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

I've actually heard that Disney has apparently softened their stance when it comes to Youtube over the past year or two, and this may be evidence of that. In another discussion on a different forum people were concerned as to whether or not Disney taking over Star Wars would put a halt to all the various fan-made SW projects that Lucas always seemed to get a kick out of, but a few pointed out that there's a lot of Disney shorts, films and fan-made stuff on YT these days that hasn't been bothered for a year or more.

 

An interesting read. Heard Disney Legend Floyd Norman speaking of the movie a couple weeks ago and he's written the forward to this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Afraid-South-...=1361221006&sr=1-1&keywords=song+of+the+south

 

Disney will release it when it is reasonable business-wise to do so; ie, when a bunch of hired-goon MBAs can present predictable positive results. Results where the returns ($) outweigh the liabilities (negative publicity). Just like any other Fortune 500 business.

And there will be little pre-release internet buzz about it. For decades Disney insisted that none of their WWII productions even existed at all. Then out of the blue their very noteworthy, entertaining and extensive On The Front Lines box set appeared.

There is no hand-wringing over The Right Thing To Do, only strategic planning wherein liabilities are minimized for profit advantages. They're not fortune tellers,, but at some point it will be deemed right place, right time. It's just not on our timetable. It never is.

It's important animation history, but it's a wimpy movie. Birth Of A Nation got broadcast and distribution to home video. Chaos did not ensue.

I saw it in its initial run; I must've been 6. Oblivious to history or slavery. All I knew was that when the kindly old man told stories and promptly vaulted into an animated song, everything was satisfactual.

 

It's probably in this thread somewhere, but when exactly did this movie first "disappear" from the US? Was there a VHS release or perhaps a Disney Channel airing? I remember watching it at school one day for some reason (maybe teacher was hung over, heh) and it had to be somewhere around 1985-87-ish time frame. I know it was a tape she played and not a print of any type, but I don't recall if it was recorded off-the-air or not.

 

From Wikipedia:

I can't imagine what it was you saw in school back then, unless Disney also promoted the film by sending sampler tapes to schools. It was later released in the UK on VHS and in Japan and Hong Kong on Laserdisc and tape.

Harry

 

Well, it's definitely possible and pretty much 100% likely that it wasn't an official tape. The schools then (or at least mine) didn't seem to bother with actually obtaining permission to show films, a teacher would just bring in a tape from their personal collection usually, often one taped from TV or illicitly copied. That's what makes me wonder if maybe it was shown on Disney Channel at some point, but yeah, who the heck knows where she got it from.

Hmm wait, now that I see in that wiki article that there was a 1986 theatrical re-release, perhaps Disney Channel did run it.

 

This makes me wonder, what made Disney decide it should be locked away since then? That's quite a dramatic jump from a theatrical re-release and possible Disney Channel airing to taboo.

 

Actually, Buena Vista Distribution did make a large section of Disney animated films available on 16mm to educational groups, but there was a rental fee involved, like $150-$200 per feature. This was back in the 1960s & 1970s. By 1980, I think the practice was on the downswing.

 

When was the last time this was shown on US network TV?

 

Yeah, I think bona fide charity groups could get them for free, but schools and organizations were charged a fee. For example, I remember every week at FSU in the 1970s, we'd rent a dozen or more films from Films Inc. (a big independent distributor that handled Disney classics) and run them over a weekend, charging maybe a buck per student in a medium-to-large theater. But that was way pre-video. I don't remember Song of the South being available.

 

Song of the South wasn't shown on the Disney Channel or any TV in the US. That is, the whole movie wasn't; big slices of it, the animated segments and sometimes the related surrounding live scenes, were widely shown on TV since the 1950s and became available on many video tapes.

The company has major theme park attractions in the US parks based on a film not commercially available to be seen since 1986 because the same company won't allow anyone in the US to see it because the company believes it's socially unacceptable for the US. Very strange.

 

I think there are similar problems with CBS/Viacom owning the negatives and soundtracks to Amos & Andy, but from a corporate point of view, they won't release it for fear of offending stockholders and other people. There have been black celebrities who have petitioned them to release it anyway, but it still hasn't happened and probably won't. My bet is that Disney could make Song of the South available as a "video on demand" title on DVD or download, but not as a mass-market title in stores.

