MOVIE REVIEW
‘Walt & El Grupo’: One too many shots of Disney
The year 1941 did not start off as a good one for Walt Disney. Although he had achieved critical success with “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia,” the war in Europe seriously interfered with his international profits, and he was several million dollars in debt. Then his animators went on strike, creating a PR nightmare and grinding production to a halt.
Just when he needed a save, the government swooped in with an offer he couldn’t refuse: Would Disney care to travel to South America, all expenses paid, for a working vacation with a dozen of his top artists? They can research the culture and landscape for future films, make contacts with local artists, and use the old Disney charm on a continent the Nazis were actively courting.
Unlike other government-backed celebrity goodwill trips, this one seems to have worked. Disney was greeted by adults and children alike with fervor that could rival Beatlemania.
“Walt & El Grupo” documents that visit. In the film, a Uruguayan reporter recalls that his magazine devoted three pages to Disney’s short visit to Montevideo and only one to Bing Crosby’s. “Crosby only wanted to play golf,” he explains, but Disney, who mingled with the 1,000 schoolchildren who came out for the national premiere of “Fantasia,” appeared to genuinely care about the people he met.
Unfortunately, that is about the extent of the context provided by the film. Most of its energies are devoted to detailing where Disney and his “grupo” slept, worked, ate and partied. At times, the cinematography is so marvelous that you won’t care how superficial it is. Viewing Rio de Janeiro, with its blue skies, blue waters and the distinctive Sugarloaf Mountain in the background, you’ll wonder if gloomy Chicago ever really had a chance at the 2016 games.
You would be hard-pressed to find five minutes of computerized animation to rival the Brazilian montage from “Saludos Amigos” (the first film to result from the trip), which takes over the screen in full-on Kodachrome near the end of the film. And by combining photographs of the scenes the artists modeled, snapshots of the artists at work, and film of their finished products, director Theodore Thomas has provided a revealing behind-the-scenes look at the animation process.
But at its worst, the documentary resembles those slide shows people used to have to sit through, in the days before Facebook albums, when their relatives returned from vacation. There are so many snapshots of a smiling Disney — as he leaves a plane, greets an ambassador, dresses up as a gaucho, mingles with a group of traditional dancers — that his image will be seared into your brain.
All this starts to make sense when we learn that “Walt & El Grupo” is distributed by the Walt Disney Family Foundation and that its director, Theodore Thomas, is the son of Frank Thomas, one of Disney’s famed animators called the “Nine Old Men.” The elder Thomas enjoyed a long, prosperous working relationship with Disney, and was certainly much better compensated than his striking colleagues. From what I know of history, employees usually strike only as a last resort. But Thomas depicts the walkout as a case of ingratitude toward Disney, who believed that he had created a spirit of camaraderie more precious than money.
A friend of mine likes to say that there are two kinds of documentaries: Those that provide thoughtful, context-based, even-handed portraits and those that you will only enjoy if you’re already interested in the subject. “Walt & El Grupo” is the second type.•
WALT & EL GRUPO
Two stars
STARRING: Walt Disney
DIRECTOR: Theodore Thomas
RUNNING TIME: 106 minutes
RATING: PG
THE LOWDOWN: A documentary on the 1941 goodwill trip to South America by Walt Disney and his animators.
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