by Bob Thomas
“Ben, I’ve been thinking about those Alaska films,” Walt said to Sharpsteen. “Why don’t we take what we have and build a story around the life cycle of the seals? Focus on them—don’t show any humans at all. We’ll plan this for a theatrical release, but don’t worry about the length. Make it just as long as it needs to be so you can tell the story of the seals.” The completed picture ran twenty-seven minutes.
Walt himself suggested the title: “Well, it’s about seals on an island, so why don’t we call it Seal Island?” He announced that Seal Island would be the first of a series to be called True-Life Adventures—even though he hadn’t yet thought of other subjects to follow. The RKO salesmen declared it was impossible to sell a half-hour film and argued that it should be an hour and ten minutes. “I can’t make it an hour and ten minutes,” Walt replied. “I’d rather have the audience enjoy a half-hour than say the thing’s too long.”
He decided to prove the appeal of Seal Island as he had with Steamboat Willie and The Skeleton Dance: by going directly to the audience. In December 1948, Walt persuaded Albert Levoy, who operated the Crown Theater in Pasadena, to book Seal Island on a bill with a lengthy feature. Five thousand questionnaires were handed out to the theater’s customers; most of them replied that they preferred to see a film like Seal Island than another feature. Because Seal Island appeared in the Los Angeles area during the calendar year, it qualified for the Academy Awards, and it won as best two-reel documentary. The film was booked into the Loew’s State in New York on a bill with The Barkleys of Broadway, and it drew an excellent critical reaction. RKO was finally convinced to push Seal Island, and the company learned it could make as much money from a half-hour featurette as it could from a second feature.
As his first venture into non-cartoon features, Walt planned a film So Dear to My Heart, based on a Sterling North novel about a Kansas farm family of the same period when Walt was growing up in Marceline. The RKO salesmen argued that it would be hard to sell a Disney picture without cartoons, and he grudgingly included animated sequences. The film starred Burl Ives, Beulah Bondi, Harry Carey and the two child performers from Song of the South, Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten. The two youngsters were the Disney studio’s first contract players since the Alice Comedies.
So Dear to My Heart continued the lackluster record of the postwar Disney films, and other “package” movies—Melody Time, another musical potpourri, and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, combining The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow—also produced disappointing returns. The Disney product had failed to recapture its market, and now the entire film industry was beginning to undergo a convulsion which would shatter its foundations. Television had started to take its hold on the American public.
The Disney debt to the Bank of America mounted alarmingly, and the bankers were adamant: economies must be made. Walt reluctantly agreed, and he issued a communication to his staff requiring “a constructive attitude toward every dollar which goes into developing, producing and selling the scheduled pictures.” He announced he was enforcing a 34-percent reduction in payroll accounts, payroll taxes and capital additions and listed his objectives for the future:
1. a production schedule that would be adhered to;
2. limitation of picture budgets to what had been projected;
3. thorough preparation of stories so there would be a minimum of change;
4. a continuing effort to sell and exploit the pictures;
5. policing of all departments to prevent unnecessary expenses.
Walt acknowledged the need for sound economic policies at the studio, but he emphasized to the bankers that slashing of production would be suicidal; the only way back to financial health, he was convinced, was to “lick ‘em with product.” But what kind of product? The “package” pictures were not the answer. Walt realized that he had to return to the full-length cartoon.
Three classics had been in development for several years—Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. Walt did not feel comfortable with either Peter Pan or Alice, finding the characters too cold. Cinderella, on the other hand, possessed the qualities of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and he chose to go ahead with it. Walt assigned all of his top talent to the production. Ben Sharpsteen supervised production, with Wilfred Jackson, Ham Luske and Gerry Geronimi as directors. The story men were Bill Peet, Ted Sears, Homer Brightman, Ken Anderson, Ed Penner, Winston Hibler, Harry Reeves and Joe Rinaldi. Walt attended every story meeting, contributing his usual flood of ideas:
[The Fairy Godmother sequence] The carriage should be dainty. The wheels shouldn’t be enough to hold the weight. We should feel that it’s a fairy carriage….Cut out all excess dialogue and work on some new dialogue for Cinderella in counter to the melody while she is crying. Have her run out and hit the spot, and as she is saying this, let the animals come up and get closer. Have them gather around in a sympathetic manner. They don’t know whether they should approach her or not….Have the miracle happen at the end of the song. “The dream that you wish will come true” is where we start to bring the Fairy Godmother in. She materializes because she is there to grant the wish. The voices come back at Cinderella. Her faith is being thrown back at her. Everybody has gone through a “the hell with it” feeling….
