Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” was released into theaters for the first time 85 years ago today.
Giddy with the success of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937), which became a surprise hit – the highest grossing feature up to that time (soon to be supplanted by “Gone with the Wind”) – and hoping to reinvigorate the popularity of house brand Mickey Mouse – Disney spared no expense in the creation of this bold, beautiful, mind-bending, slightly pretentious, occasionally kitschy experimental enterprise, engaging Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra to record the film’s soundtrack (mostly at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music) and, during its initial run, displaying it in special road show productions featuring souped-up “Fantasound” surround audio. This was the first feature film to be released in stereo. It ran in one venue in New York for a solid year. At a point, Disney even toyed with the idea of pumping different scents into the theater, but he must have realized it was all becoming a little too Scriabinesque.
Eventually reality caught up. “Fantasia” was a money-loser from the start. The war in Europe cut off any possibility of overseas revenue, and it became apparent that the film would have to be reissued, with cuts, in standard format, in regular theaters, if the studio hoped to make any of its money back. As it was, it didn’t turn a profit until 1969. I suspect it was the same crowd that was buzzing to “2001: A Space Odyssey” that finally pushed “Fantasia” into the black. When adjusting for inflation, it is now the 23rd highest-grossing film in the United States. There aren’t any studios, and very few classical record companies, that would make that kind of investment in the future anymore.
I venture to guess most people who were lucky enough to see “Fantasia” in the cinema, back in the days before home video brought an end to its regular theatrical reissues, were charmed to see Stokowski shake hands with Mickey Mouse. Even so, this is the moment that became seared into many an impressionable memory. And I know I loved it.
https://vimeo.com/110409508There’s also at least one discarded sequence from the film that was completed, but then cut to keep the length down. It involved cranes and Debussy’s “Clair de lune.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcpamvLB2JU&tYou may be aware, it was Disney’s original vision to swap out sequences with new material every few years. However, this was not done until 1999, with the release of “Fantasia 2000.” Regardless of what you may think of that film, with its gallery of celebrity talking heads and James Levine stepping into Leopold Stokowski’s extra-large shoes, it lacks the resonance of the 1940 original. In any case, the project having gone stagnant for six decades, I have a hard time accepting the new stuff as canon!
Glancing at the reissue schedule, I must have seen “Fantasia” for the first time in April 1977. I would have been ten years-old, and as I suggest, Chernabog coming out of that mountain floored me. I would have assumed that I was younger, but then I was a sensitive child. The last time I saw “Fantasia” in the theater must have been 1990.
In 1982, the soundtrack was re-recorded in digital sound with Irwin Kostal conducting. Thankfully, a restoration in 1990 put Leopold back on the podium. Now, of course, I own the film on home video. But nothing beats the dreamy experience of viewing “Fantasia” in a theater.
In more recent years, it’s joined the ranks of movies regularly shown at symphony orchestra concerts with live musical accompaniment. But until they clone Stokowski, I’m good. That said, if it meant introducing a young person to “Fantasia,” I’d go. I might even take them to “Fantasia 2000.” I would be thankful for any opportunity for someone to experience classical music as I did at such an impressionable age.
A big thanks to Walt, Stoky, and Chernabog. And happy 85th, “Fantasia!”
