Song of the South [1946]

Product Information

Although the film has been re-released several times (most recently in 1986), the Disney corporation has avoided making it directly available on home video or DVD in the United States because the frame story was deemed too controversial by studio management. Film critic Roger Ebert has supported this position, claiming that most Disney films become a part of the consciousness of American children, who take films more literally than do adults. [15] In the U.S., only excerpts from the animated segments have ever appeared in Disney's DVDs (such as the 2004 two-disc release of Alice in Wonderland (1951)), television shows, and the popular log-flume attraction Splash Mountain is based upon the same animated portions. Both Jensen and Springarn were also confused" by the film's Reconstruction setting, states Jim Hill Media, writing that "It was something that also confused other reviewers who from the tone of the film and the type of similar recent Hollywood movies [ Gone with the Wind, Jezebel] assumed it must also be set during the time of slavery." Based on the Jensen and Springarn memos, White released the "official position" of the NAACP in a telegram that was widely quoted in newspapers. New York Times' Bosley Crowther, mentioned above, made a similar assumption, writing that the movie was a "travesty on the antebellum South." Uncle Remus Said": Written by Eliot Daniel, Hy Heath, and Johnny Lange; performed by the Hall Johnson Choir Related: Disney Fans Petition to Re-Theme Splash Mountain to ‘Princess and the Frog’ Song of the South remains Disney’s most controversial film. Top 100 Animated Features of All Time. Online Film Critics Society. Archived from the original on 2003-04-24. Retrieved on 2007-01-18.

In the movie Fletch Lives, Fletch has a dream sequence in which he is a plantation owner singing "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" complete with animated animals similar to those in Song of the South.

Not All Black Press Hated the Movie

Disney historian Jim Korkis, in his 2012 book Who's Afraid of Song of the South, alleged that White and June Blythe, the director of the American Council on Race Relations, were denied requests to see a treatment for the film. [11] When the film was first released, White telegraphed major newspapers around the country with the following statement, erroneously claiming that the film depicted an antebellum setting: Disneyland's popular ride " Splash Mountain" is based on "Song of the South," utilizing animatronic characters from the film to act out scenes and songs from the film. Disney song compilations have the luxury of extracting Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah from that introduction, leaving a cheery little number about carefree days of sunshine and bluebirds and the other pleasures of communing with nature. Yet the rotten heart of Song of the South is the implication that such carefree days were easier to come by in the idealized world of the pre-civil war south. Things are better for everyone, the film suggests, when men like Uncle Remus accept their subservience and benefit from the largesse of white plantation owners, even when they’re ostensibly free to leave at any time. Langman, Larry; Ebner, David (2001). Hollywood's Image of the South: A Century of Southern Films. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p.169. ISBN 0-313-31886-7.

Disney was initially going to have the screenplay written by the studio animators, but later sought professional writers. [8] In June 1944, Disney hired Southern-born writer Dalton Reymond to write the screenplay, and he met frequently with King Vidor, whom he was trying to interest in directing the live-action sequences. [9] Disney has not released the film on its streaming service, Disney Plus, and it likely never will. Some argue that Disney should bring it to the streaming service, albeit with added cultural sensitivity warnings, as they did for Dumbo and Lady and the Tramp. As early as October 1945, a newspaper strip called Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit appeared in the United States, and this production continued until 1972. There have also been episodes for the series produced for the Disney comic books worldwide, in the U.S., Denmark and the Netherlands, from the 1940s up to 2012. [84] Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear also appeared frequently in Disney's Big Bad Wolf stories, although here, Br'er Bear was usually cast as an honest farmer and family man, instead of an antagonist in his original appearances.Walt Disney had long wanted to make a film based on the Uncle Remus storybook, but it wasn't until the mid-1940s that he had found a way to give the stories an adequate film equivalent, in scope and fidelity. "I always felt that Uncle Remus should be played by a living person," Disney is quoted as saying, "as should also the young boy to whom Harris' old Negro philosopher relates his vivid stories of the Briar Patch. Several tests in previous pictures, especially in The Three Caballeros, were encouraging in the way living action and animation could be dovetailed. Finally, months ago, we 'took our foot in hand,' in the words of Uncle Remus, and jumped into our most venturesome but also more pleasurable undertaking." [2]