“Make Mine Music” is a classic Disney film that was probably a lot more popular with kids of a past era than it is with kids today. It’s a series of songs accompanied by illustrations, but it has no overriding plot to tie it all up. It’s like watching a whole bunch of shorts strung together, and while all of them are well done, I’m not sure all of them are very interesting to today’s more particular audience.
We start the movie with the song “Blue Bayou,” where we see everything painted in blue. We drift through some dangling Spanish moss and see all the sights one would expect to see if one were actually on a bayou. I’m afraid to say that’s about all there is to it.
We move on to a Benny Goodman number, “All the Cats Join In.” This one is more fun, mostly because the characters are being drawn while the song is being performed. Someone wants to sit down, in comes a pencil to draw a chair. The main premise is, a young man calls his girlfriend on the phone to invite her to go down to the malt shop. He comes to pick her up, they go down, and have a good time dancing together. Not necessarily the most enthralling story, but the music is upbeat.
There are several other segments to the film, one that you’re probably already familiar with being “Peter and the Wolf,” the Russian story about a boy who goes out hunting and ends up with a larger, more ferocious catch than he anticipated. Each of the animals in the film is depicted by a different instrument and so we get a whole orchestra telling us the story. This part of the movie would be more enjoyable to a child.
My favorite part is a song done by the Andrews Sisters and is the story of Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet. These two hats sat side by side in the store window and fell in love, but then came the day when each of them got sold. They would catch glimpses of each other across the street, but it seemed that they would never have the chance to be together again. But at long last, they both ended up at the same place, on the heads of two horses. They get to spend the whole rest of their lives together. It’s so sweet, in a hat sort of way.
The last part of the movie is a story of a whale who can sing opera in three voices. At first it is feared that he has swallowed three opera singers, but once it’s discovered that the whale himself has this talent, he is invited to sing at the Met.
There are enjoyable moments in the film, but I can’t say as that I would call it a must-have or a must-see. It is considered one of Walt Disney’s masterpieces and I can see why he would be proud of it, but he’s done so many other wonderful things both before and after. It’s a take it or leave it for me.
This movie is not rated.
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