The Black Cauldron

The original tagline was "Get Boned!" (not really)

What's it about?

Tonight's nostalgic pic is "The Black Cauldron" (Disney, 1985). In the ancient land of Prydain, an evil sorcerer called "The Horned King" (John Hurt) is slowly taking over,

Republicans: "Seems like a good dude!"

his bandit hordes and mythical creatures seeking out magical items and riches all with one goal: To find The Black Cauldron, a powerful ancient relic that can be used to raise an army of the dead.

Yes, the McGuffin this time is a giant heavy metal object. 

All he needs is a lead… Meanwhile, a young assistant pig keeper named Taran (Grant Bardsley) has dreams of being a mighty warrior, seeing his current situation as beneath him.

YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE CREEP! You're caring for ONE PIG!

He has been charged by his master Dallben the Enchanter (Freddie Jones) to watch over a single pig, Hen Wen.

ONE PIG! One TINY pig!

Dallben, an enchanter with a magic pig he can't bother to take care of himself.

One day Hen Wen begins to act unreasonably frightened, scaring young Taran. Dallben reveals to Taran that Hen Wen has the ability to act as a scryer, showing events far away or even the future!

Hen Wen begins to tell the future.

Using Hen Wen's abilities Dallben discovers that The Horned King has discovered Hen Wen, and so he sends Taran with the pig into the forest to hide while he figures out their next move. Immediately, Taran gets distracted and loses sight of Hen Wen. Distraught, he runs into Gurgi (John Byner), a talking small furry creature who appears to be starving and who steals an apple from Taran before offering to help him find the pig.

Gollum by way of Fiverr.

They discover Hen Wen being dragged to The Horned King's castle, where Taran goes to get his pig, only to get captured and forced to reveal the pig's power to find The Black Cauldron.

ONE JOB. You had ONE JOB. 

Taran manages to help Hen Wen escape but is thrown into the dungeon for his trouble. He soon meets a princess named Eilonwy (Susan Sheridan), a plucky young girl with a magical glowing bauble,

"Don't ask me, I'm just a girl! Tee-hee!"

and Fflewddur Fflam (Nigel Hawthorne), a bard with a magical lyre (that ironically loses strings whenever Fflewddur lies).

A liar with a lyre.

Escaping the old castle with the help of a magical sword that Taran finds, the rag-tag group decides to find Hen Wen and The Black Cauldron before The Horned King does!

To be fair, the sword does all the work.

Some background

This is sort of the "black sheep" of the Disney family. It was an unmitigated failure. The total budget ballooned to over $44 million, and its total ticket sales worldwide amounted to less than $22 million. Disney apparently optioned "The Chronicles of Prydain" book series by Lloyd Alexander all the way back in 1971 but had an extremely troubled production. That pushed the original 1980 release date back five years. There were a lot of reasons for this, not in the least of which was that there was a power struggle for the visual style of the film which resulted in much of the original work being thrown out. Further problems were brought on by a new studio chairman (Jeffrey Katzenberg -- before he left to help found DreamWorks) who insisted that the film's ending be severely re-cut to edit out much of the gruesome undead army.

Some good

There's a lot to like about this film. While it looks a bit rough in spots (possibly due to the new crop of animators Disney used on this project, including future director Tim Burton), it's actually quite dynamic, with many action scenes featuring surprisingly complex camera movement and characters moving in 3D space. The cast is pretty good as well, with John Huston (who voiced "Gandalf the Grey" in Rankin/Bass "Hobbit" animated movies) acting as the narrator for the introduction. John Hurt's performance as The Horned King (who "Dungeons & Dragons" players will immediately recognize as a lich) drips with menace and bile. The backgrounds are appropriately run-down and natural, like you would expect in a medieval landscape.

Or a heavy metal album cover.

The ending sequence is the most surprising aspect of this film, the undead army being spooky, horrible, and terrifying, with some implied deaths as well.

Don't watch with young kids.

Some bad

It's not all good, though. There's plenty of bad things to sift through here, starting with Taran. Grant Bardsley plays the character fine, but the character is unlikable, being a daydreaming entitled incompetent whiner that we're stuck with throughout the film; BUT… He does learn his lesson by the end of the film, and that's something. As I mentioned before, for all the flash and dynamic aspects of the animation, it does look rather rough, with pencils showing through much of the paint. The story is crowded and unconventional. I know that it's trying to follow the books, but we're introduced to characters at a breakneck speed while others drop in and out of the film at random times.

The three witches are over-the-top, and brief.

Hen Wen, the main driving force for the first half of the film is absent throughout most of it, and almost entirely gone in the second half, for example. Other little touches (like Eilonwy's bauble) are presented without full explanation, and then seem to disappear when the animators have forgotten about them. Gurgi is presented as a sort of "discount Gollum" serving the purpose of the film's "cute marketable cash-grab," and I would hate him except that by the end of the film I actually felt something for him.

