Disney Film Project Podcast - Episode 220 - The Vanishing Prairie

This week the DFPP team investigates the dwindling nature of of… well… nature and how the animals therein have their own mysterious ways that define existence rather than defy it in the 1954 documentary The Vanishing Prairie.

Listen, download, etc.



Show notes:

• IMDb
• Wikipedia (Wikia)
• Official Site
• Trailer
• Soundtrack
• Record Information
• Record Images

Enjoy the show!

The Olympic Elk

The True Life Adventures series is part of a grouping of features that Disney put out in the late 1940s/early 1950s that shows the problems the company had.  A company that was once daring and put out features that challenged existing wisdom was now churning out product to fill space on distribution schedules.  The original True Life Adventure, Seal Island, won an Oscar, and was somewhat compelling, but by the time we get to The Olympic Elk, the series has a formula and hesitates to deviate from it whatsoever. 

The focus in The Olympic Elk is the Olympic peninsula in Washington, and showing the migration of the elk from the lowland valleys to the snow capped mountains.  But it follows the same basic outline we have seen from the shorts so far: opening with an animated sequence showing the setting and place, then moving on to a focus on a particular group of animals before eventually settling into a story about one particular animal in that group.  That’s not a criticism, as it’s a good way to expose the brilliant nature photography to the masses, but when you watch several of these shorts, it becomes very easy to discern director James Algar’s rhythms and go-to ideas.

The story of the elk migrating from the bottom of the mountains to the tops where they rest is actually an improvement over things like Nature’s Half Acre, where the story all took place over the course of seasons but with no movement.   Tracking the movement of the elk up the mountain offers more of a kinetic nature to the short.  As with all the nature films, though, the problem is the lack of a compelling plot or characters to keep the audience invested in what happens next.

There is a slight threat to the elk from a black bear looking to prey on them, but for the most part, the conflict the elk must overcome is the actual mountain in the way.  The mountain, needless to say, makes a bit less compelling adversary than a villain like Chernabog or Malieficent.  The good news is that Algar takes care to use the best shots, and showing the impact of the terrain on the elk and vice versa.  It’s a nice snapshot of what these animals go through, all the way up through the fight over the females between two male bucks.

I’ve made no bones that the True Life Adventure series is not my thing.  There just isn’t much in the series that appeals to my desire for strong plot and character development.  That said, The Olympic Elk is probably the tightest of the shorts to date.  We are quickly introduced to the elk, their migration pattern then follow it through to the end in a brisk 24 minutes.  I wasn’t bored and didn’t find my attention drifting as much as it had with the other True Life Adventures.  It’s a good entry in what I find to be a subpar series.

Nature's Half Acre

The True Life Adventure series is far from my favorite thing that Disney has ever done. However, it’s an important part of the Walt Disney legacy, and something that the company returns to over and over again. These films became such a part of the Disney lexicon that they would form the basis of Adventureland at Disneyland and become part of the Disneyland TV show. The previous entries in this series, Seal Islandand Beaver Valley, were of varying quality. With Nature’s Half Acre, I feel like Disney hit their stride.

Not identifying where it’s set, Nature’s Half Acre, in a similar way to the previous films, tracks the change of seasons in one set place. This time it’s a small plot of land where birds and bugs interact throughout the seasons. We begin the short in spring, where the various activities of the creatures is wound into a song called “Symphony of Spring” which was written for the short.  A woodpecker’s taps are integrated, as are the long crawls of an inchworm. Obviously these are set to music, but there’s a nice rhythm to the piece that serves as an easy intro to the subject.

Winston Hibler, the narrator of these True Life Adventure films, brings things right into focus after that, however, as the majority of the film focuses on the relationship between predator and prey. It begins with birds eating caterpillars, and grabbing food from other sources that they can feed to their young. Many of us have seen or heard of mother birds feeding their children in the nest, but seeing it here is a powerful image. It also allows us to find a narrative that was lacking so much in the previous films. By flowing from one animal to the next, we get a sense of place and character.

