by government agents when the films were completed. Given the sheer volume of material produced during the war, it seems unlikely that Disney could have supervised them as closely as he did the cartoon shorts and features. Studio artists recall that he grew tired of having "professors and authorities and high military officers running his operation," and was glad to return to purely entertainment projects after the war.

Disney was not the only studio working to satisfy the seemingly endless demand for animated training films: Warner Bros., MGM, Walter Lantz, and independent contractors were also busy with government commissions. Some of the top artists from Disney, MGM, and Warner Bros. served in the 18th Air Force Base Unit (First Motion Picture Unit or FMPU) at "Fort Roach," the old Hal Roach studio in Culver City. Under the command of Major Rudy Ising, FMPU turned out more animated footage than any of the Hollywood studios. Other animators used their talents for special assignments.

"Dick Kelsey, who was a flamboyant, exuberant guy, became a captain in the South Pacific," recounts Davis with a chuckle. "He made this model of the island they were about to attack -- he could do models so fast and so well, you couldn't believe it -- and General MacArthur came in with several of his officers and was enormously impressed with it. MacArthur said, 'Captain, may I ask what you did before the war?' He was expecting to hear he was from MIT or someplace in geology, and Kelsey said, 'I worked for Walt Disney.' MacArthur looked at him and said 'Oh' and walked off."

Disney artists also designed more than 1,400 logos and insignias for military and civil organizations, many of which featured the studio's famous characters. Mickey Mouse donned a hard hat in posters for the Aircraft Warning Service Volunteer Observers; Pluto steered an aerial bomb on badges for the Sikorsky Aircraft Experimental Service Department. Donald's cocky attitude and feisty temper made him the most-requested character: The Duck appeared on more than 200 insignias. Although these logos cost the studio about $25 a piece, Disney supplied them free, as he felt he owed something to the men and women serving America who had grown up watching Mickey cartoons. In addition, the Disney staff did volunteer projects for service organizations. Studio artists painted a mural that Mary Blair designed for the Hollywood Canteen. Marc Davis and Milt Kahl did a cartoon map of Hollywood for the Hollywood USO center. Davis and Kahl also did drawings of Disney characters at a center for returning servicemen in Santa Monica.

Not all of the studio's commissioned films were done for the military. Beginning with "South of the Border with Disney" (1942) and "The Winged Scourge" (1943), Disney produced 18 health films for Nelson Rockefeller, the coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA), and the head of the film division, John Hay "Jock" Whitney. Aimed at a largely illiterate Latin American audience, the films explained principles of hygiene, nutrition, sanitation, and infant care.

CIAA officials were worried that German and Italian immigrants might be fomenting pro-Axis sentiment in South America. In 1941 Whitney asked Disney to make a goodwill tour of the region, where his characters enjoyed widespread popularity. Disney initially declined: His studio was in the middle of a bitterly fought strike, and he owed the Bank of America a daunting $3.4 million. Whitney countered by offering to underwrite $70,000 in expenses and advance up to $50,000 each for five cartoons based on material from the tour. In August 1941, Disney, his wife, and 15 of his artists, an entourage they called "El Groupo," visited Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia.

Rather than release them individually, Disney combined the South American-themed shorts into two package films. "Saludos Amigos" (1943) consists of four cartoons loosely joined by 16mm footage of El Groupo: "Pedro" is the story of a little mail plane in the Andes; in "Lake Titicaca," a recalcitrant llama gets the better of Donald Duck; the Goof charges across the Pampas with his customary enthusiasm and ineptitude in "El Gaucho Goofy;" and "Aquarela do Brasil" ("Watercolor of Brazil") introduces the ebullient parrot José Carioca, who teaches Donald the Samba. Although the film was well received in both North and South America, it was overshadowed by its wilder and more polished successor.

Originally entitled "Surprise Package," "The Three Caballeros" (1945) begins with Donald Duck receiving a projector and three films about "strange birds": Pablo, a morose little penguin who hates the icy Antarctic; the Aracuan, an obnoxious clown; and a flying burro, the companion of a little gauchito from Uruguay. José Carioca appears to take Donald on a stylized journey to Baia, Brazil, followed by a series of wild live-action animation sequences. When Aurora Miranda (Carmen's sister) sings "Os Quindins de Yaya" ("The Cookies of Yaya"), Donald immediately falls for her. Panchito, a Mexican cowboy rooster, emerges from a shattered piñata and leads Donald and José on a tour of his homeland. Donald frolics with a bevy of bathing beauties in Acapulco; flirts with Dora Luz, who sings "You Belong to My Heart"; and dances with Carmen Molina. Molina also dances with a group of animated cacti. The film ends with an explosive performance of title song by Donald, José, and Panchito.

