Walt Disney's "Song Of The South" being remastered from the original negatives*

I bet it's been 2 years since I played Song Of The South.... It's playing tonight. "...Zippity-do-dah..." !

 

I'm as PC as the average liberal Northern Californian but I found almost nothing to cringe at in this film last time I saw it in one of it's many fleeting YouTube appearances. I found much more annoyance in 'Gone with the Wind'.

It's as written, a wonderful kid's story.

 

I've always wanted to see this film and haven't been able to. How does one see it?

 

I'm a native Northern Californian from liberal San Francisco who saw this theatrically back in the '80s...I found it to be a charming, if somewhat anachronistic movie with wonderful entertainment value. Other audience members' mileage may vary...this IS a movie I would love to see at home in high definition from the restoration being discussed here!!!

 

Some really good songs in this film too. Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah is surely a contender for one of the greatest kid songs ever.

 

I seem to recall that Disney did used to release shortened versions of films like Song of the South as 2-reelers, basically pulling out just the animated sequences for elementary schools to show classes in 16mm. They gave them another name, like "Uncle Remus' Tales" or something like that, but I seem to recall it was in the film rental catalogs of the 1970s.

Phil Spector clearly liked it...

 

I'm with you and have been since (for some reason) since I moved to Orlando 20 years ago into Disney World-land. For some reason though, they want anything they put out (from the old days) to be as squeaky clean 50's/60's (maybe 70's-00's PC) as anything. They want there to be absolutely no reason to be picketed or boycotted for any reason. I've watched them the whole time I've been here. As many of us that see nothing to be upset about, they look for anything possible that could cause any issues and stop it dead in its tracks.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think we'll see this come out of Disney's vault anytime soon.

 

Nope, that was just a cover story put in eBay listings by sellers of the bootleg. The film has only been on VHS and Laserdisc legitimately.

Derek

 

Jeeze ... they act like it's It Coal Black and Sebben Dwarfs.
You might be able to find on you tube still.

 

Did Warner Bros. ever release the Censored 11 -- the racist cartoons pulled from circulation many years from now? Some of those are hilarious (and disturbing).

 

^ No.

If Jerry Beck is any source (and he is), it gets discussed periodically. There is a will to do it, as part of preserving the entire catalog. But like SOTS, it will be a business decision: right place, right time etc.

Depends on which Suit is in the office on a given day.

 

I enjoyed "Hittin' The Trail for Hallelujah Land". Pretty out there for it's time, and I like the skeleton's dancing.

 

The fact that it's been hidden away in the 'vault of shame' has added to it's volatility over time. The negative legend that surrounds it has gotten to the point that there's simply no going back. If they ever do decide to release this thing, there's inevitably going to be backlash. That wouldn't have happened if they had simply left the title in print for the most part, sort of like 'Dumbo'.

I saw this movie as a kid, had various Disney books with the cartoon characters, and I even had the soundtrack LP. I don't remember much of it though. I tried to watch it on the YouTube clip but didn't make it through the entire thing. Zzzzzzzzz.

What I could see as offensive is the notion that good black people were entirely content to happily serve their kindly white masters. There's no hint of the unspeakable horror of slavery, just a ridiculously romanticized view of a bygone era where nice black people helped white folk raise their children. Bleh.

There are certainly more mean-spirited movies about race out there, but I can see why this is a lightning rod for criticism. And like I said earlier, the fact that it's been hidden away for so long only adds to its unflattering mystique.

dan c

 

I just found most of them on youtube Goldielocks and the Jiven Bears
Tin Pan Alley Cats etc.

 

Most of the Banned/Censored 11 are pretty sucky/not too funny as far as Warner Brothers cartoons go. Coal Black is definitely the champ as far as wild Warner Bros. animation goes - Bob Clampett really nailed that one. Unfortunately for Mr. Clampett, what many folks consider to be his finest animation moment is also not legitimately available for purchase. You can usually turn up most of them (typically from faded Eastman AAP prints of fair to poor quality) on Youtube. All This and Rabbit Stew has turned up on PD comps (and it also seems to have a pretty good looking source that it's been sourced from). Some of the gags turn up in a later remake of sorts with Elmer Fudd (the running into the log hanging over a cliff gag/hanging in mid-air scene is the most memorable).

 

BOOTLEG IT, and SPREAD IT !

Get these Frauds where they live...their pocketbook !

Disney Shareholder Meeting 2007 Song of the South question



But in September 2012...

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At this point, Disney seems more prideful of Flash Mountain than they are of Tar Baby and the gang.

CEO Robert Iger has been openly against SONG OF THE SOUTH being on DVD for some time now. Meanwhile, Dave Bossert, creative director at Walt Disney Animation Studios, is in full support of it, stating, "At some point we're going to do something about it...We realize it's a big piece of company history, and we want to do it the right way."

So hope isn't exactly lost on SONG OF THE SOUTH. On top of Bossert's vote, Disney has partnered with the Library of Congress to complete 4K digital scans and restorations on some of their classic titles, including SONG OF THE SOUTH. That means that a potential home video debut could be on the horizon.

http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/where-on-the-shelf-issong-of-the-south

 

You ever see the Shirley Temple movie I mentioned earlier in this thread? That to me is a thousand times worse, because the little girl treats the tap-dancing William "Bojangles" Robinson like a child, particularly when they happily tap-dance together.

On the one hand, the guy was a brilliant, talented actor and you believe you're watching people on an old Southern plantation; but on the other hand, it's a horrible racial stereotype and very demeaning. To me, it's worse than the cartoons because it's done in a quasi-realistic way; the cartoons are clearly over-the-top satire.

I'd be very curious to see what black audiences thought of racial cartoons like Coal Black back in the 1940s...

 

Still no official release for this classic. How sad. I wonder how the Alamo DVD is?

 

Sadly, it seems forgotten too.

 

...posted to wrong thread... Oops!

 

Yet, So Dear To My Heart which is somewhat, but not really, a sequel to Song of The South is readily available on DVD and they are both set in the slavery time period.

 

Song of the South is set after the Civil War. Uncle Remus is an ex-slave; the black field hands are sharecroppers.

 

I regret to say that I think Disney is correct in their assessment that this film could not be re-issued or screened today (or in the near future) without someone raising a PC fuss about it and the media and social media worlds having a meltdown over the 'racist' Disney Corp. A stinkhole of (undeserved) bad PR. It's the ugly zeitgeist of this era.

 

I saw this in the theater when I was around 5 years old (1980). I guess they re-released it in the theaters.

At that time, I didn't see anything racist about it. Of course, I was just a kid so I didn't really know about those things. The innocence of youth.

I haven't seen it since though, and I don't remember much about it. I do remember Brer rabbit though.

 

I don't think the movie is as racist as its reputation makes it out to be, especially when one considers the era in which it was made. LOTS of much more racially offensive movies out there!

It's just built up because a) it's a "kiddie movie" and b) it's from Disney...