That warm and comforting image is then immediately undercut as we cut to scenes of everyone eating everyone else. That’s not me being snarky, that’s actually what Hibler calls it at the end of the sequence.  We have spiders eating bees, after we see the amazing inside of a beehive and how it looks.  We have preying mantis eating anything they can find. And of course the birds pick off all the week bugs.  No joke, the majority of the film is animals eating each other.

Things come full circle, though, as the film slides into winter, showing how the various creatures react to the oncoming frost.  Some build cocoons, others burrow into the earth, but they all prepare for the harsh winter.  These shots of the winter scenery are a stark contrast with the early vistas of spring that were so beautiful and inspiring. It also helps establish a narrative flow for the film, tracking the seasons.

When spring reveals itself again, it’s a rebirth for the creatures and the viewer.  The harsh realities of nature, with animals eating each other throughout the film, are forgotten.  The “Symphony of Spring” returns, this time holding more promise, because we know what the animals have gone through leading into spring. It’s that arc of character for the film that made Nature’s Half Acre more enjoyable.  While I’m still not a fan of the True Life Adventures, this one provided much more entertainment than previous editions.

In Beaver Valley (1950)

It’s been quite some time on the blog since we discussed the True Life Adventures features.  Seal Island, the first of Disney’s nature films, was such a huge success that Disney immediately green lit more films to follow.   The first of those is In Beaver Valey, which premiered to the public in July of 1950. 

James Algar, who directed SealIsland, retained his entire team from that production, including the Milottes, who had camped out with their cameras to capture the footage that became Seal Island.  This time, the subject would be the Northwestern United States, focusing on a valley that Algar chose to name Beaver Valleythrough the narration of Winston Hibler.  The film tracks the life of the animals in the valley through the changing of the seasons from winter to spring.

The problem is that there is no flow or story to catch your attention, so the film suffers from a lack of something to grab onto and pull you through.  The idea is to latch on to the main beaver as an example, and follow his travails throughout the film.  Unfortunately, there is nothing given that makes you want to do this.  He has no name, isn’t faced with any particular struggle or conflict that makes you care about him and the situations he is involved in are rather mundane.

The beaver goes through contortions to court a female, fend off predators like a wandering fox and build a dam in the river to withstand the rushing waters.  While all of that is possibly intriguing, in a 30 minute or longer film, it is not compelling.  The problem is that this film is treated like a short subject, where plot is not as big of an issue and it’s all about the next gag.  Here, the gags are reliant on what happens to the beaver or other animals around him.

It’s no secret that Disney “arranged” for things to happen on these shoots, so the fact that these gags don’t come off as especially entertaining is a disappointment.  Especially when you consider that the cinematography and the camera work on display is simply amazing.  Just as in Seal Island, the Milottes do an incredible job of capturing nature as it lays out in front of them, and then relaying that to the viewer.  The vistas of the valley are breathtaking. 

The connective tissue, though, is what’s missing from Beaver Valley.  The overall film lacks the focus that Seal Islandhad, and there is not a central theme that ties things together.  It causes the narrative to wander about, creating more of a pastoral effect.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but in this film, it tended to keep me from latching on to any of the animals and made me less likely to care how it all ended up.  If you’re looking to start your True Life Adventure stories, I would look to Seal Islandfirst.

Seal Island - Review

As I said yesterday, discussing Seal Island is a bit of a minefield.  You don’t want to be seen as hating on seals or nature films if you dislike it, and you get criticized by those who deride the “manufactured” nature of the film if you do.  However, I want to do my best to evaluate this 30 minute feature as a film, just like any other that I’ve reviewed on the site.

And as a film, there are definitely some ups and downs to Seal Island.  Start with the storytelling techniques.  I think without the addition of Winston Hibler as the narrator or the deliberate decision by James Algar and crew to follow specific seals or craft a narrative around that, this would be a very bad movie.  The story of these seals is not of particular interest to me, but they craft it in a way that is intriguing.

