Walt Disney had long been an admirer of the Tales of Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris and had originally planned to make SONG OF THE SOUTH as a fully animated feature. To cut costs during the war years, Disney had begun to stray from his sole dependence on animated characters and dabble in the use of live action footage starting with THREE CABALLEROS. With SONG OF THE SOUTH in 1946, the studio released its first feature that was primarily a live action story. It was supplemented with three animated tales narrated by Uncle Remus, played by black actor James Baskett, who won a special Academy Award for his performance. The movie proved to be a major transitional phase in the studio’s history, leading the way to TREASURE ISLAND — Disney’s first all live-action feature — four years later.
While reviews of the time generally hailed the film, critics were almost unanimous in their praise for Brer Rabbit’s cartoon adventures, while less enthusiastic about the live action sequences.
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The film became one of the studio’s most controversial films. Even on its original release, liberal newspapers complained that the film depicted blacks as servants and therefore fostered a negative stereotype. (One wonders if they felt they should have been portrayed as plantation owners in a story that takes place in the antebellum South.) In 1970, Disney announced that the film would be permanently pulled from circulation. However, a year later, SONG OF THE SOUTH was reissued to theatres. While the studio has released all of its animated films to video, SONG OF THE SOUTH remains elusive, although it has appeared on laser disc in Japan. (Presumably, racial sensibilities are less potent and political correctness less an issue in Asia.) Interestingly, the laser has subtitles only during the songs.
For all its charm and technical wizardry, the film has been reissued only twice. Perhaps now that Disney’s other missing-in-action feature, THE BLACK CAULDRON, has finally found its way to home video, it’s time for SONG OF THE SOUTH to again see light of a projector’s lamp.