[The Fairy Godmother’s Magic Song, “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo”] We can get orchestral effects. The pumpkin can carry the beat. We might get the effect we want by having the music go up an octave. We should get something like a verse to come to, instead of returning to the chorus….We can get personality into the song. It shouldn’t be the Deanna Durbin type of thing. I don’t see her as goofy or stupid, but rather as having a wonderful sense of humor. Edna May Oliver had sort of what I mean—dignity, humor, etc., although she was more on the sarcastic side….I think the Fairy Godmother should be elderly—old enough to have wisdom. She should have a certain sincerity. She should have no identity, just be a type….
[The warning scene] Have the Fairy Godmother warn Cinderella. Work out some little thing—the dress will become rags again, the coach will become a pumpkin—after the stroke of twelve everything will be just as it was before. The Fairy Godmother is apologetic about this, but she is giving Cinderella an opportunity and hopes that by twelve something will happen….The Fairy Godmother could say, “Be on your way, child. Break hearts. Have fun. But don’t forget on the stroke of twelve everything will be as it was before.” The Fairy Godmother Union has set this up. If she performed miracles that lasted, she’d be out of business….
The directing animators for Cinderella were the Disney reliables: Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Eric Larson, Ward Kimball, Ollie Johnston, Marc Davis, Les Clark, John Lounsbery, Woolie Reitherman and Norm Ferguson. Extensive live-action photography was done as a guide for the animation. While the live action was helpful for the directors, who could determine beforehand whether the action would prove effective as cartoon, it restricted the animators. One of them remarked later that the human characters of Cinderella “seemed to have muddy feet.”
It had always been difficult to invent new mice in the studio that Mickey Mouse built, but Ward Kimball managed to make the Cinderella mice original and charming. Their nemesis, Lucifer the spoiled housecat, presented more of a problem. None of the character renderings pleased Walt. Then one day he was visiting Kimball’s steam train at his San Gabriel home. Walt saw the Kimball’s housecat, a round, furry calico, and he exclaimed, “Hey—there’s your model for Lucifer.”
The economics of the postwar movie business provided the opportunity for Disney’s first completely live-action feature. Like most war-damaged countries, England had frozen the payments due to American film companies, and Disney and RKO had amassed millions of dollars that could be spent only in the United Kingdom. RKO suggested that Walt use it to make films in England. He liked the idea and at first contemplated establishing a cartoon studio in England. But that would have meant training a complete staff of English animators, or else taking
his own artists to England. He decided to use the frozen funds to make a live-action version of Treasure Island. He assigned a veteran Disney hand, Perce Pearce, as producer and another American, Byron Haskin, to direct. Lawrence Edward Watkin, whose novel On Borrowed Time Walt had admired, adapted the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, and Bobby Driscoll starred as Jim Hawkins. The rest of the cast and production staff were English.
Treasure Island gave Walt the opportunity to take Lilly, Diane and Sharon to England and leave behind the day-to-day concerns of the studio. He was stimulated by the challenges of live-action filming. When he returned to Burbank, he needled his animators: “Those actors over there in England, they’re great. You give ‘em the lines, and they rehearse it a couple of times, and you’ve got it on film—it’s finished. You guys take six months to draw a scene.”
The animators took his kidding good-naturedly, but they understood what was happening: Walt had found a new toy. Said one of the animators: “We realized that as soon as Walt rode on a camera crane, we were going to lose him.”
