The Making of The Sword in the Stone

The Making of The Sword in the Stone

Released: On Christmas day 1963

Director: Wolfgang Reitherman, one of Disney’s 9 old men. This is one of the only times a Disney film would be directed by just one person. Normally 3,4 or even 5 directors would collaborate together. In fact, Wolfgang was such a good director, he would go on to direct the next 5 films; “The Jungle Book”, “The Aristocats”, “Robin Hood”, “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” and “The Rescuers”.

Writer: Bill Peet.

Bill Peet started working at Disney back when Snow White was in production and worked on all of the main Disney films in the story department. The Sword in the Stone would be the penultimate film Bill would work on for Disney. Bill would go on to write a version for “The Jungle Book” but Walt Disney and Bill had an argument that resulted in Bill leaving the studio and none of Bill’s ideas being used for “The Jungle Book”.

Original Story:

The novel that “The Sword in the Stone” is based on is called “The Once and Future King” and it was written by T.H. White. Bill Peet, the writer for the film read the book back when it was first published in 1938 and showed Walt Disney the book. Walt obviously loved the story as much as Bill because back in 1939 Walt purchased the rights to turn the book into a film.

Cast

Sebastian Cabot voiced the Narrator at the beginning of the film and Sir Ector. Sebastian would go on to voice Bagheera the panther in “The Jungle Book”.

Karl Swenson voiced Merlin. Karl was a well known radio actor for many years.

Bill Peet was the writer for the film as we already know but Bill also helped to design Merlin. In the book that rge film is based on, Merlin is described as being argumentative but playful. This description of Merlin reminded Bill of his boss, Walt Disney, so he decided to style the character after Walt. Specifically his nose. This is the second time Walt Disney has inspired a character. In the segment “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” from the film Fantasia, the wizard called Yensid (Disney backwards) is modelled after Walt Disney.

Rickie Sorensen and Richard and Robert Reitherman voiced Wart/Arthur because when Rickie’s voice changed, after going through puberty, they changed the voice actor. You can actually hear, quite obviously that they change the voice actor. Even in some of the same scenes there is more than one voice for Arthur.

Junuis Matthews voiced Archimedes but he was originally given the role of Merlin after Karl Swenson recommended him for the job. Junuis would continue to work for Disney, voicing Rabbit in several Winnie the Pooh films and shorts.

Ginny Tyler voiced the female squirrel.

Martha Wentworth voiced both the old lady squirrel and Madam Mim. Martha also voiced Nanny in 101 Dalmatians.

Norman Alden voiced Sir Kay. Norman would go on to play Lou Caruthers, the cashier working in the diner in Back to the Future.

Alan Napier voiced Sir Pellinore.

Animation

It has been known that Disney will sometimes reuse animation from one film and put it into a new film. This is quite common in the early Disney films, although it is unknown why they do it. Some say it’s cheaper and less expensive, others disagree, either way, in The Sword and the Stone it’s used a lot. The film borrows animation from Bambi, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, 101 Dalmatians, Sleeping Beauty and more. Can you spot which parts of the movies are copied?

It isn’t just scenes that are copied and pasted, characters in The Sword in the Stone were inspired by elements of Sleeping Beauty. For example the character of Archimedes was designed the way he was after the owl that Aurora dances with in the forest before she meets Philip. Also, if you watch the scene were both Madame Mim and Maleficent transform into dragons side by side you will see that the scenes develop practically identically.

The battle between Madame Mim and Merlin has often been referred to as one of the most brilliant examples of animation. The reason for this is that although Merlin and Mim continually change their appearance, the audience can still tell who they are. Walt Disney’s most favourite piece of animation was the scene where Cinderella’s torn outfit is turned into a gown fit for a princess.

Frank Thomas worked on the film, he animated the scene where the lady squirrel falls in love with Arthur when he’s in the form of a squirrel. Frank was so proud of this scene that it was played at his funeral.