Oh, and these things. Pointless. Stupid. Marketable.

In short

Is it worth watching? Sure. It's one of those weird films where the highs never really reach the high that you want, the lows are never as bad as you expect them to be, and it's entertaining enough to be watchable -- but it's no classic.

Plus, nobody pets this wyvern's belly. He just wants to be a good boy!

Not for the very young

This movie is rated PG for scenes of undead mayhem, implied death, spooky imagery, and probably because Tim Burton worked on it.

Seriously, don't watch with kids unless you want them to sleep with the lights on.

Where can you watch it?

As of this writing, "The Black Cauldron" is available for streaming on Disney+.

Fun and Fancy Free. The Disney One.

Fun and Fancy Free

What's it all about?

Tonight's nostalgic pic is "Fun and Fancy Free" (Disney, 1947). In the spirit of other Disney films of the time, this one is a musical vignette program comprising two short segments intercut with framing segments.

Yumpin' Yiminy!

We are first introduced to our host, Jiminy Cricket (Cliff Edwards) who leads us to our first story, "Bongo," narrated by Dinah Shore.

Bongo

Bongo is a circus bear, an incredibly talented performer who brings joy to audiences everywhere… but behind the scenes he's treated as a slave and lives a lonely, solitary existence.

We've all been there, am I right?

One day on the circus train his longing for freedom reaches new heights and he manages to break free, slipping away into the wilderness.

Yep, a breath of insect-filled, pollen-laden fresh air!

For the first time in his life he tastes freedom and nature, and is doubly enamored when he meets Lulubelle, a similarly sized female bear.

Disney formula: Same as the male character model with eyelashes and pink clothing.

Bear bottoms in the grass with bear-nekkid onlookers.

The two are getting to know each other when they're interrupted by the hulking Lumpjaw, a bully bear with eyes for Lulubelle.

The bigger, more powerful version of the hero used in current Disney films...

When Bongo tries to stand up for her, Lulubelle delivers him a few slaps to the face, and then inadvertently slaps Lumpjaw, who sweeps her up in his arms. Hurt by what he perceives as a betrayal by Lulubelle, Bongo retreats dejectedly, only to discover that the wild bears show their affection by delivering slaps to one another.

Seems healthy.

Can Bongo win back his love from his larger rival?

Mickey and the Beanstalk

Our second story is told by ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his "friends" Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd (both his stage dummies who are articulated by other performers in this segment) for the young Luana Patten.

I'm not gonna lie: This was funnier than I was expecting.

This is the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" with Mickey Mouse (Walt Disney), Goofy (Pinto Colvig), and Donald Duck (Clarence Nash) standing in for the characters of Jack and his mother. In the land of Happy Valley, all is peace and happiness thanks to the magical music of the Singing Harp (Anita Gordon), until she is abducted by some unknown force.

Damsel (instrument?) in distress.

The land quickly dries up and becomes unlivable, with its few remaining inhabitants starving in the once-prosperous land. In this harsh environment, farmers Mickey, Donald, and Goofy are forced to sell their precious cow in order to avoid starvation.

No, you're not playing "Kingdom Hearts."

Mickey trades the cow for some magic beans, which after a confrontation with Donald are lost down a hole in the farmhouse floor.

The sense of scale in some of these shots is impressive for the time.

That night in the moonlight, the beans grow uncontrollably, hoisting the trio into the stratosphere where they come upon a castle owned by Willie the Giant (Billy Gilbert).

If he's just dumb, is he still really a villain?

They quickly discover that the monster has stolen the harp to help him sleep. Can the three diminutive heroes rescue the harp and restore Happy Valley?

A product of a specific timeframe

As I have mentioned before in other reviews, this film comes from a time when Walt Disney's studio was more focused on short musical cartoons rather than feature-length films. This one has a little of the live-action mixed with animation magic that Disney was developing at the time and later perfected with "Mary Poppins."

"Mixed media" seems an apt description.

It's pretty short, clocking in at just under one and one-quarter hours, which makes it a perfect film for people with short attention spans.

Not exactly a classic...

Chances are that unless you're a Disney diehard, you've never seen or heard of this feature. While it's similar in structure and length to "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad," it really doesn't have the staying power of that other film. The "Bongo" segment is very forgettable, following story beats that were cliché even at that time.

Even these guys forgot about it.

I don't know if this has contributed to the collective ignorance of "Bongo," and maybe I'm reading too much into it, but there seems to be an approval (even glorification) of domestic violence in this segment. The "Beanstalk" portion isn't even the first time Mickey Mouse fought a giant, as he already encountered one in "The Brave Little Tailor" short from 1938. The most memorable contribution to Disney arcana in this motion picture was Willie the Giant, who appeared again as the Ghost of Christmas Present in 1983's "Mickey's Christmas Carol" (unfortunately repeating many of the same jokes).

Kiss him!