 

It's a great movie and has a lot of American culture that can't be denied eyes for it.

 

Disney will never issue a home video version of this film again, until the copyright for it is about to lapse into the public domain. They've decided as a corporate entity that the surrounding press outweighs any potential sales, for a movie that most people under the age of 35 have never seen. Disney's most valuable commodity is their brand image and they will do nothing that hurts that in the slightest.

 

Never say never. Remember also there are the dreaded "underlying rights" for the screenplay and the music, and those will likely not go into the public domain for many years to come. There's tons of movies that are public domain where nobody can release them unless they delete all the music, and that pretty much kills them for any kind of commercial release.

I remember about 20 years ago, some guy tried to do an authorized TV special on Amos & Andy, and even though they had a discussion with several black leaders and religious groups before the show and in the middle of the show, debating the issue, almost no station would air it. I think I was able to snag a copy from a San Diego station at 2AM or something, but it was a huge commercial failure.

I suspect Disney could get around this problem by just quietly releasing the Blu-ray as a Region 0 disc in Europe & Japan, and copies would work over here in America. Problem solved.

 

Pretty sure I picked this up on a "legitimate" VHS at a local thrift store in the past year or so. It wasn't a boot or home taped copy. Will have to go into the archives and find it for more details.

Pretty sure this was it- hosted by George Kirby:

Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy (1983)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309279/combined

 

I attended La Ballona elementary school in Culver City from 1982-85. I don't think that we ever watched anything on tape and only remember watching stuff on "filmstrip": 16mm. We watched stuff like the Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan Disney shorts and the non Disney The Red Balloon about the kid chasing after that balloon.

Disney did likely keep the Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby book/record set in print until around this time as well as my copy was likely purchased new around this time or a couple years earlier: http://www.amazon.com/Brer-Rabbit-Baby-Book-Record/dp/B000VLBSUY.

 

Kit Parker was still doing 16MM Disney Distribution into the 1990's, and I am pretty sure I have a circa-1995 catalog laying around somwehere. With that being said, I do remember going on a phone-calling spree back then in search of a copy. This was still (for me, anyway) the cold, dark days before the internet. I called KP and was told that it was pulled from distribution. I actually got some numbers for Disney, and was told by the girl on the other line that as much as she, too, loved the movie, I would "most likely never see it again.....at least legally".

Grant it....this is almost 20 years ago, but to this day she's still right.

 

This aired semi-recently on the sadly missed Trio channel too near the end of its life. Wasn't a bad little doc, helpful for someone like me who was too young to have ever actually got to see/hear A&A for myself.

 

My elementary school would show Disney movies and cartoons occasionally on a Friday afternoon/evening in the gym after school. This would have been 81-83 time frame. They were always from 16mm projectors. They were mostly movies from the 70's like Herby, but there were others. I think we got to stay after school and watch for free but had a to a pay little for popcorn.

 

Could it be that it might throw up an examination of Walt Disney himself , which the Corporation would not personally want. There have been other films I find more irksome over similar issues....Take the 50's 20th Century Fox's Island in the Sun. Certainly not because of the Harry Belafonte/Joan Fontaine relationship in the film, which caused an uproar in the US South and theatre owners threatened in one or two States with fear of possible riots and a $1000 fine if they showed it, . No..., it was the'cop-out' of the character playing Joan Collins's mother , towards the end of the film of 'why it is alright' for Collins to run off with Stephen Boyd. Telling the Collins character, as her daughter , ... she did not have to fear 'since she was not of mixed blood, after all'. That I find truly offensive.

 

I do remember that a local TV station did air "Amos And Andy Anatomy Of A Controversy " back in 1983.
I also found a VHS copy a couple of years ago in a thrift shop , but it was dubbed on cheap Goodtimes Video tape and wouldn't play.

But I did get to see the last reruns of Amos And Andy on WGHP TV8 in North Carolina just before Viacom pulled the series off the market,
when I was a young kid.

Here's the documentary on Hulu : http://www.hulu.com/watch/48119

 

I was in elementary school (1976-83) (I don't remember which grade but it was probably primary not intermediate) when they would show these movies on a film projector in the gym on lunch hours. You would watch Part One on one day and Part Two on another. This is where I saw Song of the South, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, The Shaggy Dog, The Shaggy D.A., Swiss Family Robinson, etc.