Music

Richard and Robert Sherman are probably best known for writing the popular songs of Mary Poppins, including “A Spoonful of Sugar”, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” “Jolly Holiday” and more but did you know that the brothers first Disney animated film was “The Sword in the Stone”. They wrote “The Legend of the Sword in the Stone”. “Higitus Figitus” “That’s What Makes the World Go Round”, “A Most Befuddling Thing” and “The Marvellous Madame Mim”. Two more songs were written for the film but not included. The first was called “The Magic Tree” which was going to focus on Merlin explaining to Arthur the importance of education. You can listen to the song of You Tube and it seems a rather pleasant song. The other is called “Blue Oak” tree and was going to celebrate Kay’s knighthood.

Reception

One of the ways you can tell that this film wasn’t as popular as some of the other films that were released in The Silver Age of Disney is because it’s the only film that hasn’t (as of yet) had a sequel, a TV show or a live action remake all of the other films of the age did. They are: Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Jungle Book.

Easter eggs

Next time you watch the film, make sure you take a closer look at Madame Mim’s roof, it’s shaped like a witches hat.

Bits and Bobs

This is one of the last films that Walt Disney worked on. The Sword in the Stone was released in 1963 and Walt Disney sadly passed away in 1966 from lung cancer. The next film to be released was “The Jungle Book” which was released in 1967 which is reportedly the last film Walt worked on. t 5;\ls

Who were Disney’s 9 Old Men?

Who were Disney’s 9 Old Men?

A Brief Introduction to Animation History

If you’ve watched any of the original Disney films then you have seen the work of at least one of the 9 old men. The 9 old men are 9 animators who worked at Walt Disney Studios with Walt himself and helped to shape the Disney film company into what it is today. Before the Walt was even born animation had already made some massive steps forward. For example animation began back in the cave man era. Cave men and woman would draw images of important hunts and special moments on the walls of their homes in a step by step way.

 

Speeding towards the 1800’s and you have the development of a Thaumatrope and a Zoetrope. If you don’t know what this is it is a machine made out of a hollow drum that on the inside are images of something moving over time, for example a horse jumping or a child eating an ice cream. When the item is spun you look through the tiny slits it appears as though the image is animated.

 

In 1908, Fantasmagorie is the first hand-drawn animated cartoon which was created on a chalk board by subtly changing the image between each photo until you have a complete series of movements. This moved onto animation drawn on paper and this is where you find Gertie the Dinosaur. The first animated character to actually appeal to an audience. He was the 1914 Mickey Mouse, that is until 1919 when Felix the cat comes along and steals the limelight. He’s treated like a movie star until 1928 when the real Mickey Mouse comes along in the form of Steamboat Willie and you finally have sound matching what is seen on screen, rather than just background music. Sounds logical now-a-days but back then it was revolutionary.

Animation again jumped forward by using cels to paint the images on. This is what was used to create Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full length animated feature film in 1937. It isn’t enough to just create an animated sequence, you need people to fall in love with the characters, to see themselves in them, to route for them and for this to happen it requires talent. Luckily enough Disney had 9 talented men who knew just how to make a feature work and they were: Les Clark, Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Wolfgang “Woolie” Reitherman, Eric Larson and John Lounsbery.

 

Les Clark

Growing up Les had shown no interest in animation when growing up so he got a job in a candy store. However one day when he was painting some decorative wording for a display at the shop, Walt Disney, who was a regular visitor to the shop notices Les’s work Walt complimented him. This stuck with Les and after he finished school not long later, he decided to take a chance and asked Walt for a job. Les got the job and immediately started working as a cameraman. Quickly though, they needed an animator to work on an important knew character: Steamboat Willie, and the man for the job was Les Clark. Along with Ub Iwerks and 3 other animators Steamboat Willie was created. Ub was the leader of animation at Disney Studios, so Les was getting the best education available.

After Ub left the studio, Les was now in charge of animating the main man Mickey Mouse and felt confident enough to start tweaking his look to more of what we know him as today.

Les went onto to work on Pinocchio, Sorcerer Mickey Alice, Pete Pan, Cinderella and more.

 

Marc Davis

Marc loved to draw, even from a young age. One of his favourite places to draw was the zoo, where there would be a wide variety of subjects to draw. All of that practice was paying off but his job as an illustrator was unfulfilling. It wasn’t until someone suggested he try out animation that Marc found the right direction. He went to work at Disney on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as an inbetweener. An inbetweener is an artist’s that paints and animates all of the shots in-between the major movements and action sequences. It is very simple, repetitive work that means you build up a lot of hours of practice.