Critics praised "Caballeros" for its energy but were taken aback by Donald's flirtations with live actresses. The "New Yorker" noted that Molina's dance with the saguaro cacti "would probably be considered suggestive in a less innocent medium." The Disney artists developed enough material to make at least one more South American feature, but neither "Saludos Amigos" nor "Three Caballeros" did well enough at the box office to warrant a third installment.

In addition, the Disney artists somehow managed to turn out as many as 19 theatrical cartoons each year. Four of the shorts released in 1943, "Der Fuehrer's Face," "Education for Death," "Reason and Emotion," and "Chicken Little," combined propaganda with entertainment. "Der Fuehrer's Face" won an Oscar® for Best Cartoon Short and introduced Oliver Wallace's title song, which became a hit when Spike Jones recorded it. The film is a surreal nightmare, with Donald Duck as an unwilling Nazi factory worker laboring at an accelerating conveyor belt. Awakening from his dream, Donald embraces a model of the Statue of Liberty and declares, "Am I glad to be a citizen of the United States of America!"

Based on the book by Gregory Ziemer, "Education for Death" juxtaposes scenes of German schoolchildren being brainwashed with a hilarious, pseudo-operatic duet between a blowzy, obese German woman and her knight in shining armor, a scrawny caricature of Hitler. "Chicken Little" warns of the dangers of believing rumors. When Foxey Loxey convinces the gullible Chicken Little that the sky is falling, he creates a panic in the poultry yard. The dim-witted chickens flea to a nearby cave, where Foxey devours them.

"Reason and Emotion" depicts the conflicts within one John Doakes and a pretty young woman. Inside Doakes' head, Reason is personified as a prissy caricature of artist Martin Provenson; the simple-minded caveman Emotion is a caricature of Ward Kimball. Their counterparts inside the unnamed woman's head are cartoonier than other female Disney characters of the '40s. The narrator contrasts the need for a sane balance between these extremes with the irrational fears and hatreds expounded in Nazi propaganda.

"Walt was always trying to take these dull subjects, and goose 'em with a little comedy," says Kimball. "Proportioning the characters in 'Reason and Emotion' with big heads and small bodies was part of that: you'd have a built-in laugh. If we'd had characters who were the regular eight heads high, the stuff wouldn't have been funny. Also, the more exaggerated our characters were, the more exaggerated our animation could be: We could deviate from normal movements to exaggerate them, stretch them, make them more imaginative."

"It was a problem not to make things too entertaining, but to be sure the message was clear," cautions Grant.

Mixing entertainment and propaganda was not unique to Disney. All the Hollywood cartoon studios caricatured the Axis leaders and spoofed civilian shortages. Bugs Bunny sold war bonds; Superman fought Japanese saboteurs; Andy Panda and Barney Bear planted victory gardens. At the end of Tex Avery's "What's Buzzin' Buzzard?" (MGM, 1943), released at the height of wartime food rationing, a photograph of a T-bone steak reappears on the screen -- by popular request. When "Der Fuehrer's Face" won the Oscar, the nominees included Paul Terry's "All Out for V," "The Blitz Wolf" (MGM), and George Pal's "Tulips Shall Grow," in which a peaceful country is invaded by the Screwball Army. As Kimball notes, "That seemed to be the important thing, to make fun of Hitler."

U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau apparently played an active role in the creation of the entertainment/propaganda films. Grant recalls traveling to Washington, D.C., with Disney to go over material:

"Dick [Huemer] and I were working on one of the propaganda shorts, and we'd already pitched it back and forth to each other, but Walt hadn't been involved in it at this particular phase. Morgenthau sat in his office in his bedroom slippers, with a Great Dane -- alive -- on either side of his desk: He looked like some great nobleman. When we got there, Walt went in and talked to him, then came out and said, 'Mr. Morgenthau would like to have you tell the story.' But as Dick and I were going in to pitch it to him, Morgenthau came out and said, 'Oh no, no, just Walt.' They went in and closed the door: Walt had to ad lib the whole damn thing!"

