The Reluctant Dragon
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The Reluctant Dragon movie poster |
The Reluctant Dragon is a
1898 children's book by
Kenneth Grahame, which served as the key element to
The Reluctant Dragon, a
1941 feature film from
Walt Disney Productions.
In Grahame's book, first published in
1898, a young boy tries to convince a shy,
poetry-writing dragon to act ferocious and scary. The two eventually compromise by, with the help of an old
knight, staging a simulated
joust between the dragon and the knight.
The Reluctant Dragon was produced by
Walt Disney, directed by
Alfred J. Werker, and released by
RKO Radio Pictures on
June 20,
1941. Essentially a
tour of the then-new
Walt Disney Studios facility in
Burbank, California, the film stars
comedian Robert Benchley and many Disney staffers such as
Ward Kimball,
Fred Moore,
Norman Ferguson,
Clarence Nash, and Walt Disney, all as themselves.
The first third of the film is in
black-and-white, the remaining two-thirds are in
Technicolor. Most of the film is
live-action, with four
short animation segments inserted into the running time: a black-and-white animated featuring Casey Junior from
Dumbo; and three Technicolor animations:
Baby Weems,
Goofy's
How to Ride a Horse, and the extended-legnth short
The Reluctant Dragon, based upon Graham's book.
Studio operations toured by Benchley in the film
The loose plot of the film features Robert Benchley trying to find (or, rather, avoid finding) Walt Disney so that he can, at the insistence of his wife, pitch to him the idea of making an animated version of Kenneth Graham's book. Dodging a
Nazi-like studio guide named Humphrey (played by Buddy Pepper), Benchley stumbles upon a number of the Disney studio operations and learns about the
traditional animation process, some of the facets of which are explained by a staff employee named Doris (Francis Gifford):
* The
life drawing classroom, where animators learn to
caricature people and animals by observing the real thing.
* A
film score and
voice recording session featuring
Clarence Nash, the voice of
Donald Duck, and Florence Gill, the voice of Clara Cluck
* A
foley session for a cartoon featuring Casey Junior from
Dumbo. Doris demonstrates the
sonovox in this scene, which was used to create the train's voice.
* The
camera room, featuring a demonstration of the
multiplane camera. Upon Benchley's entering the camera room, the film turns from black-and-white to Technicolor (ala
The Wizard of Oz), prompting the droll Benchley to (breaking the
fourth wall) examine his now
red-and-
blue tie and his
yellow copy of the
Reluctant Dragon storybook and comment, "Ahh...Technicolor!" When Doris arrives to show him around the camera room, she asks Benchley if he remembers her. His answer: "yes, but you look so much different in Technicolor!" Donald Duck appears on the camera stand to help explain the mechanics of animation and animation photography.
* The ink-and-paint department, including a Technicolor-showcasing
montage of the
paint-making process. Doris presents a completed cel of the titular character from
Bambi.
* The
maquette-making department, which makes maquettes (small
statues) to help the animators envision a character from all sides. Some of the maquettes on display inclued Aunt Sarah, Si, and Am from
Lady and the Tramp and
Captain Hook and
Tinkerbell from
Peter Pan; both films were in development at this time, but would be delayed by
World War II and not completed until the
1950s. Also on display is a
black centaurette from
Fantasia, which Benchley steals. The employee on duty makes Benchley a maquette of himself, which many years later was purchased and owned by
Warner Bros. director
Chuck Jones.
* The
storyboard department, where a group of storymen (one of whom is portrayed by
Alan Ladd) test their idea for a new short on Benchley:
Baby Weems. The story is shown to the audience in the form of an
animatic, or a story reel, using
limited animation, and is considered among the Disney studio's best (if unsung) works. Alfred Weker, loaned out by
20th Century Fox to direct this film, later became the first outside film director to use the storyboard, which the Disney staff had developed from predecessive illustrated scripts during the early-
1930s.
* The room of animators
Ward Kimball,
Fred Moore, and
Norm Ferguson. Benchley watches Kimball animating
Goofy, and Ferguson animating
Pluto. He and the audiences are also treated to a preview of a new
Goofy cartoon,
How to Ride a Horse, the first of the many
how-to parodies in the
Goofy series. RKO released
How to Ride a Horse as a stand-alone short on
February 24 1950.
* Humphrey, who has been one step behind Benchley the entire film, finally apprehends him and delivers him in person to
Walt Disney, who is in the studio projection room about to screen a newly completed film. Disney invited Benchley to join them; to Benchley's slight embarrassment yet relief, the film they screen is a two-reel (twenty minute) short based upon the very book Benchley wanted Walt to adapt,
The Reluctant Dragon.
Release and reaction
The film was released in the middle of the
Disney animators' strike of
1941. Strikers picketed the film's premiere with signs that attacked Disney for unfair business practices, low pay, lack of recognition, and favoritism. Critics and audiences were put off by the fact that the film was not a new Disney animated feature in the vein of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or
Pinocchio, but essentially a collection of four short cartoons and various live-action vignettes.
The Reluctant Dragon cost $600,000 to make, but only returned $400,000 from the
box office.
Disney released the film on
VHS in
1991. In
2002, it was released on both
VHS and
DVD, alongside two
1937 short subject studio tours and three episodes of the
Disneyland television show, as "Walt Disney Treasures: Behind the Magic at the Disney Studio".
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List of package films*
List of animated feature films