Next Marc worked on Bambi and the animals in Song of the South. This is where the many hours he used to draw animals at the zoo paid off.

Marc grew in confidence and started working on some important characters including Cinderella, Alice, Tinker Bell and Cruella De Ville. Marc is also credited with animating Walt’s most favourite scene: Cinderella’s transformation into her ball gown.

 

Ollie Johnston

Ollie was the last of the 9 old men to come to work at Disney, this is probably because he never had any encouragement from his teachers to pursue animation. Instead he studied journalism at Stanford and took some classes in drawing and this is where he met Frank Thomas (another of the 9 old men). They both started taking classes at the Chouinard Art Institute and one of the teachers, Don Graham encouraged Ollie to try out at the Disney studio where he was welcomed. He started work as a cleanup artist. He would clean up the cel work of other animators. Fred Moore, a talented animator was impressed and took Ollie under his wing. Fred taught Ollie the ropes of animation while working on the Dwarfs in Snow White. Ollie was a quick learner and so he, Frank and Fred were able to move on as equals and work together to animate Pinocchio, the title character.

The thing that made Ollie a fantastic animator was that he understood emotions and people’s behaviour and he put that into his animation.

Ollie ended up working for the Disney animation company for 43 years until he retired in 1978.

Aside from animation, Ollie had a great love of trains and it was this he passed onto Walt Disney.

 

Frank Thomas

Frank loved art and had a real passion for it from a young age which is why he found himself at Chouinard Art Institute, where he was recommended to work at Disney, so he did.

Frank started working as an inbetweener on the Silly Symphonies, the cartoons that came before Snow White was released. Fred Moore, always keen to spot talented, mentored Frank and brought him on to work on the Dwarfs. Frank is the one credited with giving each of the Dwarfs there own personality.

Frank went from strength to strength working on Fantasia and Dumbo. Then he was asked to accompany Walt Disney and several other animators on a trip around South America for research for Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros.

Frank would continue to work at the company, helping on the majority of features over the next 30 years.

Frank retired from Disney in 1978 when he and Ollie Johnston decided to collaborate and write a book about animation, entitled “Disney’s Animation: The Illusion of Life”.

Frank and Ollie also appeared in animated form in Brad Bird’s The Incredibles.

 

Milt Kahl

Milt had a rocky beginning with his father leaving early on, he turned to drawing to express himself.

To support his family, Milt worked at an art department at a newspaper with a man named Hamilton Luske.

Years later when Milt found himself unemployed he turned to Hamilton who recommended that he join him at the Disney company. He ended up doing a good job working on the Mickey cartoons so was promoted to work on Snow White. His talent was recognised when several top animators were having trouble animating Pinocchio. Milt stepped in and made him the character we see in the film. Milt then worked on Bambi where people believe he did his best work ever. Making a deer look realistic in animation was hard, but Milt did it. This was the beginning of Milt’s 40 year career at the studio.

 

Ward Kimball

Ward worked as a magazine illustrator when he saw the Disney cartoon “Three Little Pigs”. This cartoon encouraged Ward to focus on his interest in animation, so he took his portfolio to the Disney Studio where he was hired in 1934.

Ward was mentored by Hamilton Luske and together they worked on the Tortoise and the Hare which won Disney there third Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

All seemed to be going well for Ward until the two scenes he worked on for Snow White were cut, he couldn’t help but take it personally so he went to Disney to hand in his notice. Walt didn’t want to Ward to leave, he really appreciated and admired the work Ward had done, so to fill Ward with confidence, Walt gave him the important job of animating Jiminy Cricket.

When war broke out Ward remained behind at the studio to continue to work on propaganda material.

Ward continued to work at the Disney company, he worked on Tweedle Dee and Dum, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and many more until 1974 when he retired.

One of Wards other hobbies was being a trombonist in a Disney jazz band titled The Firehouse 5 plus 2. They ended up making 13 albums and even recorded on occasion with Bing Crosby.

