Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” was released into theaters for the first time 80 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 and, on 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. It is now the 24th 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.
Apologies for posting it in two parts, but “Fantasia” was reissued and “restored” a number of times over the years. This one I know sports Stoky’s original audio.
