Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music is a 1946 American animated musical anthology film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures on April 20, 1946.
Make Mine Music
- Jack Kinney
- Clyde Geronimi
- Hamilton Luske
- Joshua Meador
- Robert Cormack
- James Bodrero
- Homer Brightman
- Erwin Graham
- Eric Gurney
- T. Hee
- Sylvia Holland
- Dick Huemer
- Dick Kelsey
- Dick Kinney
- Jesse Marsh
- Tom Oreb
- Cap Palmer
- Erdman Penner
- Dick Shaw
- Harry Reeves
- John Walbridge
- Roy Williams
75 minutes
United States
English
$1.35 million[2]
$3.275 million (worldwide rentals)[3]
During World War II, much of Walt Disney's staff was drafted into the army, and those that remained were called upon by the U.S. government to make training and propaganda films. As a result, the studio was littered with unfinished story ideas. In order to keep the feature film division alive during this difficult time, the studio released six package films including this one, made up of various unrelated segments set to music. This is the third package film, following Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. The film was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.[4]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The film grossed $70,000 in its first week at the Globe Theatre in New York City.[9] It went on to earn $2,085,000 in theatrical rentals from the United States and Canada. Cumulatively, it earned $3,275,000 in worldwide rentals.[3]
Critical response[edit]
Abel Green of Variety stated that "the animation, color and music, the swing versus symph, and the imagination, execution and delineation—that this Disney feature (two years in the making) may command widest attention yet. The blend of cartoon with human action has been evidenced before; here Disney has retained all his characters in their basic art form, but endowed them with human qualities, voices and treatments, which is another step forward in the field where cartoons graduate into the field of the classics."[10] Harrison's Reports felt that some of the shorts were "more entertaining than others, but all are good, and each has something to please movie-goers of all tastes and ages. It is a delightful blend of comedy, music, pathos, animation, and color, given a most imaginative treatment."[11]
Bosley Crowther, reviewing for The New York Times, praised the film as "a brilliant abstraction wherein fanciful musical instruments dance gayly on sliding color disks, sets of romping fingers race blithely down tapes of piano keys and musical notes fly wildly through the multi-hued atmosphere—all to the tingling accompaniment of Benny Goodman's quartet playing the ancient and melodious torch song, "After You're Gone". Color, form and music blend dynamically in this bit, and a rich stimulant of sensuous rhythm is excitingly achieved."[12] Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Make Mine Music was "a picture of much inventiveness and imagination. The lighter the picture is, the more is its excellence demonstrated, it might be noted. And while music is the keynote of the production, it ranges well into comedy, and plentifully into swing."[13]
The film holds 58% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 6.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "This collection of musical-themed shorts doesn't reach the artistic heights of Fantasia, but it's well animated and mostly good fun."[14]