Melody Time (1948)
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Melody Time Movie Review
Melody Time is a 1948 animated musical anthology film which is Disney’s tenth feature film. It’s in my opinion the weakest of all the package films.
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“Don’t blame them,
blame it on the rhythm of the samba“
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It is an inferior sequel to ‘Make Mine Music’, but thankfully it has less segments at the number seven. The first one is called Once Upon a Wintertime and it is a perfectly fine piece and one of the better segments in the film. The music and story are solid and, even though it is all pretty forgettable, it is at least very charming and pleasing in style.
Bumble Boogie is the next segment which is totally done in the style of ‘Fantasia’, featuring surreal imagery and classical music. It is artistic, but pretty short and highly forgettable. It’s fine for what it is, but I honestly find it rather overrated. It’s just way too short to make a bigger impact and that’s one of this film’s problems – the segments range from quite long to very short and thus it ended up being uneven in runtime and pacing.
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The film’s third and probably most famous segment is The Legend of Johnny Appleseed. It is very long, clocking in at 17 minutes. It is about the pioneer who introduced apple trees to large parts of America and in that regard, it is quite educational. It is engaging and it has some sort of characterization, but the narration often gets overwhelming which is the usual problem most package films share. But still I found the main character very well realized, the story has its fine fantastical elements, it’s rather inspirational and a good historical lesson which is particularly well animated with a beautiful, interesting art style.
Little Toot is about a small tugboat who wants to be just like his father and it is pretty much the most childish segment here. It is one of the lesser efforts in the film owing to incredible similarities with Pedro, a segment from ‘Saludos Amigos’. It’s a rehash and a very overrated segment which most love, but I personally do not.
Trees is the next segment which is also presented in style of ‘Fantasia’ with dreamlike and melancholy imagery and no plot whatsoever. It also has an unfortunate feel of Blue Bayou from ‘Make Mine Music’ to the point of being a rip-off once again.
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Blame It on the Samba is the segment in which Donald Duck and José Carioca meet the Aracuan Bird, who introduces them to the pleasures of the samba. It is a pleasant reminder of ‘The Three Caballeros’ and ‘Saludos Amigos’ and is one of the best segments in the film mostly owing to excellent music as the titular song is phenomenal, very catchy and the most memorable piece in the whole film. It’s a rather underrated, wonderfully upbeat Latino musical number. I also found the segment’s animation very eccentric, colorful, hallucinatory and probably the best work in the entire film. It’s truly the best segment in the film along with Johnny Appleseed.
The film’s final segment is about Texas’ famous hero Pecos Bill who was raised by coyotes and it is, at 22 minutes, the lengthiest segment. I don’t know what to think about this one. On the one hand, the animation is nice and the score is particularly effective at recreating a western feel to it as the story is definitely one of the rare westerns for Disney. It has a memorable ending and solid characterization. However, the plot remains rather silly, especially in some ludicrous plot points, and I just found it to be much less important or effective at recreating a historical period piece than Johnny Appleseed.
Melody Time is pretty underwhelming. The animation is subpar with some obviously artistic and inspired exceptions. The music is so-so. Some pieces are terrific, but some are too contemporary and thus dated now. The segments are incredibly unrelated, possibly the most of all package film. It is also very uneven, there are two segments which are very long and the rest are very short making it seem very uneven in the editing department.
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I do realize that this movie was most definitely great for the audiences of its time, but nowadays it’s rather dated. It’s also quite overrated as most would deem it to be better than its predecessor when it simply isn’t. Unlike its predecessor, none of the segments here are truly weak and it has 7 instead of 10 segments which is a good thing, but it also lacks in truly great stories which the first movie most definitely had.
Melody Time is inferior to its predecessor ‘Make Mine Music’. It does have a couple of very good segments such as Blame It on the Samba fueled by terrific animation and a fun titular number and of course The Legend of Johnny Appleseed which is an effective, very well told historical lesson. But most of the other segments are either overly familiar or too short and forgettable leading to a highly uneven in quality, problematic movie which is the weakest of the package films.