Better than it might seem

That's not to say that this movie isn't without its merits: For one, the animation is pretty good. It's not going to win any awards, but it is competently done nonetheless. The film is also extremely funny in spots. The Edgar Bergen dialog is more humorous than I was expecting, and really shows why he was such a draw for so long. The beanstalk segment is another great example of Donald Duck being a complete murderous psychopath, which is always disturbingly pleasant to see. The sense of scale in the fight with Willie is communicated well, and overall "Beanstalk" is the standout of the two featurettes.

Might not be great for kids

If you're of a certain age, you probably saw much worse when you were a kid, but the more humorous jokes will probably fly over most children's heads, while the violence introduced in the "Bongo" segment and implied murderousness of Donald Duck may be a bit much for modern kids to appreciate. Also, ventriloquist dummies are creepy at any age, so just be cautious when watching with younger kids.

Where can I find it?

"Fun and Fancy Free" is currently streaming on Disney+.

Mars and Beyond... Maybe.

Beyond space and time, there is... Mars and Beyond!

Tonight's nostalgic pic is "Mars and Beyond" (Disney, 1957). Similarly themed to 1955's "Man in Space," this is another episode of "Disneyland" (AKA "The Magical World of Disney" from when it was originally being broadcast on the ABC network) that deals with space travel.

"Hello Mr. Disney, my name is GARKO, AKA TERROR!"

It starts weird, and stays weird.

It starts with an awkward introduction with Walt Disney (and a rather disturbingly lame robot) before we get to the first animated segment, narrated by the immortal Paul Frees, which deals with man's conception of the Earth's place in the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe. 

You know: This kind of stuff.

This is followed by a fairly detailed look at the evolution of life on planet Earth (which I'm sure caused quite a stir with religious ignorance in 1957… and sadly probably now, 65 years later). 

Carbon bonding to form the proteins that would form life, circa 1957.

"If exposed to even a few degrees beyond these limits, man would expire." But you know: Climate change is no big deal. *sigh*

From here we transition to a historical (and quite comedic) overview of mankind's infatuation with the idea of life on other planets within the solar system. 

This segment isn't even pretending to be scientifically accurate.

Dig those crazy cartoons.

Pictured: Tripod-like war machines from "The War of the Worlds."

Martian and Martian horse. What where they smoking?

This leads into a very 1950s overview of what the surface and life on Mars might be like, hosted by E.C. Slipher, one of the premiere Mars astronomers of his day. 

Slipher, no sliphing!

I'm still curious as to what this "cloud" formation was. Maybe a warning about the election in 2000?

Ah, the "canals" of mars in all their glory.

If you're offended by me calling a Nazi a Nazi, you might actually be a Nazi.

The final segment is an imagination of the first mission to Mars through the (incredibly optimistic) lens of 1950s space technology. This segment relies on designs proposed by World War II veteran (guess which side) Ernst Stuhlinger and fellow "Operation Paper Clip" beneficiary (and bonus Nazi) Wernher von Braun.

Pictured on the left: Regular German. Pictured on the right: Actual Nazi.

Side note: Operation Paper Clip was a U.S. program that allowed German scientists (even Nazis, SS officers, and other actual war criminals) to come to the States to continue their work on rocket propulsion, basically without any acknowledgement or punishment for their crimes against humanity. Your tax dollars at work.

Nazi scum aside, I really did enjoy this episode. I love these 1950s style cartoons with their bold cubism-inspired designs and simple animation, but you'd be forgiven for not knowing that this was a Disney animated production because of that (other than one absolutely hilarious and brief cameo by Donald Duck). Most of the episode deals more with mythology, science fiction, and outright fantasy than science fact, which does somewhat unfavorably shade the historicity of the program, but I do have to say that the scientific speculation parts are a fascinating time capsule of what the public at large thought the surface of other planets were like before unmanned space probes and extra-atmospheric telescopes existed. 

1957 artist's concept of the surface of Pluto.

1957 artists concept of Mars.

The speculation is funny to witness now, and I think that Disney's "Imagineering" department took a lot of liberties with exobiology, but it is entertaining to watch even if the actual educational value is compromised. 

Let's just say that hope for life on Mars was very "optimistic."

Pictured: Martian Black Mage.

"Okay everyone, just hold your breath for 18 months."

The Mars mission segment is delightfully misleading, not even addressing small things like how 20 men would be able to eat and breathe on a small spaceship for an over three-year mission to Mars and back, and making the hilarious assumption that we would send men to the surface of Mars before ever materially touching the red planet with satellites or unmanned probes.

Ah, yes: America's famous 1950s space station.

You know why I never became an astronaut? NO LABELS ON THE BUTTONS.

The fleet departing for the first mission to Mars. Ever.

Preparing the Mars landing module.

Recommended.

I loved it, and recommend it for entertainment purposes. "Mars and Beyond" is currently streaming on Disney+.

Excelsior!