 

Wolfgang “Woolie” Reitherman

Woolie wasn’t initially interested in becoming an animator, his first love was being an aircraft engineer or pilot. He even went as far as taking flying lessons and got a job at Douglas Aircraft, but he wasn’t happy. He instead found a passion for watercolours and started working at Chouinard Art Institute where Don Graham worked. Don was employed by Walt to teach his animators so he knew the Disney style. This made it easy for him to recognise artists at Chouinard who matched the Disney style.

At Disney Woolie worked on the Silly Symphonies, Mickey Mouse cartoons and then Snow White, where he animated the Magic Mirror. Woolie’s challenges got bigger, literally, as he was tasked with animating Monstro, the whale from Pinocchio.

When the war broke out Woolie used his flying skills to help with the war, but returned when it had ended. Woolie worked on film after film and was such a key animator and worker at Disney that when Walt passed away in 1966, it was he that helped to keep the animation department alive.

 

Eric Larson

Eric had a love of drawing that continued with him until his adult life. He worked in very creative jobs, but it was his friends who noticed his real talent and recommended that he try and get a job at Disney. Eric sent in some sketches and was hired to work under the guidance of Hamilton Luske, but within a year was doing so well that he promoted to assistant animator.

Eric worked on Snow White and was in charge of the animals in the film, especially the “Whistle While You Work” segment. From there he worked on Pinocchio, Dumbo, Lady and the Tramp, The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins, The Sword in the Stone and many more.

Eric also participated in a recruitment training programme which was a complete success. It brought in Brad Bird, Tim Burton, Glen Keane and more.

Eric ended up being the longest Disney worked of the 9 old men, working for the company for an impressive 53 years.

 

John Lounsbery

John’s father sadly passed away when he was 13 and this resulted in money being tight for the family. John worked hard to be able to fund his interest in art. It was while at an illustration course at an art centre that he was recommended to try working at the Disney Studios.

John was mentored by Norman Ferguson who coached him to work in the Disney style while working on the cartoons.

John excelled and was quickly trusted to worked on the villains of Pinocchio, Honest John and Gideon. John certainly had his own style when he wanted but one of his best skills was that he would be able to mimic other animators. This meant that he could draw any character perfectly.

By the time he worked on Fantasia, John was an independent worker rather than an assistant and then when he worked on Dumbo, John was promoted to directing animator.

 

One thing that all of the 9 old men had in common is that they worked on the first few films of the company, they set the standard, they were the ones who stayed for the long haul, they were the ones that pushed hand drawn animation to new limits, they were the 9 old men.

If you’re wondering how they got their name, Franklin D. Roosevelt called his Supreme Court of Justices his “9 old men” and Walt Disney liked the sound of that.

 

Come back on Monday 2nd July for a blog all about Fox and the Hound.

The Rescuers

The Rescuers

 

The Plot

The Rescuers tells the story of Penny, an orphan who has been kidnapped by the evil Madame Medusa who uses her to help her find the diamond that will make her rich. Penny enlists the help of the Rescuers, two mice named Bernard and Bianca who come to save the day.

 

Development and Changes

When deciding to adapt the story there was one thing they needed to change. In the story the mice, instead of helping people in need of help, they were instead meant to amuse and befriend people in prison who would otherwise live in solitude. Instead of being called The Rescue Aid Society they were named the “Mouse Prisoners Aid Society”. When the Disney Studio were thinking of sticking with this jail story theme, they were thinking of making Penny a much older bloke who was a poet trapped in prison. Unsurprisingly they didn’t stick with this idea and they changed it to more of this child friendly version. I still feel though that this film maintained some of it’s dark quality’s, especially the scene of Penny trying to run away through the Devils Bayeux, to me it was very reminiscent of Snow White when she is running through the forest.

It was decided that for the introduction of this film that they were going to do things a little bit different than before. Still paintings, painted by Melvin Shaw, who was a Disney animator. He worked on films like Bambi, The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron and The Lion King. Melvin’s artwork was shown of the bottle sent by Penny in different paths along its journey to the rescuers with vintage over the top camera styles.

