Whenever I'm prompted to think about the Disney operation and what they used to be capable of, I remember the time my brother and his wife took their 5-year-old son to town to see "Bambi" (for an idea of when that was, that boy is now a man in his fifties.) The venue was a tiny, eastern Iowa, small-town theater; sound carries on those old cinema houses. Came the dramatic scene when Bambi's mother was killed, and the theater got very quiet.
My nephew, the consummate rural Iowa kid, spoke up in a loud voice: "Isn't anyone gonna cut up that deer for the freezer?"
I've never been a fan of "Bambi" or its ilk; too many people, starting as far back as us Boomers, got a really misleading impression about what wildlife and nature were like from those stories. But back in the day, the folks at Disney did some legitimately great films, and their run lasted as long as the '90s. Here's a sample of what Disney once was, and if they can jettison some management and get the "woke" garbage out of their productions, could be again.
"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954). The cast alone makes this worth seeing: James Mason as Nemo, Kirk Douglas as Ned Land, and Peter Lorre as Conseil. This adaptation of the Jules Verne novel had everything: drama, action, great special effects for the time, and a slam-bang ending.
Next, one of the greatest films in the history of cinema, "Old Yeller" (1957). Honestly, I defy anyone to claim that they weren't in tears at the end of this film. A great story of a frontier family, the brave dog that saved them multiple times and, in the end, gave his life for his master — and the courage of the boy who had to end his dog's suffering. Fess Parker, Tommy Kirk, Dorothy McGuire, and Chuck Connors shone.
To move to the lighter side, we have Robert Altman's "Popeye" (1980). Again, a great cast, a better-than-fair script, and stunt performers recruited from Cirque de Soliere; what really made this film work was the chemistry between Shelley Duvall's neck-craning performance as Olive Oyl and the brilliant Robin Williams as the muttering, pipe-smoking, one-eyed hero. Ray Walston's appearance as Poopdeck Pappy was a great bonus.
Finally, in 1997, Disney gave us an adaptation of a Saturday morning cartoon, with a young, bright, wisecracking Brendan Fraser as "George of the Jungle". Fraser was great; he managed to portray the "Tarzan wannabe" with humor, charm, and bravery, all while keeping it a pure comedy. The adorable Leslie Mann was great as Ursula, and Thomas Hayden Church put in his usual great performance as the villain, Lyle.
There were others, of course. The first "Fantasia" was the first exposure to classical music for a lot of us Boomers, while our kids had the same with "Fantasia 2000."
What the heck happened? Well, have a look at my colleague Brad Slager's two-part "Movie Bombs of 2023" piece, and you'll notice a common theme.
Read: The Movie Bombs of 2023: Part 1 The Movie Bombs of 2023: Part 2
That theme? Well, there's not much original, true, but more than that, it's "wokeness" in the films; that finger-wagging, annoying, sometimes infuriating trend.
We go to movies to be entertained, not to be hectored or lectured; we particularly do not want to have finger-wagging slobs pointing out what they imagine our faults are. That's the problem Disney has had in the last few years. They say a fish rots from the head, and that's very likely the case here, but it will take more than one man leaving to fix Disney now.
Part of the problem, if you ask me, is that many of the producers and directors have very little life experience outside the industry. Ditto for the actors. One of Hollywood's greatest directors, John Ford, shot newsreel footage all over the Pacific in World War 2; he was on Midway Island when the Japanese bombed it at the outset of that battle, and captured those events on film with little regard for his own safety. As far as actors? Mel Brooks and Gene Roddenberry were World War 2 veterans, as were Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin, Ser Alec Guinness, Christopher Lee, singer Tony Bennett, and comedian Lenny Bruce. They had experiences outside show business; more importantly, they had perspective. They didn't feel the need to lecture us over nonsense because they had seen, done, and outlasted serious, world-changing events.
The crop of directors and actors in the movie industry today? Not so much.
Mind you, there's no easy cure for this. It's not as though we want a third world war just to improve our entertainment experiences, after all. Personally, though, I'd settle for an end to the finger-wagging, and if any young, up-and-coming director in the Disney organization wants to see examples of how films can work without all that, to see how Disney once did things, the four films mentioned here are a good place to start.