Let’s be honest, the real goings on of the seals migrating to this island every year for their mating ritual is not thrilling for audiences of today.  It’s a slow moving story that doesn’t really give you much to hold on to while you watch.  That’s not necessarily bad.  I am a big classic film fan, and the older movies took way more time to let things breathe than modern film.  In Seal Island, though, since there is no real conflict or narrative in the actual footage, the filmmakers manufacture one with narration and music.

Sometimes, that is over the top and obvious.  The burlesque style music used when the female seals come to shore is slightly embarrassing.  I was watching the film and cringed when that music came on, because it’s just so cliché and not at all in keeping with the theme of the rest of the film.  Similarly, when the seal is in “danger” of falling between the rocks, it becomes very obvious that the seal would be fine if he fell, and that the seal that’s rescued is not the same one that was in danger.

Those are the things that kept me from really enjoying the film, even though I think it’s very interesting as a whole.  There is no question that this is a beautiful piece of photography.  The imagery and the vitality of what was captured by the Milottes shines through any hokey music or joking narration.  Shots of the seals scattered across the beach or the waters undulating with swimming creatures are simply breathtaking.  As a pleasure to look at, it’s hard to argue with Seal Island.

This is not to say that I think a straight visual approach with no storytelling would have worked for this film.  I agree that some degree of craftsmanship and manipulation was necessary to create a compelling film.  I went into this knowing that it was present, and expecting a high quality.  What I felt happened instead was a presentation that was not on par with what Disney has produced in 1947-1948.  Seal Island is an average work to me, not something all that special.  It is significant for its place in Disney history, but as a film alone, it lacks the touch of magic that makes Disney films so interesting.

Seal Island - The Origins and Production

Talking about the production and release of Walt Disney’s True Life Adventure films is sort of a minefield.  No matter which direction you may choose to go, there will be danger ahead of you.  Whether it’s film lovers, nature lovers or storytellers, everyone has their condemnations and praises of the series.  In some cases, they’re the same thought, flipped on its head to suit the viewer’s argument.

The series started with a simple thought.  During the production of Bambi, Walt saw the footage that photographers had gathered as reference materials for the animators.  The raw beauty and power of these forest images struck him.  After rattling the idea around in his brain for a while, Walt decided to venture into the field of nature films.  He contracted Alfred and Elma Milotte to venture to the wilderness of Alaska to shoot some footage.

When the two returned from their voyage in 1948, they came with hours upon hours of film, and it was up to Disney to turn it into something.  Walt and his team zeroed in on the footage that featured the Pribilof Islands, where large numbers of seals migrate each year.  Deciding to term the film Seal Island, Walt directed his crew to apply the storytelling tools they had learned from animation to the production of this new kind of film.

This is where the problem lies for nature lovers.  The film that is Seal Island is not a straight documentary, in that the pictures on screen are shown in exactly the manner they happened in the wild.  Director James Algar used the talents of his musicians and narrator Winston Hibler to tell a story, much the same way that they would in animation.  One seal is subbed for another, for example, to better fit into the narrative the filmmakers are crafting.

This, of course, flies in the face of what “nature films” are supposed to be.  These films are supposed to capture the ongoing nature saga, and not alter it.  However, Disney followed the idea that these films are supposed to be entertainment.  So, they crafted a story to pull the viewer in, which rankles some.  In my opinion, there’s a value to both approaches.

Disney’s approach was certainly vindicated on Seal Island when it was released to the public in 1948.  RKO refused to distribute the film, since it was only 30 minutes long.  Disney believed in it so much, however, that the studio booked the film in a theatre themselves, and it proceeded to win an Academy Award for Best Short Feature.  From there, Seal Island went on to be a hit throughout 1949.  Its success led to the future of the True Life Adventures series, a staple of the studio throughout the 1950s and early 1960s.  But how was the film?  Tune in tomorrow!