Just Left of Main Street: In Search of Castaways

One of the topics I plan to cover periodically here in Just Left of Main Street is something I am going to call Obscure Disney Movies. In this topic, as the name would indicate, I’ll talk about Disney movies that you may have not seen in a while, seen at all or even ever heard of. Since most of the movies I’ll cover will have been released 30+ years ago, I won’t provide an in-depth review of the movie. Instead, I’ll provide some history and background information about the movie with some color commentary thrown in. The first movie I want to cover in called In Search of Castaways.

In Search of Castaways was released in 1962 and starred Hayley Mills, Maurice Chevalier, George Sanders and Wilfrid Hyde-White. It was based on a Jules Verne novel Captain Grant’s Children. The basic premise of the film is Hayley Mills’ character’s father, Captain Grant, is lost at sea and she, her brother an English Lord and his son go looking for him after they are given a message in the bottle from him. Joining them on their journey is Maurice Chevalier’s character, Jacques Paganel, who was the one who found the bottle. The movie is made up of series of adventures the group has attempting to find Captain Grant.

The movie was the third of six films for Hayley Mills with Disney following Pollyanna and The Parent Trap. Maurice Chevalier made another movie with Disney as Father Sylvain in Monkeys, Go Home!, which was released in 1967, and, seems like a good candidate for a future Obscure Disney Movie profile. In 1970, he also sang the title song to the animated film, The Aristocats, which ended up being his final contribution to any film as he passed away in 1972. Both Mills and Chevalier have been inducted as Disney Legends.

Despite the fact that the film is not very well known today, it was a commercial success when it was released, grossing over $18 million dollars domestically – good enough to make it the third highest grossing film of 1962. The film also placed fourth in Top Action Drama category in the Golden Laurel awards, a, now defunct, film buyers voting award. In addition, Chevalier placed third in the Golden Laurel Top Male Musical Performance category.

No, that’s not a mistake; the category Chevalier placed third in was for musical performance. Despite the film being billed as an incredible action adventure with mystery and intrigue around every corner, it also, strangely, contained a series of musical numbers. As I saw one reviewer humorously comment: Castaways keeps you guessing throughout, never knowing if more natural disaster or another Maurice Chevalier song is next. In fact, the four songs that are sung in the movie, Castaway, Merci Beaucoup, Let’s Climb (Grimpons), and Enjoy It, were written by the legendary Sherman Brothers. Enjoy It, sung by Chevalier, is somewhat, well known and can, sometimes, be found on Disney music compilation albums.

These songs, while enjoyable, really did take me out of the movie, it’s difficult to get sucked into the suspense of a film when every 10 minutes or so, the characters are happily singing their way through the adventure. It’s very likely that these songs were included to highlight Chevalier’s singing talent as he had a very successful singing career over the years and an attempt to jump start a singing career for Mills.

In addition to the songs being a distraction, another major distraction is the extremely pure special effects. While I am certainly no film historian, the effects used in this film appear very bad even by 1962 standards. There is a heavy reliance on the use of green screen and models in the film, generally with very poor application.

Despite these issues, the film is still a lot of fun and quite enjoyable. It’s actually pretty fast paced and while, very predictable, still rather suspenseful in some places. The completist in me drives me to watch as many Disney movies as possible, but, I do think there is reason beyond that to take the time to see this film. I would recommend getting the DVD or getting a download of the film and enjoying a little 1960’s Disney fun into your day.

Chris Nolin
Twitter | Facebook

Feature: Where Has Hand Drawn Animation Gone To?

In 2009, something pretty miraculous happened, Disney animation returned to it’s traditional hand drawn animated roots. Since the beginning of the new millennium  computer animation was the wave of the future and hand drawn, traditional 2D animation was a dying artform, at least at the Walt Disney Company. Sure Studio Ghibli was keeping it alive, but in the United States, Japanese animated films aren’t collecting big bucks at the box office.

Since the early 2000’s, big box office draws in animation have been in computerized 3D films. Pixar, Dreamworks, and Disney have dominated the market, with very few independent film makers getting their animated say in. Pixar has always been a computer animated company so I don’t put pressure on them to revert to something they never even did. Dreamworks was a Disney ripoff at best before they entered into computer animation with Shrek and I don’t fault them for not reverting back to a formula that doesn’t work. Disney however, is a totally different story. Disney’s best animation has and always will be hand drawn. Maybe that’s just me projecting my opinions but when they took the plunge into computer animation in the 2000s, Disney lost their step. What had been a prosperous animation department even up until the late 1990s, started treading water after the switch to computer animation. The best films of the new computer animated Disney company were still the hand drawn animated movies like Lilo and Stitch or The Emporer’s New Groove.

After a few steps backwards, it looked like Disney had reestablished itself with a return to 2D animation in 2009 with Princess and the Frog. Ron Clements and John Musker who had previously written and directed The Little Mermaid and Aladdin  returned to work on a musical animated tale similar to the previously mentioned films which ignited excitement in many traditional animated film lovers. Unfortunately, the return to classic musical fairy tales wasn’t what the general public jumped on. The box office numbers didn’t show that 2D animation was worth more than the computer animated features. Princess and the Frog did eventually win over fans, but it seems like movie goers weren’t initially won over by the fact that the studio had gone back to it’s roots.

