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CACTUS FLOWER: The Dark Side???
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Featuring it's star in one of the most atypical hats he would wear in his career (although there is a shot of a very young big BOB wearing a suit of armor circulating on the internet somewhere which is truly ridiculous.)
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Its not the one where rm does the long but unmistakeable walk through the hacienda is it?
The one morecambe and wise did a parody of in The Intelligence Men?
Nah cant be.
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angelillo - if ever there were two album covers/posters separated at birth, thats gotta be it!!!
damn, Ive been doing my Mitchum walk in celebration of this thread for three days!!!
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Posted: |
Jun 24, 2013 - 5:00 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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From the "Obscure Movies " thread:
After the success of a series of Walt Disney nature documentary shorts entitled "True-Life Adventures," the studio decided to make a feature-length version. THE LIVING DESERT was the first in a series of six feature-length "True-Life Adventure" films, which presented expertly photographed footage of the wonders and oddities of the natural world. All of the six films were produced by Ben Sharpsteen, directed by James Algar and featured narration by Winston Hibler.
THE LIVING DESERT begins with the following written prologue: “This True-Life Adventure is a drama as old as time itself. But seldom seen by human eyes, nature sets the stage and provides the actors. Only through the endless patience of skilled photographers has it been possible to view this strange and unusual world.” An animated hand then paints a globe and various maps. Narration is heard throughout the film explaining the images, and animation is mixed with live-action photography. Some sequences involve special effects and whimsical music, such as the scorpion mating scene, which is edited to appear as if they are sharing a square-dance, and a sequence of flowers blooming in time-lapse photography. Sequences were created from both original and stock footage, edited to appear chronological.
A man named N. Paul Kenworthy, Jr. began photographing the Great American Desert region as part of his thesis at the University of California, Los Angeles. He then sent footage to Walt Disney, who hired him, along with Robert H. Crandall, to shoot more desert footage for the studio over the next two years. Kenworthy and Crandall photographed all of the footage used in the film except for four sequences filmed by other photographers.
Paul Smith scored the film. A soundtrack was issued on an RCA extended play record, along with a 24-page illustrated booklet. The soundtrack was reissued on a Buena Vista LP in 1965, along with Smith’s score for another “True-Life Adventure” feature, 1954’s THE VANISHING PRAIRIE. Those two films were theatrically re-released as a double bill in 1971.
Walt Disney had originally been discouraged from doing the initial True-Life shorts, even by people within his own organization. When he embarked on the feature enterprise, he met with resistance from RKO, his long-time distributor. This caused a falling out between the organizations. Consequently, when THE LIVING DESERT opened in New York on 9 November 1953, Disney independently distributed the picture. Shortly thereafter, Disney set up Buena Vista Film Distribution Co., which became Disney's releasing arm in 1954 and released the studio's subsequent productions. Since THE LIVING DESERT ran only 69 minutes, the film was theatrically released with the shorts “Ben and Me” (21 minutes) and “Stormy, the Thoroughbred.” The latter film was subsequently developed into a short 46-minute feature the following year.
Although THE LIVING DESERT garnered much praise, including the 1953 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, it also received criticism for tampering with documentary footage by inserting "jokey" stop-motion photography and musical humor. The “scorpion dance” came in for particular criticism. Reviewers disdained anthropomorphizing the animals, which, as the New York Times’ Bosley Crowther asserted, "isn't true to life” But Crowther acknowledged that “Mr. Disney's earnest people have done a remarkable job of collecting some extraordinary footage, and his editors have assembled it well for excitement and fascination.” Disney took the criticism to heart, however, and subsequent True-Life features would downplay that type of manipulation.
THE LIVING DESERT also won the Berlin Film Festival's Best Documentary and audience favorite awards. The film cost $300,000 and grossed about $5 million in its first release. The film was released on cassette in 1998 and on DVD in 2006, as part of the Walt Disney Legacy Collection - True Life Adventures, Vol. 2 set.
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Posted: |
Jun 24, 2013 - 5:44 PM
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By: |
Rozsaphile
(Member)
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when THE LIVING DESERT opened in New York on 9 November 1953, Disney independently distributed the picture. Shortly thereafter, Disney set up Buena Vista Film Distribution Co., which became Disney's releasing arm in 1954 and released the studio's subsequent productions. Since THE LIVING DESERT ran only 69 minutes, the film was theatrically released with the shorts “Ben and Me” (21 minutes) and “Stormy, the Thoroughbred.” The latter film was subsequently developed into a short 46-minute feature the following year. . . .
Disney took the criticism to heart, however, and subsequent True-Life features would downplay that type of manipulation.
I imagine that far more people saw this wonderful footage when it was adapted in various ways for Disneyland and its television successors. The later True-Life adventures were indeed more serious in tone. The African Lion (1956) was particularly distinguished and set a standard for wildlife documentaries that would not be matched for decades. Of course all these films were done without the benefit of trip-wire cameras, high-speed film/video, night-vision devices, satellite reconnaissance, etc.
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