Through the early development stages one story idea suggested by Walt Disney was having a polar bear being kidnapped from the zoo by none other than Cruella Di Ville, however this idea wasn’t used when they decided to focus more on the books. It was in the books that the Disney workers discovered characters of the Diamond Duchess and were inspired to make the character Madame Medusa. They used sketches by illustrator Gareth Williams to help inspire the Disney character of Madame Medusa. However they enjoyed the idea of adding in Cruella Di Ville wasn’t completely lost because if you watch Madame Medusa’s driving it echoes the style and passion of Cruella’s.

 

Style

One thing that really stood out to me when I first started watching this film is the style. It is very obvious that it is hand drawn which I have to admit, I’m not the biggest fan of. Don’t get me wrong I love hand drawn films, but this film in particular is very messy, you can see the pencil lines and texture of the paper in the opening scenes and for me this distracted me from the story. Lots of viewers have the misconception that they use this style because they either want to save money or are too lazy, but this isn’t the case. Milt Kahl, one of the 9 old men who worked on the film has defended this style of animation saying that he wanted to see specifically what he had drawn in the final film, not some altered version. The Rescuers actually won a special Citation Award for “restoring and upgrading the art of animation”. I guess some people are a fan of this style.

Milt Kahl was the only animator who worked on Madame Medusa and this was because he believed that no one could live up to the high expectation of standard that Milt had set for her so he just decided to animate her himself. Milt has said that she was his most favourite character to animate because he based her on his ex-wife. If she is anything like the animated version, no wonder they divorced. This personal connection to the character is also probably one of the reasons why he was so over protective of her.

 

Cast

Bernard was played by Bob Newhart. Bob is most well known as Papa Elf in Elf and more recently Arthur Jefferies from the Big Bang Theory. His character Bernard seems to be very superstitious about the number 13, which is unlucky for him because the date of the day when Bernard and Bianca have to rescue Penny is Friday 13th. This is known because of a calendar seen in Madame Medusa’s room.

 

Bianca was played by Eva Gabor and her character in the film is the delegate representing Hungary, which is appropriate for Eva because she was born there. This isn’t the first time Eva has voiced a Disney character. During The Aristocats feature she voiced Duchess.

Bianca is one of the few characters in early Disney films where a female portrays leadership, power and initiative. In comparison, Snow White and Cinderella’s talents are cooking and cleaning, Aurora barely even speaks in her movie, Alice doesn’t even have control in her dream, and Lady (from Lady and the Tramp) and the female cats from Aristocats are, I hate to say, acting as though they are entitled and don’t know how to look after themselves in the real world. Bianca signs herself up for a potentially dangerous mission and works in partnership with Bernard rather than being a sidekick or just eye candy. They were considering making Bianca and Bernard a married couple but thought it was more romantic to have to romance grow between them throughout the film.

One aspect of Bianca that is very strong in the book is that she has a strong attraction to cats. This was involved in the film by the introduction of Rufus the cat who is a caricature of another member of the 9 old men, Ollie Johnston.

Madame Medusa was voiced by Geraldine Page. The Disney company were very happy with their casting choice because as Milt Kahl has admitted, Geraldine was able to speak everyone of Medusa’s lines perfectly within the first couple of takes.

The design of Medusa with her red dress and orange hair was done to represent her fiery personality and makes more of a contrast of her to the other characters in the story.

Mr. Snoops was voiced by Joe Flynn and this was his last ever role because only a couple of weeks after he recorded his lines for the role, he sadly passed away due to a heart attack he had while swimming which caused him to drown.

Mr. Snoops was designed to look like a caricature of animation historian who would often drop by the studio called John Culhane. In his biography John mentioned how the animators would sneakily trick him into various positions so the animators would get a live-action reference for animating,

Brutus and Nero are the two alligators belonging to Madame Medusa and they are based on the blood hounds found in the stories this film is based on. In the story the hounds are named Torment and Tyrant.

James MacDonald, who for a time was the voice of Mickey Mouse, had to be brought out of retirement to provide the vocal sounds of Evinrude the dragonfly. The sound is very similar to a motor boat which is probably why Evinrude is called Evinrude because of “Evinrude Outboard Motors”. Oddly, he has to be one of my favourite characters in the film.

