Magazine
THE BAND CONCERT
By Peter Adamakos
For many years, the 1935 Mickey Mouse short THE BAND CONCERT led the lists of "best cartoons ever made" or came very close to the top position. Over the years, as we could see more animation from countries outside North America, as television dominated, and games and features multiplied, the individual cartoon short and this one fell from active consciousness.
I still think THE BAND CONCERT is one of the very best animated films ever done, and I include it whenever in the classroom, at film retrospectives we organize, and when professional animators get together. It gets a great reception each time.
The year 1935 was a watershed year for Walt Disney. Viewing his films chronologically, you see improvements year to year of course, but there is a true demarcation in the films of 1935. This, I think, is when Disney and his talented associates "got it together" and after this date they truly could do anything in animation.
In 1935 the Disney Studio is bustling with activity. Employment is doubling every six months, and the decision to send the artists back to art school is paying off in increased ability and confidence, and a boldness in all aspects. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS is in full story and character development, so creative juices are cooking at full steam, and it carries on into the studio's short cartoons as well.
The cartoon series SILLY SYMPHONIES is undergoing a rebirth. After the success of THREE LITTLE PIGS in 1933 nothing has matched it but in 1935 comes a succession of wonderful shorts that are even more full of Disney invention, detail, characterization and fun. Silly Symphonies of 1935 like MUSIC LAND, THREE ORPHAN KITTENS, COOKIE CARNIVAL, WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN, and BROKEN TOYS are little masterpieces.
The Mickey Mouse series is no longer Mickey again saving Minnie from Pete but has new stories as well. Mickey joins Donald and Goofy in MICKEY'S SERVICE STATION, the first of many trio adventures that played off their personalities. Seeing how three different characters with distinct differing personalities react to a single problem or situation is of course, the essence of writing for animation characters. It's a short jump from the trio to the seven dwarfs.
The year 1935 begins with a bang, the release of THE BAND CONCERT. It was directed by Wilfred Jackson, one of Disney's first California employees from the silent days. The cartoon is regular length, bit has the distinction right off the bat as the first Technicolor Mickey Mouse cartoon.
Disney had acquired exclusive rights to full three-strip Technicolor, now employing every color rather than the earlier limited display, for the cartoon medium. The Silly Symphonies went into full color production in 1932 with FLOWERS AND TREES, but the Mickey Mouse shorts, the studio's prime asset, remained in black and white.
Costs were certainly a factor, raising the budget by a third for color films over black and white ones, but there was also a reluctance to tempt fate, a desire to leave Mickey as he was known and liked. By 1935, however, Disney's monopoly on Technicolor for cartoons was ending, and everyone else in the industry would go to Technicolor. (He should not have worried. Except for a few Specials, the Fleischer Popeye cartoons remained in black and white, as did Betty Boop. Warners went to color years later, but still made black and white cartoons as late as 1942!) And so Mickey was going to have his face painted a pale pink, and we'd finally see the color of his shorts and shoes.
The story for Mickey's first short was straightforward- Mickey was conducting a band playing outdoors in a park. Weekend afternoons at a park were often accompanied by a band playing, and a park about a mile away from me still has a gazebo-like small stage for a band in the middle of the park. Mickey's band consists of Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar from his black-and-white days, making their farewell appearance until the ORPHAN'S BENEFIT remake and a couple of minor appearances after that. With cohorts like Donald and Goofy being developed, who needed them any more? Goofy appears, but pretty much as an extra and has nothing more to do than the other musicians. Peter Pig was introduced in WISE LITTLE HEN, where he made no impact on audiences. His appearance here will be his last. His sidekick in WISE LITTLE HEN, Donald Duck, did make an impact, and he has appeared in ORPHAN'S BENEFIT and THE DOG-NAPPER since, but has not yet fully developed. He has a long bill and it will be another year plus before he has the Dick Lundy redesigned look we all know. There are other minor characters in the band as well.
Mickey's personality holds the band together, determined to do a good job. He is in a word, determined, stern and forceful. Naturally this sets up for conflict. A pesky bee bedevils him and the musicians. The comedy builds as the bee initiates behavior that stars off as mere swatting and ends with a musician getting his head bashed in.
While playing "The Storm", a piece of music so full and violent in expression that extra notes are taped onto the sheets of music, overflowing the page, a real tornado arrives, pulling up trees, wrecking the park, even swallowing up a flying cow (like TWISTER.) Determined Mickey keeps conducting, the musicians keep playing amid the debris as they too are swallowed up and spun around (still playing) inside the tornado.
Throughout, Mickey's real nemesis is Donald Duck. He is not one of the band members but a food-cart vendor selling ice cream, lemonade, and peanuts. His harking his wares first annoys Mickey. Donald produces a fife and starts playing a tune different from the band. The band is playing the William Tell Overture, but soon switches to Donald's tune, Turkey in the Straw, in spite of themselves.
Mickey grabs the fife, breaks it in two and gets the musicians back on track. Donald seems to have an in-exhaustable supply of fifes and produces a new one each time Mickey breaks one. At one point Donald breaks it himself and hands it to Mickey, laughing all the while. It's a perfect finish to the business beforehand, and points up the characters' personalities in this film--the free spirit Donald versus the tight-assed Mickey.