EVERY December over a twenty-five-year period, Walt Disney wrote a newsy letter to his sister, Ruth Beecher, in Portland, Oregon, detailing the family events and what was going on at the studio. On December 8, 1947, he wrote, “I bought myself a birthday-Christmas present—something I’ve wanted all my life—an electric train. Being a girl, you probably can’t understand how much I wanted one when I was a kid, but I’ve got one now and what fun I’m having. I have it set up in one of the outer rooms adjoining my office so I can play with it in my spare moments. It’s a freight train with a whistle, and real smoke comes out of the smokestack—there are switches, semaphores, station and everything. It’s just wonderful!”
Trains held an almost mystical fascination for Walt Disney, dating back to his Missouri farm days when he waved to his engineer uncle. As an adult it gave him pleasure to visit the Southern Pacific station in Glendale, a few miles from his Los Feliz home, to feel the vibration of the tracks and then watch the passenger trains pass through on the route to San Francisco. He delighted in operating his electric train for visitors to his office. Among them were two Disney animators, Ward Kimball, who had a full-size railroad on his property, and Ollie Johnston, who was building a one-twelfth-scale steam train at his home. Johnston invited Walt to watch the laying of the track and to visit the machine shop in Santa Monica where the locomotive was being built. Johnston and Kimball took Walt to see a steam railroad operating at the Beverly Hills home of Richard Jackson. “By God, I want one of those for my own!” said Walt.
He borrowed books on railroading from Kimball, Jackson and Johnston, and he sought others from libraries and book dealers throughout the United States. The Southern Pacific Railroad supplied blueprints, which Walt pored over with Ed Sergeant, a mechanical draftsman at the studio. Walt began paying regular visits to the studio machine shop, where Roger Broggie taught him how to operate a lathe and use other tools. Ray Fox in the carpenter shop showed Walt how to work with wood. Soon Walt had a complete wood and metal workshop at his home.
One day in 1948, Walt said to Ward Kimball, “How would you like to go back to the Railroad Fair in Chicago?” Kimball readily agreed, and the two train buffs traveled by Santa Fe Super Chief to the fair, an immense pageant saluting the development of the railroad in America with full-size trains traveling across a mammoth stage. The most dramatic part of the program was a depiction of the Lincoln funeral train, with a Civil War locomotive slowly pulling the black-draped cars, including one from the original train. A Negro couple walked alongside the mournful procession while “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was played and sung. Walt’s eyes filled with tears every time he saw the Lincoln train cross the stage.
Disney and Kimball spent all of their days and evenings at the show. They climbed in and out of engine cabs, rode them across the stage during the show, talked endlessly to old-time engineers and firemen. When Walt returned home, he told Lilly, “That was the most fun I ever had in my life.”
He began laying plans for his own train. He assigned Ed Sergeant to draw up plans for a one-eighth-scale model of an old Central Pacific engine, Number 173. Patterns were made in the studio prop shop, and Roger Broggie supervised the castings and fittings in the machine shop. Walt himself learned to do sheet-metal work and laid out and fabricated the headlamp and smokestack. He made several parts in a milling machine, silver-soldered and brazed smaller fittings, and began constructing the wooden boxcars and cattle cars to carry passengers. Ollie Johnston was also building cars for his train, and one day Walt came to his office and said in a conspiratorial way: ‘Why don’t you come out to the shop with me? I found out where they keep the hardwood.”
While Lilly appreciated the peace of mind that Walt’s railroad hobby had given him, she harbored some apprehensions about the miniature-train project. She and Walt had been looking for property to build a new house, and Walt made the proviso that the plot had to be large enough to accommodate his miniature railroad. Lilly was not certain that she wanted a train circling her new home. Walt anticipated her reluctance by having a legal agreement drawn up “between WALTER E. DISNEY (hereinafter called Walt), as first party; LILLIAN B. DISNEY (hereinafter called Lillian), as second party; and DIANE MARIE DISNEY and SHARON DISNEY, both minors (hereinafter called, respectively, Diane and Sharon), as third parties.”
