Singin' and Dancing Back in Time.: disney

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Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Pinocchio (1940)

Pinocchio(1940). Animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the story, The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. The second film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, it was made after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The story is about a wooden puppet named Pinocchio (voice of Dickie Jones) being brought to life by a blue fairy (Evelyn Venable), who tells him he can become a real boy if he proves himself "brave, truthful, and unselfish". The puppet has many misadventures before he becomes a real boy.

The film was adapted by Aurelius Battaglia, William Cottrell, Otto Englander, Erdman Penner, Joseph Sabo, Ted Sears, and Webb Smith from Collodi's book. The production was supervised by Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske, and the film's sequences were directed by Norman Ferguson, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, and Bill Roberts. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song "When You Wish Upon a Star".

I thought this was a wonderful a fantasy-adventure story, with many moral messages. The colorful scenes are beautiful, one of my favorite scenes takes place in the beginning, in the old man's house with all the wonderful clocks and toys. Jiminy Cricket", is my favorite character in the film. I also loved the big whale of a finish. :)

Monday, July 26, 2010

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs(1937)

From Wikipedia: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs(1937). An animated film based on Snow White, a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full color, the first to be produced by Walt Disney.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre on December 21, 1937, and the film was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures on February 4, 1938. The story was adapted by storyboard artists Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and Webb Smith from the German fairy tale Snow White by the Brothers Grimm. David Hand was the supervising director, while William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen directed the film.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was one of only two animated films to rank in the American Film Institutes list of the 100 greatest American films of all time in 1997 (the other being Disney's Fantasia), ranking number 49. It achieved a higher ranking (#34) in the list's 2007 update, this time being the only traditionally animated film on the list. The following year AFI would name the film as the greatest American animated film of all time and the best ever Walt Disney Animated Classics movie.
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One of Disney's most charming family movies that is still talked about over 60 years later. I still enjoy watching this film to this day. Snow White, a beautiful princess who is traveling through the forest. She comes to a messy house and decides to clean it as a favor to those who are living there. Who turns out to be the seven dwarfs. The evil queen wants to be the fairest in the land. So she disguises herself as a witch and offers Snow White an apple, she eats it, and dies. The dwarfs come up with a plan to get the prince to kill the queen and save Snow White and live happily ever after.:)

Well-known songs from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs include "Heigh-Ho", "Some Day My Prince Will Come", and "Whistle While You Work".

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Bob Fosse

Was a musical theater choreographer and director, screenwriter and film director. He won an eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction. He was nominated for an Academy Award four times, winning for his direction of Cabaret. He was identified with his third wife, Gwen Verdon. She was both the dancer/collaborator who he choreographed much of his work and, together with dancer/choreographer Ann Reinking, a guardian of the Fosse legacy after his death. Fosse is considered to be one the most influential coreographers of the 20th Century.

Esther Williams.

JANE POWELL

After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens. Once there, the studio utilized her vocal, dancing and acting talents, casting her in such musicals as Royal Wedding, with Fred Astaire, A Date with Judy, with friend Elizabeth Taylor and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, with Howard Keel. In the late 1950s, her film career slowed, only to be replaced with a busy theater and television career.Click picture to enter websight.

Jeanette MacDonald

Singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier (Love Me Tonight, The Merry Widow) and Nelson Eddy (Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, and Maytime). During the 1930s and 1940s she starred in 29 feature films, four nominated for Best Picture Oscars (The Love Parade, One Hour With You, Naughty Marietta and San Francisco), and recorded extensively, earning three gold records. She later appeared in grand opera, concerts, radio, and television. MacDonald was one of most influential sopranos of the 20th century. Click picture to view fan website.

Joan Crawford.

Click picture to view website. Joan Crawford, born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre. Starting as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway, Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford began a campaign of self-publicity and became nationally known as a flapper by the end of the 1920s. In the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well-received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money and by the end of the 1930s

Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) and Oscar Hammerstein II (1895 – 1960) the songwriting duo, on our musical page. They created many popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age. With Rodgers composing the music and Hammerstein writing the lyrics, five of their shows, Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music. They won thirty-four Tony Awards, fifteen Academy Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, and two Grammys. Click picture to read movie reviews.

Cab Calloway

Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the United States' most popular African American big bands from the start of the 1930s through the late 1940s. Calloway's band featured performers including trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, New Orleans guitar ace Danny Barker, and bassist Milt Hinton. Calloway continued to perform until his death in 1994 at the age of 86 .Click picture to view official website.