FILM 1432: THE JUNGLE BOOK

TRIVIA: Walt Disney died during production of this film. Many people wondered at what the studio's fate would be, particularly the animation division. The film performed extremely well at the box office, ensuring that the animators would not be put out of work. Had the film failed, it is likely that animation would have been closed down at the Disney studio.

The 19th animated feature in Disney animated features canon, and the last to be personally supervised by Walt Disney, himself. The first Disney film to be released after his death in 1966, just prior to the film's theatrical release.

The Vultures were originally going to be voiced by The Beatles. The band's manager, Brian Epstein, approached the Disney studios about having The Beatles appear in the film, and Disney had his animators create the Vultures specifically to be voiced by the band. But when Epstein took the idea to the Beatles, John Lennon vetoed the idea, and told Epstein to tell Disney he should hire Elvis Presley instead. The look of The Vultures, with their mop-top haircuts and Liverpool voices, are a homage to The Beatles; one bird's voice and features are clearly based on George Harrison's. When the Beatles departed the project, the song was rewritten as a barbershop quartet, to make it timeless.

Bruce Reitherman - who provides the voice of Mowgli - is now a wildlife documentarian.

All of the 'scatting' in the film was improvised by Phil Harris and Louis Prima.

Winifred is the only female animal to have any dialogue throughout the entire film; although Raksha (the Mother Wolf) briefly appears at the beginning, she never actually speaks.

Just after Mowgli runs away and Bagheera is trying to convince Col. Hathi to look for him, Hathi's wife Winifred announces if they don't help find him, she will take command of the herd. Hathi is outraged at the thought of a female leading. The joke is that elephants herds are led by a matriarch (female), while adult males generally live alone. As the only apparent female in the herd, Winifred should be leading by default.

According to Elsie Kipling Baimbridge, Rudyard Kipling's daughter, "Mowgli" is pronounced "MAU-glee" (first syllable rhymes with cow), not "MOH-glee" (first syllable rhymes with go). She reportedly never forgave Walt Disney for the gaffe.

Kaa the snake is a completely different character in the film than he is in the original book. In the book, he is a friend and adviser of Mowgli, and the one who rescues him from the monkeys. In the film, he is a villain bent on eating Mowgli. Walt Disney felt that the audience would not accept the idea of a snake as anything but a villain. This is makes Kaa the first and only Character voiced by Sterling Holloway to be a Villain (not counting The Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland (1951) who was an anti-hero).

Disappointed by the muted reception to The Sword in the Stone (1963), Walt Disney was determined to come back with a universally well-regarded film. He told his animation crew to "throw away" Rudyard Kipling's book "The Jungle Book" because the original concept storyboards were too dark and dramatic. During pre-production, Disney assigned animator Larry Clemmons to head story development on the project. He gave Clemmons a copy of "The Jungle Book" and told him, "The first thing I want you to do is not read it."

Many cultural scholars (including Anthony Edward Schiappa, Susan Miller, and Greg Rode) have singled out the King Louie character as a particularly offensive racial stereotype for appearing to be "African American", especially given the political and civil rights climates in America during the time this film was released. However, he spoke in Louis Prima's normal voice (and, like most of the characters, had a physical resemblance to his voice actor), Prima being a white man of Italian descent.

Rudyard Kipling's Hindi names for the animals are related to their species. Baloo: bear, Bagheera: panther, and Hathi: elephant. Shere Khan means Tiger King.

Shere Khan was modeled after George Sanders who provides his voice. According to the DVD commentary, most of the characters' appearances were based on their actors, but his is the most noticeable.

For the film's backgrounds, Disney Animators visited real jungles in India and studied wildlife there.

Ken Anderson storyboarded the final scene almost at the same time that Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman had finished "My Own Home". Everything that the Sherman brothers had envisioned while writing the song was up on the storyboards. They brought Anderson up to their office and played him the song and he immediately began to cry.

According to Richard M. Sherman on the audio commentary, George Sanders (the voice actor for Shere Khan) refused to sing for "That's What Friends Are For". Bill Lee did the singing for Shere Khan, replacing Sanders.

Came seventh in the UK's Ultimate Film, in which films were placed in order of how many seats they sold at cinemas

Voted number 19 in Channel 4's (UK) "Greatest Family Films"

This is the first Disney Animated Feature where the opening credits say who voiced which role.

King Louie calls Mowgli "cousin." This is technically accurate as both humans and apes are primates.

Wolfgang Reitherman:  [Re-using animation]  There are multiple moments in the film which feature animation recycled from 101 Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), Song of the South (1946) and Goliath II (1960).

Film 1054: Saving Mr. Banks

Trivia: In the movie Tom Hanks is playing Walt Disney who is his distant cousin.

Walt Disney hid his smoking habit from the public, fearing it would harm his and his studio's family friendly image. Tom Hanks wanted his portrayal to be accurate, so he lobbied to show Disney smoking. Disney, however, still insisted that smoking was not appropriate for a family film. Hanks got one concession from the company: a shot in which Disney is seen stubbing out a cigarette.

According to the 40th Anniversary DVD release of Mary Poppins (1964) in 2004, Walt Disney first attempted to purchase the film rights to Mary Poppins from P.L. Travers as early as 1938, but was rebuffed because Travers was disgusted by Hollywood's handling of book-to-film adaptations, and did not believe a film version of her books would do justice to her creation. Another reason for her initial rejection would have been that at that time the Disney studios had not yet produced a live action film. For more than twenty years, Disney made periodic entreaties to Travers to allow him to make a Poppins film. He finally succeeded in 1961, but Travers demanded and got script-approval rights. Planning the film, writing the script and composing the songs took about two years. Travers objected to a number of elements that actually made it into the film. Rather than the Sherman Brothers' original songs, she wanted the soundtrack to feature known standards of the Edwardian period in which the story is set. She objected the "anti-feminist" ending, in which Winifred Banks, the mother of Jane and Michael, lays aside her devotion to the cause of women's suffrage to be with her children and to round up help and support to find George Banks after he fails to come back from the bank. Travers also objected to the idea of using animation to depict the chalkboard world. Disney overruled her, citing contract stipulations that he had final say on the finished print. Travers refused to allow any other Mary Poppins books to be filmed, even though Walt tried very hard to get her to reconsider.

According to an article on the website The Flickcast - All Things Geek, during their Saturday panel, "Working with Walt," renowned Walt Disney Imagineer Bob Gurr began to tear up while speaking about the film. As the web article reads on, "He, and the fellow Disney legends that joined him on stage, were touched by how director John Lee Hancock and screenplay writer Kelly Marcel brought Walt to life again. Little quirks, like Disney clearing his throat to let you know that he was about to enter a room, have added a level of authenticity often lost in films like this."

The first theatrical film from Walt Disney Pictures or any other film studio in Hollywood to feature Walt Disney as a lead or supporting character in a feature film.

Mrs Travers says to an exasperated Walt Disney that "Disappointments are to the soul what a thunderstorm is to the air." This line is a quote from German dramatist Friedrich Schiller.