Disney Plus-Or-Minus: Saludos Amigos
If there's one word the Disney Marketing Department loves to toss around, it's "timeless". Not without some justification, of course. So far, this column has looked at six films made around 80 years ago. All but one of them has continued to enchant and delight audiences around the world to this day.
During this time period, Walt only seemed to know how to make two kinds of movies: timeless classics and hyper-specific oddities that make almost no sense when you take them out of context. Falling squarely into the latter category are such films as The Reluctant Dragon and Saludos Amigos.
The backstory of Saludos Amigos is almost more interesting than the movie itself (in fact, it's the subject of its own Disney-produced documentary, Walt & El Grupo). In 1941, Disney was in a bit of financial trouble. Walt had opened an expensive new studio in Burbank, his features were struggling at the box office, and his animators had gone on strike. So when Nelson Rockefeller, President Roosevelt's newly appointed Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, called to commission a feature, Walt wasn't exactly in a position to say no.
Rockefeller was on a diplomatic mission, strengthening ties between the US and our Latin American neighbors and counteracting the Axis propaganda that had been flooding these countries during the early days of World War II. To do this, Rockefeller met with a number of celebrities and artists, appointing them Goodwill Ambassadors and sending them off on cultural tours of Latin America. Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters went on tour and recorded Latin music with Xavier Cugat. Orson Welles hosted the radio show Hello Americans and started work on the film It's All True. And Walt Disney assembled a team of artists and musicians to sketch their way through Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru. But unlike Welles, Walt was able to finish his movie.
It probably didn't hurt that Walt's movie really stretches the definition of what's considered a feature film. At just 42 minutes, Saludos Amigos makes Dumbo look like Lawrence Of Arabia. Watching it today, it's hard to believe that it actually played in cinemas on its own. I can't imagine most audiences left the theater feeling like they got their money's worth. It almost feels like an extended teaser for some other movie. Live-action footage introduces the premise that Walt Disney and his team are traveling south of the border to do research for an upcoming picture. The movie's almost over before you realize that this is that picture.
The live-action footage continues throughout, linking four new animated segments. This wasn't really Disney's first "package" film. Prior to the release of Snow White, Disney had strung together five Silly Symphonies and released the compilation to theaters under the snappy title Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons. Fantasia had been a highly prestigious package film and The Reluctant Dragon had padded out its animated scraps with extensive live-action footage. But in the years to come, Disney would rely more and more on package films like this one to keep the doors open. They were cheaper, they were faster, and they could be easily chopped up and sold for parts.
Saludos Amigos kicks off with tourist Donald Duck exploring Lake Titicaca and having some trouble crossing a suspension bridge with a llama. Next, we meet the young Chilean airplane Pedro. Disney would essentially revisit this concept some 70 years later in the Cars spinoff Planes. Goofy, always a welcome presence, shows up in the third segment to demonstrate the ways of the Argentinean gaucho. Finally, Donald reappears to help introduce another new character, the Brazilian parrot José Carioca.
José "Joe" Carioca (voiced by Brazilian musician José Oliveira) was positioned as the breakout star of Saludos Amigos. His segment is certainly the most exciting, both visually, breaking the fourth wall of animation by having the animator's paintbrush creating backgrounds around the two birds, and musically.
The song, "Aquarela do Brasil", had been around for a few years but didn't become a hit until Oliveira performed it here. Today, of course, everyone knows it as simply "Brazil" and it's one of the most instantly recognizable samba songs ever recorded.
José Carioca did in fact become a beloved, heavily merchandized star in Brazil but he never quite took off here in the US. Though that wasn't for lack of trying on Disney's part. We'll see José in this column again soon.
Saludos Amigos isn't really a bad movie. It's far too slight and inconsequential for that. In fact, it's barely a movie at all. Unlike some of Disney's other package films, the segments here are extremely forgettable. Pedro is a little wisp of a cartoon and El Gaucho Goofy is far from the Goof's funniest showcase. Donald fares slightly better. It's always fun to see him in obnoxious tourist mode and the musical and visual flair of the finale ends things on a high note. But the whole thing's over before you've even finished your popcorn.
Perhaps the strangest thing about Saludos Amigos is that the damn thing worked. There was no way the movie was not going to make money. The whole project had been bankrolled by the government and guaranteed with federal loans. But audiences actually turned up for this mini-movie. For many Americans, this was their first exposure to South American culture and they liked what they saw. More importantly, they liked what they heard. Latin American music became the hot new sound and its popularity continued to explode throughout the 1940s and 50s.
Saludos Amigos was even nominated for three Academy Awards, albeit in the traditionally overstuffed categories of Best Sound, Best Original Song and Best Original Score (Musical). Still, that's the same number of nominations as Bambi. The movie's best songs, "Brazil" and "Tico Tico", weren't original, so that left the title tune to compete in the Best Original Song category. It didn't win any of the awards it was up for. But the fact that the Academy even recognized this as a feature and not a short subject is fairly impressive.
At best, Saludos Amigos was a minor success. It certainly wasn't a dream project for Walt or anyone else at the studio. But Walt needed something to stay afloat. If that turned out to be a government-sponsored piece of South American boosterism, so be it. By turning his talents to propaganda, Walt would make it through World War II.
VERDICT: Disney Minus seems a little harsh, so let's call it a Disney Neutral.