The agreement declared Walt as the owner of a parcel of land on which he proposed to build a residence “for the comfort, convenience, welfare and betterment of the Second and Third Parties (and incidentally, for himself).” It continued:
WHEREAS, Walt is or is about to become the sole proprietor and owner of a certain railroad company known as the Walt Disney R. R. Co., which railroad company proposes to construct and operate a railroad in, on, upon and over the right of way hereinafter described and delineated, in the operation of which railroad Walt desires to have and at all times to retain complete, full, undisturbed, unfettered and unrestricted control and supervision, unhampered and unimpeded by the other parties hereto or by any of them, they having heretofore made known and asserted to Walt in various sundry and devious ways their collective intention to reign supreme within, and so far as concerns, the aforesaid residence, and
WHEREAS, the Second and Third Parties, in the future and notwithstanding Walt’s ownership of the fee title to the aforesaid parcel of land, and notwithstanding their many enthusiastic assurances verbally give to Walt in their present enthusiasm over said new residence and their anticipated pleasures and happiness therein, may, and probably will, seek to assert rights, privileges and authorities inconsistent with Walt’s reserved and retained control and supervision over said railroad company and the operation of said railroad company upon the right of way herein referred to, all to the detriment of said railroad and its efficient, profitable and pleasurable operation, and to the injury of Walt’s peace of mind (the presence and soundness of which mind Second and Third Parties hereby admit).
THAT WHEREAS, Walt and Lillian are husband and wife and Diane and Sharon are their children, in which family there presently exists an atmosphere of love, understanding and trust which all parties hereto are intensely desirous of preserving;
NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration of the promises and of other good and valuable considerations the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged by Lillian, Diane and Sharon, the said Lillian, Diane and Sharon hereby jointly and severally quit claim, transfer, assign and set over to Walt all their right, title and interest in and to the right of way….
After much looking, Walt and Lilly had found property that satisfied her desire for a roomy, comfortable house and his for enough space to run his railroad. They built the house on Carolwood Drive in Holmby Hills, a residential area between Beverly Hills and Bel Air, and after moving in, Walt expressed his delight in a letter to the wife of Jack Cutting, who represented Disney interests in Europe: “Jack probably told you about our soda fountain which seems to be supplying the whole neighborhood w
ith sodas at my expense. But I’m happy to do it since it does keep our kids on the home ground and we know where they are. The girls like the new house very much and I think it is going to be the means of keeping them from going away from home to school, which will be all right with me. Then, too, the house with the railroad is a very enticing place for grandchildren—especially grandsons—if I’m lucky enough to have any!”
He called it the Carolwood-Pacific Railroad, and it was planned with customary thoroughness. Each car was individually designed, with special care devoted to the caboose. It was fashioned in exact scale—the bunks, clothes lockers, washstand, potbellied stove; Walt even had newspapers of the 1880 period reduced in size and placed in the newspaper rack. A three-hundred-foot test track was laid out on one of the studio stages, and studio workers were invited to take rides. The railroad passed its trials, and another track was tested outdoors.
Walt designed a half-mile run along the canyon side of his Carolwood property. He planned the site carefully, planting trees and keeping the elevation low so that his neighbors would not be disturbed. He also wanted no visual intrusions to distract his passengers; he paid to have power lines relocated so they would not be viewed from the train.
Walt named his engine the Lilly Belle as a conciliatory gesture to Mrs. Disney, who was unenthusiastic about the project and acquiesced only because of the obvious pleasure that the railroad gave Walt. She objected, however, when Walt wanted to make a six-foot cut in their slope to accommodate the track. Because of Lilly’s opposition, he had to redesign the route with a ninety-foot tunnel. He planned it with an S-curve so the passengers would be in the dark for part of the ride; the element of mystery appealed to him. His foreman suggested, “Walt, it’d be a lot cheaper if you built the tunnel straight.” “Hell,” Walt replied, “it’d be cheaper not to do this at all.” He gave his secretary strict instructions not to tell him how much the tunnel cost.