Walt Disney's Psychedelic Movie (Stories
About Fantasia)
By
Stephen Schochet
Chasen's restaurant
in old Hollywood was a legendary hangout where movie stars expected to
dine in peaceful private booths on barbecued chili without putting up
with celebrity gawkers. There were occasional breaks in the quiet.
Jimmy Stewart's bachelor party was thrown there complete with midgets
clad only in diapers jumping out of cakes. Humphrey Bogart and Peter
Lorre got drunk one night and stole the restaurant's safe, carrying it
out onto the street until they were caught. WC Fields once caused his
girlfriend Carlotta Monti great anguish by dining at Chasens with
another woman. She called up nearby Cedar Sinai Hospital and told them
that the comedian was having a heart attack, resulting in an ambulance
coming to fetch him in the middle of dinner. And in 1938 the conductor
of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the long haired, flamboyant Leopold
Stokowski, in town to carry on a discreet love affair with Greta Garbo,
had his dinner interrupted by a note from a waiter saying that Walt
Disney wanted to meet him.
The cartoon maker and the Maestro were surprised that both were
fans of each other. As always Walt saw meetings with talent as an
opportunity to push the creative envelope. In fifteen years of running
his animation studio, Disney had used music to supplement gags and
stories, now he wanted to reverse the formula. While recently attending
a symphony at the Hollywood Bowl he had been enthralled listening to The
Sorcerer's Apprentice by Paul Dukas. What if it were combined with a
state of the art, twenty minute animated cartoon? It could raise
animation to a higher art form and introduce new audiences to classical
music who had never appreciated it before. Stokowski loved the idea so
much he volunteered to conduct it for free. He also suggested several
other pieces that could be presented with animation as well. And so
Fantasia (1940) was born.
Disney's other reason to make Sorcerer was to save the career of
Mickey Mouse. A superstitious man, who like many in Hollywood consulted
fortune tellers, Walt felt that if Mickey died, his whole organization
would go down with him. The problem was that Mickey like many stars was
now type cast. He had gone from being mischievous to bland. It had
gotten to the point where Walt would get letters of complaint every time
the little guy would misbehave on the screen. He had been surpassed in
popularity by the mean-spirited but more versatile Donald Duck. Walt
also felt that the high pitched voice that he himself provided for the
mouse was not exciting for audiences to hear, his role in Fantasia would
be silent. Disney remained Mickey's strongest advocate, despite his
artist's suggestions the four foot rodent was a dumb character who
should be replaced in the film by Dopey. Their disdain lead to the
phrase,"A Mickey Mouse Operation" used to describe things that are
second rate.
At that time, flush with the huge success of Snow White And The
Seven Dwarfs (1937) the 37-year-old Walt Disney was at the height of his
creative powers. Visitors to the studio were amazed by his boundless
energy, they would have more surprised to find out he had suffered a
nervous breakdown eight years earlier. His anything is possible
attitude carried over to many of his artists who were zany characters to
begin with. Working on Fantasia with highbrow types like Stokowski and
music critic Deems Taylor, Walt would sometimes feel embarrassed by
their immature behavior. Don't be, he was told, Your cartoonists are
like the elves in Santa's workshop.
If Walt was ignorant about some classical music pieces, he made up
for it by plunging into Fantasia with boyish enthusiasm. His
imagination was translated into unique visions by the Disney animators.
A Bach passage reminded him of a bowl of spaghetti, he was later amused
when critics saw something profound in the simple drawings that appeared
on screen. Stokowski suggested they use a piece called Sacre du
Printemps or Rite Of Spring, by Igor Stravinsky. "Socker, what's that?"
Walt asked. After he heard the music he wired ten thousand dollars to
Stravinsky for permission to use it. The desperate Russian composer
needed the cash to get safe passage out of occupied Paris. Sacre was
transformed from ancient pagan rituals to accompany a powerful depiction
of Earth's evolution. Beethoven's sixth symphony, The Pastoral, was
changed from a peaceful countryside setting to a Mount Olympus spectacle
where unicorns, centaurs and nymphs roamed freely. After seeing the
completed work for the first time Walt said with wide-eyed
innocence,"Wow! This will make Beethoven!"
Like what George
Lucas would later do with THX, Walt developed a new recording system
called Fantasound, so that audiences would be able to enjoy the rich
quality of the music. All of this spending was viewed with alarm by his
tightfisted business partner and classical music hating brother Roy, who
annoyed Walt by suggesting they use some Tommy Dorsey tunes instead.
With past films Disney had often bowed to pressure from his
financial backers to finish them early while he was still tinkering,
trying to make them perfect. Giving in to the money men always gave him
a sense of loss. He dreamed Fantasia would play forever in some
theaters with new segments constantly being added, an endlessly ongoing
project. But Fantasia was a crushing disappointment for Walt in 1940.
Many movie theater owners refused to pay for the installation of
Fantasound, giving the film very limited distribution. The exhibitors
who did show it charged much higher admission prices than normal keeping
audiences away. The people that did come were often put off by the lack
of a story or the frightening devil in the Night On Bald Mountain
sequence, for whom Bela Lugosi was the real life model. Roy, who had
indulged his brother because he was certain they would break even
overseas, saw World War II cut off much of the foreign market.
Classical music aficionados like the ungrateful Stravinsky looked down
their noses at Disney's masterpiece. Fantasia was cut in length and
went into mass release as the second half of a double feature. The
Disney brothers took a financial bath they nearly never recovered
from.
Fifteen years later Mickey Mouse was back on top with The Mickey
Mouse Club television show and Walt finally got his ongoing dream
project with Disneyland. But unlike other initial money losers he
made, such as Bambi (1942) and Pinocchio (1940), he never lived to see
Fantasia become profitable. Shortly before he died in 1966 he
said,"Fantasia? Well I don't regret it but if I had to do it over
again, I wouldn't."
In 1968 the Beatle's cartoon Yellow Submarine did very well with
the psychedelic crowd. Sensing a new market for Fantasia, the Disney
studio re-released it and the film was finally made profitable by drug
tripping hippies who speculated that Walt must have been on something
when he produced it.
Stephen Schochet is the author and narrator of the audiobooks
Fascinating Walt Disney and Tales of Hollywood, gives tours of
Hollywood and is the Host of the syndicated One Minute Hollywood
Stories Radio Feature. To find out more about his products and services go
to http://www.hollwoodstories.com.
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