The film is a marvel in the way it plays out. The animation is excellent, filled with small details that add to the whole. Mickey is wearing a conductor's uniform two sizes too large. He is constantly pulling up a sleeve that falls over his hand. The timing of this simple gesture here and there throughout the picture is a marvel, because it always happens differently- sometimes casually, sometimes with determination, but always at an awkward moment, done funny. The little bee preening itself atop the hat that will soon be bashed in is another detail funny in its timing and execution. The Mickey-Donald relationship builds in intensity and comedy, a marvel of good writing. There is no Minnie or Pluto to confuse things--just Mickey playing off Donald and the tornado.
The tornado itself is beautifully animated, both outside and from the inside. Animators would benefit by studying the simple but effective effects employed. Anyone doubting that animation IS movement should look at the scenes inside the tornado. Compare this to the tornado in the 1931 Silly Symphony THE UGLY DUCKLING (not the later color 1939 remake, the earlier original version.) The tornado is well done but not as sophisticated in approach as in THE BAND CONCERT. The music during the two tornado scenes, by the way, is the same in both films!
There is another musical noteworthy note as well. Donald is full of mischief, playing Turkey in the Straw to the consternation of authority figure Mickey. This old standard symbolizes his laissez- faire attitude toward everything, fun for the moment, as opposed to Mickey. In his first sound film, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), Mickey was a similar free spirit, playing music, just having fun for the moment, to the consternation of authority figure Black Pete, the riverboat's captain. The tune that Mickey was playing? Turkey in the Straw. So it's come full circle. Mickey is now the studio's authority figure and the new mischief-maker in town is Donald Duck, mocking him with his own song.
There are a couple of awkward moments--when the tornado appears everyone but Mickey and the band run for their lives. Then the park benches get up and run out also. Mother benches urge the little benches on, men benches have abandoned hats on them as they run. It's a throwback to the early Mickeys and Silly Symphonies when shoes and other inanimate objects danced just for the sake of dancing. It feels even more out of place in color. One last gasp of the old days.
At one moment, Goofy and Clarabelle Cow are playing their musical instruments. Goofy inserts his into Clarabelle's, their eyes go glassy (romantic?) and they each reach over to play the other's instrument. It's amusing on its own without reading into it, but shows it was made in a different era.
Best of all, perhaps, is the timing in the film. The action timed to the music is perfection. A single frame, more OR less, can make something even funnier, and that talent is performed to perfection in this film. Every time I see it I know the tornado is coming later on, but I'm always a little surprised when it does. The film up to then has been such a joy to both watch and listen to, that they could have ended it there and had delivered a satisfying film. Every moment is thus satisfying and complete in itself. The effect of watching and listening to the film is mesmerizing. It hypnotizes you, lulls you, as it amuses you. You know you are in the hands of master talents.
Bring together all these elements: story, characterization, color, music, detail and so on, in a perfect mix that stands the test of 65 years, is what animation and all creative endeavors is all about. Is it any wonder that THE BAND CONCERT is one of the highlighted episodes of Mickey's career in all the books, TV specials and the like whenever he has a major anniversary? Today there are little PVC figures of Mickey in his conductor's uniform as well as buttons, pewter figurines etc. An original cel and background sold for over $100,000 at auction.
The film was not nominated for the Academy Award the next year. It was Disney's policy to enter Silly Symphonies which needed the publicity. THREE ORPHAN KITTENS and WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN were entered by Disney, nominated, and the former got the Oscar.
I have spoken to older people over the years about the early cinema, and when the topic goes to animation, they mention favorite characters, and the three specific individual cartoons that are mentioned are THREE LITTLE PIGS, BAND CONCERT and FERDINAND THE BULL. They may not remember the title, but "you know, it's the one where Mickey Mouse is conducting an orchestra in a cyclone" is the type of comment I get.
It was well received when it first came out. Arturo Toscanini saw it six times, having the theater manager run it six times in a row on the night he saw it. He then invited Disney to Italy. Renowned critic Gilbert Seldes called it "Disney's greatest single work." In his book THE DISNEY VERSION later critic Richard Shickel quoted Seldes and added that this was "a judgment that stands the test of time." Seldes went on: "In no other picture have I observed so many flashing details. During the tornado itself there is the general line of comedy...but there are moments in this scene where the screen seems to be animated by dozens of separate episodes. They are miraculous if you catch them and even if you do not the effect is miraculous still."
Another judgment that stands the test of time. In an era of television animation and one-note comedy animation films elsewhere, it's refreshing to revisit for seven minutes what amounts to a trailer for all that animation can and should be, the seamless weaving together of all its magical elements to create a new entity. THE BAND CONCERT is, as Seldes said, miraculous. It's my favourite animation short for that very reason. If you haven't seen it, try to rent it, even if only on video. If you have seen it long ago, see it again now that you know so much more about animation than you did when you first saw it. Maybe your reaction to it will be what mine is each time it ends. I find myself taking in a deep breath and giving a sigh.
Usual Peter ID here.
He can be reached at e-mail or at P.O. Box 37009, 3332 McCarthy Road, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada KlV OWO.
