Disney's fifth animated feature (but the second put into development) was released.
On Aug. 13, 1942, Walt Disney's animated feature Bambi premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York. ...
Mel Shaw once told me how he and a design team moved into an apartment building next to the Hyperions Studio and began work on the picture after Snow White went into release. Mel said he worked on designing different color patterns for sequences of the film. Story development was slow, and the strike in 1941 slowed the feature down further. If was finally released nine months after Pearl Harbor.
Bambi, of course, was the last the of pre-war features. I recall sitting in a story meeting in the late seventies when Frank Thomas talked about attending one of Bambi's sneak previews with the boss:
"We were all down near the front, watching the movie, watching how it played with the audience. The picture got to the sequence where Bambi's mother is killed, and Bambi wanders through the snow, calling out "Moother! Mother! Where are you?" ...
And suddenly a voice up in the balcony sing-songs: 'Here I am, Bambi! Heere I am!'
We all freeze. I look down the row of seats. And Walt is hunched down, seething." ...
Bambi was the last of the studio's expensive, pre-war features. It failed to make its money back on initial release, but became a perennial winner in the long cycle of re-issued classics that followed. It went into the black during the 1947 release, and today stands at $267,447,150 in theatrical gross, making it #47 on the all-time (adjusted for inflation) movie list.
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2 comments:
I'm not sure whether to laugh or feel bad for that heckler interrupting the feature. That said, i would have loved to see the look on poor ol' Walt's face when that happened!
Apparently, because of that heckler, several of the Disney crew wanted to throw out the scene where Bambi's mother died. But Walt insisted it be left in. He knew it was good and vital to the story. Thank goodness he didn't let some smart-mouth derail his movie. He had strong convictions based on good instincts.
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