Disney animation returned to computer animation without a flinch, but they did start to bring back the musical fairytale formula which won over fans with Tangled and eventually Frozen, but what has happened to 2D animation? 2012’s Disney short film which played before the feature Wreck-It Ralph caught many animation lover’s attention. It seemed as though there was finally a marriage between the future and the traditions of the past. “Paperman” was the talk of the town as far as short films and was the first short film made by Disney to win an Academy Award since 1970. A hybrid 2D/3D style using a program called Meander gave “Paperman” sophistication, traditional values, expressiveness, and a nice HD quality. The animation was perfect!

So, why do I bring all of this up? Because despite the success of the Meander program and Paperman, as well as the eventual fandom of Tiana and her princess film from 2009, Disney still has no plans of going back to traditional animation styles. Clements and Musker who last worked on Princess and the Frog for Disney, are working on their first computer animated film set for 2018 called Moana. When asked why they didn’t fight for a traditional animation style with the use of Meander, they said that technology and software isn’t ready for a full length feature. Is 2D animation dying because there really isn’t a fan base for it anymore? Has Disney moved on because it’s more fond of what computer animation can look like? That may be true, at least until they can take the Meander style programs and mix the 2D and 3D animation like in “Paperman”.

Meanwhile, I want to point your attention to James Lopez and other animators who have worked on previous Disney films of the 1980’s, 90’s, and 2000’s who are looking to take a dying art into their own hands. Lopez’s short film or possible full length film, Hullabaloo, has been funded with support of fans of traditional animation. Lopez posted a crowd funding project on IndieGoGo.com (a site allowing projects to be funded completely by fans instead of companies or investors.) which was open to donate to from August 27th until October 1st of this year. For 35 days, fans of traditional animation could voice their opinion in the form of donating money to the project which was looking to gain $80,000. That’s a pretty considerable amount of money and if they could reach their goal, it would show that not only were people asking for traditional animation to return, they were willing to pay for it. When the project’s funding closed on Oct. 1st, 2014, fans of animation had donated over $470,000. They reached over 500% of their goal. That’s amazing!

So the issue goes back to Disney. If animation fans are willing to fund an independent project like this, wouldn’t it be in someone’s interest at Disney to put a 2D film into production once every few years, or put the Meander programming to the test and really push the envelope as far as 2D/3D merging goes? Can’t we live in a world where traditional animation and computer animation can both make money and can both be in part of the Disney company?

Josh Taylor
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http://www.ModernMouseRadio.com

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Disney Food: Pizza Planet

When I first discovered that there is a Pizza Planet at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, I was excited and scared. I was excited because it’s Pizza Planet, as in Toy Story’s Pizza Planet. If you are a Toy Story fan, you have to eat at Pizza Planet, right? But I was also scared because I was afraid it would be like Chuck E. Cheese. Just typing the name Chuck E. Cheese increases my anxiety levels. I know I’m not the only parent who feels that way. Let me take you on a little trip down my memory lane to explain my fears.

My husband and I took my stepdaughter to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese when she was about four years old. She was so excited that she didn’t bother to tell us that she had to go potty and had an accident in her car seat. We had to make an emergency stop at Wal-Mart to clean her up and get a change of clothes. Once we were there, the first thing she wanted to do was climb up in the giant hamster tunnel thing. As she was up in the tunnel, she banged on one of the windows to get our attention. The second we looked up at her she licked the window. Yeah, she licked that germ filled thing that I’m sure no Chuck E. Cheese employee has ever cleaned. Obviously, I am still traumatized by the whole event. My youngest is very Chuck E. Cheese deprived. She actually went to Disney World before she had ever been to a Chuck E. Cheese.

I can gladly say Pizza Planet is not Chuck E. Cheese. Pizza Planet reminded me more of a Dave and Buster’s, with more big kid or adult games (and no giant hamster tunnel, thank goodness). It wasn’t as large as I expected it to be, but there is still plenty of fun for everyone. Surprisingly, it wasn’t very crowded either. I honestly don’t think a lot of people realize it is there. It is in the back of Hollywood Studios next to Muppet Vision 3D. By the way, it is not located anywhere near Toy Story Mania Midway and the Woody and Buzz Lightyear Meet and Greet location. I found it rather odd that Pizza Planet was so far away from the other Toy Story attractions.

The menu at Pizza Planet is pretty limited. Your choices are pizza (veggie, cheese, pepperoni, or meat lovers), a meatball sub, or a salad. Kid’s choices are cheese pizza, a mini chicken sub, or a Power Pack (usually yogurt, carrots, Goldfish Crackers, string cheese, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich). The food was just okay. It wasn’t the worst quick service meal we had, but it certainly wasn’t the best either. You definitely eat at Pizza Planet for the atmosphere, not for the food. The girls had fun running around pretending like they were actually in the movie version of Pizza Planet. I was relieved that I could actually enjoy our time there and left with good memories instead of being traumatized all over again.

Alexia Christensen
Alexia@DestinationsInFlorida.com
http://www.Twitter.com/AlexiaDIFAgent