Morgenthau also oversaw what would become Disney's most controversial wartime film, "The New Spirit" (1942). Recently passed laws would require 15 million Americans to pay federal income tax for the first time. Morgenthau wanted a film that would explain why these payments were necessary -- and he wanted it in theaters in six weeks.

The Disney artists hastily prepared a scenario in which Donald Duck's radio asks, "Are you a patriotic American, eager to do your part?" Donald replies that he is -- even if it means doing an unglamorous job that won't earn him a medal. Following the radio's instructions, he fills out his return. Repeating the slogan, "Taxes to beat the Axis!" Donald races across America to deliver a check for the $13 he owes to Washington. An estimated 60 million people saw "The New Spirit" in 1,100 theaters and a Gallup poll revealed that 37% of taxpayers were more willing to pay after seeing it.

But the Treasury Department had to request a special allocation of $80,000 to pay for "The New Spirit" ($40,000 in production costs, and an additional $40,000 for 1,000 prints). The request triggered a storm of criticism from Republican congressmen looking for examples of Democratic overspending, and Disney was unfairly accused of profiteering. He actually lost money on the film: It had cost $47,000 to produce and his studio had lost at least $40,000 when theater owners showed "The New Spirit" (which the government supplied gratis) instead of paying for a new Disney cartoon.

Disney's oddest wartime project was an animated/live-action feature based on Major Alexander de Seversky's controversial book, "Victory Through Airpower" (1943), in which he argued for the creation of an air force as an independent branch of the armed service, built around long-range bombers.

"Seversky got Walt interested in that project," explains Grant. "The idea had been floating around the Pentagon for some time, but Seversky was a very persuasive man, and when he got out to the studio, he described it all to Walt. Walt's imagination carried the thing to oversized planes and all that stuff. "Victory Through Air Power" sounded like an extraordinarily good idea, because you didn't get your hands dirty and you could bomb the whole area. He charmed Walt no end."

The 65-minute film includes a comic history of aerial warfare, limited animation of air raids, and live-action footage of Seversky at a desk, expounding his philosophy and criticizing his opponents. In the dramatic finale, a malign, globe-circling octopus representing the Japanese Empire is attacked and killed by the soaring eagle of American air power. "Victory Through Air Power" lost almost $500,000 at the box office and, as Marc Davis observes, "By the time the film was finished, air power was more than a reality."

Disney also considered making a feature based on the unpublished story "Gremlin Lore," by Royal Air Force flight lieutenant (and future novelist) Roald Dahl. Gremlins were "imps of bad luck," who were blamed for otherwise inexplicable mechanical problems RAF pilots encountered during the Battle of Britain. As no one had ever seen a gremlin, the Disney artists had to create their appearance, settling on bulbous-nosed elves with small horns. Extensive storyboards were prepared, and production costs passed $50,000. But in late 1943, Disney wrote to Dahl that he was abandoning the project. Although the film was never produced, the Disney gremlins appeared on more than two dozen military and civilian logos, and a book based on Dahl's story "with illustrations from the Walt Disney production" was published by Random House in 1943. Around the same time, Grant and Huemer began developing "The Square World," a graphically sophisticated satire on the enforced conformity of the Fascist regimes. Like "Gremlins," it was never completed but subsequently appeared in print, as part of the storybook "Walt Disney's Surprise Package."

"When you look over the amount of film we produced then, it is amazing," Grant reflects. "How did we do all of that? With the impetus of the war, everybody seemed to come awake; it was a Rip Van Winkle sort of thing, because it had been easy before that. The drive was there."

Biography of the author: Charles Solomon

Charles Solomon is an internationally respected critic and historian of animation. His writings on the subject have appeared in "TV Guide," "Rolling Stone," the "Los Angeles Times," "Modern Maturity," "Film Comment," the "Hollywood Reporter," and the "Manchester Guardian," and have been reprinted in newspapers and professional journals in the United States, Canada, France, Russia, Britain, Israel, the Netherlands, and Japan. He is the author of "The Disney That Never Was" (Hyperion, 1995) and "Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation" (Knopf, 1989; reprinted, Wings, 1994), which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and the first film book to be nominated for a National Book Critics' Circle Award.


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