Orville, who was voiced by Jim Jordan, was originally going to be a pigeon, however after animators studied the movements of albatrosses, which is what Orville is, they realised that an albatross would allow for more comedic effect. Orville was named after Orville Wright, one of the Wright brothers who built the first airplane. Then in Rescuers Down Under, the sequel, Orville’s brother is introduced as Wilbur, which is the name of the other Wright brother.

Luke, the alcoholic muskrat, was voiced by Pat Buttram and Rabbit was voiced by George Lindsey. These two voice actors have worked on Disney films before together, for example in The Aristocats they were Lafayette and Napoleon.

Louis Prima was all set to star as a bear in this film, he had recorded all of his dialogue and the songs he was going to sing in the film but sadly in 1975 he underwent brain surgery to remove a tumour and never regained consciousness. The Disney Studio decided in the end against using his material in the film. This wouldn’t have been Louis’s only Disney role, he also voiced King Louie in The Jungle Book.

 

Music

Karen and Richard Carpenter were offered to do the entire music for the movie however due to several scheduling conflicts they had to decline, much to the dismay of Karen because she was a big Disney fan. They instead brought in Ayn Robbins and Carol Connors to do the music. They wrote 3 original songs for the feature, however only two of them made it to the finished film, they were “The Journey” and “Tomorrow is Another Day”. The song that didn’t make it was titled “Just Might be Tomorrow”. The reason why is Wolfgang Reitherman, one of the films directors, had the song “The Need to be Loved” by Sammy Fain stuck in his mind. Wolfgang asked Robbins and Connors to write new lyrics for the song. This song turned into the Oscar nominated “Someone’s Waiting for You” which was sung by Shelby Flint. It was originally sung by Nancy Adams who sung “Love” for Robin Hood. Sadly her rendition on “Someone’s Waiting for You” was not used in the film and is actually believed to be lost.

When recording the “Rescue Aid Society song” they used a mini toy piano in order to make the mouse orchestra sound more realistic.

 

Release, Reception and Recall

When The Rescuers was released in 1977, it did so to very popular reviews, it even broke the record for largest box office on opening weekend. As it was so popular, this meant that they felt the film would be popular enough to be re-released theatrically twice more. Once in 1983 and then again in 1989 to help promote the sequel which is titled The Rescuers Down Under. Initially the films popularity caused the Disney studio to plan a spin-off TV show, however discussing this project caused them to realise that they had enough ideas to make a sequel film which turned into “The Rescuers Down Under”. They didn’t want to forget all the work they had put in for the TV show so they turned it into “Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers”.

When the film was made to VHS the 1999 issue of it had to be recalled. The Disney company ended up recalling over 3 million copies, because in a scene where Bernard and Bianca fly through the air, in one of the background shots there has been an inserted image of a topless woman, obviously not appropriate for a children’s film rated at a U. The scenes were inserted by an art director and there assistant. When hearing the reason for this recall many people snapped up copy’s of the film.

With the success of this film, it has caused all 9 of Margery Sharp’s books relating to “The Rescuers” to soar onto the bestsellers list. Maybe I should add these to my “to read” list.

 

Easter Eggs

Madame Medusa in Greek mythology is a woman who if you look into her eyes you will turn to stone, this is mirrored in the film by how whenever Penny looks at Madame Medusa, she freezes.

When Madame Medusa is taking off her make-up, written on the towel on her head are the words “Hotel Ritz”.

Bambi and his mother can be seen during the song “Someone’s Waiting for You”.

 

Bits and Bobs

The Rescue Aid Society honours there founder Euripides. He was the first mouse to give help, and he gave it to a lion who had a needle in his paw. This is reference to the Aesop Fable story “The Mouse and the Lion”.

 

Don Bluth worked on this film as a directing animator. He pointed out that some of characters were created without having the whites of their eyes coloured in. The Disney company told him that it would have cost too much. Bluth denied this answer when he tested out the theory and was then told to basically work and be quiet. Bluth didn’t take to kindly to this and he believes that this was the starting reason for why he and animator Gary Goldman would leave Disney.