The Reluctant Dragon (1941 film)
The Reluctant Dragon is a 1941 American film produced by Walt Disney, directed by Alfred 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 radio 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 twenty minutes of the film are in black-and-white, and the remainder is in Technicolor. Most of the film is live-action, with four short animated segments inserted into the running time: a black-and-white segment featuring Casey Junior from Dumbo; and three Technicolor cartoons: Baby Weems, Goofy's How to Ride a Horse, and the extended-length short The Reluctant Dragon, based upon Kenneth Grahame's book of the same name. The total length of all animated parts is 40 minutes.
Overview
Opening
The film starts at Robert Benchley's home as he plays in his swimming pool, shooting darts at toy ducks. It turns out that he is delaying in trying to sell the rights of The Reluctant Dragon to studio head Walt Disney. Benchley's wife finally convinces him to approach Disney so they drive to the Walt Disney Studios. There, she leaves him at the studio gate while she goes shopping.Studio operations tour by Benchley
After his arrival, Benchley dodges an overly officious studio guide named Humphrey. As he wanders around the studio, Benchley stumbles upon a number of the Disney operations and learns about the traditional animation process, some of the facets of which are explained by a staff employee named Doris.- 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 grayscale and black-and-white to Technicolor, prompting the droll Benchley to 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 department. Doris presents a completed cel of the titular character from Bambi.
- The maquette-making department, which makes maquettes to help the animators envision a character from all sides. Some of the maquettes on display included Aunt Sarah, Si, and Am from Lady and the Tramp and Peter, Captain Hook, Tinker Bell, Mr. Smee, John and Michael Darling 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 admires. 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 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. Loaned out by 20th Century Fox to direct this film, Alfred Werker 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. He and the audience 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. After viewing the Goofy presentation, Benchley witnesses Ferguson animating Pluto.
- 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. As Benchley sits, he hands Disney the animated cel, the maquette, and discovers the centaurette in a pocket. Disney invites Benchley to join them; to Benchley's slight embarrassment yet relief, the film they screen is a two-reel short based upon the very book Benchley wanted Walt to adapt, The Reluctant Dragon.
''The Reluctant Dragon''
The Boy then goes to the Dragon's lair, where he is confronted not by a ferocious beast, but a shy, poetry-loving creature. Though surprised at seeing what a nice creature the Dragon is, the Boy befriends him. When he arrives back at the village, the Boy discovers that Sir Giles the Dragon slayer has arrived. He runs to tell the Dragon that he should fight him, only to be left disappointed when the Dragon announces that he never fights. The Boy visits Sir Giles, and it is revealed that Sir Giles is an old man. The Boy tells Sir Giles that the Dragon will never fight and they decide to visit him.
Sir Giles and the Boy visit the Dragon while he is having a picnic. It turns out that Sir Giles also loves to make up poetry, so The Dragon and Sir Giles serenade each other. The Boy then asks if he could recite a poem of his own. From this, he uses his chance to get a word in edgewise to shout at them to arrange the fight. The Dragon leaves but is persuaded back out of his cave when he is flattered by Sir Giles. Sir Giles and the Dragon eventually decide to fight, but as Sir Giles and the Boy leave, the Dragon realizes in shock that he has accidentally agreed to a fight and tries to tell Sir Giles and the boy that he changed his mind, but they ignore him and the dragon mutters to himself why he cannot just keep his big mouth shut. The next day, the villagers gather to watch the fight. Sir Giles arrives waiting for the Dragon.
Inside his cave, the Dragon is too scared to fight and cannot breathe fire. The Boy calling the Dragon a "Punk Poet" leads to the Dragon getting angry and eventually spitting flames. The Dragon jumps for joy as he is now ferocious. The fight ensues, with Sir Giles chasing the Dragon around with his sword and into the cave, where they drink tea and make noises to make it seem they are fighting. Out in the open, they charge at each other, creating an enormous cloud. Inside they dance, and Sir Giles reveals that it is time for the Dragon to be slain, but only for pretend, to which the Dragon gets excited. Sir Giles places his lance under the Dragon's arm, then the Dragon jumps out of the cloud and performs a dramatic death scene. The story ends with the Dragon being accepted into society, to which the Dragon recites a poem:
Sir Giles is drawn by the animators to somewhat resemble Don Quixote.
Closing
The film closes on Benchley and his wife driving home; she harangues him for failing to sell the movie and that by dilly-dallying, Benchley missed his chance to sell the rights, with Disney having already produced a film. He answers "phooey", in the style of Donald Duck.Release and reception
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. At one theater, sympathizers paraded down the street wearing a "dragon costume bearing the legend 'The Reluctant Disney'".Some 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. On the other hand, Photoplay said it was "one of the cleverest ideas to pop into that fertile mind of Walt Disney and results in this rare combination of a Cook's tour of the Disney studio, a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Mickey Mousedom and two of Disney's latest cartoon features... Cleverly thought out and executed."
The Reluctant Dragon cost $600,000 to make and returned $960,000 with $460,000 being generated in the U.S. and Canada.
Analysis
Modern critics have pointed out that the dragon's mannerisms can easily be interpreted as queer. Sean Griffin notes "the delight and acceptance of an effeminate male," saying, "The dragon sports long emotive eyelashes and contains not an aggressive bone in his body, with the dragon prancing and pirouetting throughout the story... There is no mistaking how the film makes fun of the dragon's mincing manner and prissy pretentions. Yet, the film also makes it quite clear that the dragon does not believe in fighting, and the film doesn't specifically make fun of him for that... Just as in Ferdinand the Bull, The Reluctant Dragon presents an easily red gay character under the guise of fantasy and shows characters accepting him as he is."Similarly, Tison Pugh writes, "The Reluctant Dragon casts adult heterosexuality as undesirable and celebrates children's sexuality as the innocence of unfulfilled expectations — with the Dragon mediating between these two viewpoints in a gender performance of baffling complexity. Both asexual and sexualized, normative and queer, this dragon erodes rigid binaries of desire in pursuit of poetry and interspecies fellowship that the film endorses in its quiet call to appreciate differences."
Home media release
Disney released the animated "Reluctant Dragon" segment on VHS in 1987, along with the short Morris the Midget Moose and again in 1988 as part of the Walt Disney Mini-Classics series. The full feature was released on VHS in an edition sold only at Disney Stores.On December 3, 2002, the original full-length feature was released on DVD in its original theatrical form as .
In 2007, it was again released in its original theatrical version on DVD, this time as a Disney Movie Club exclusive DVD, available only to club members for mail or online ordering. Shortly afterward, this DVD was also made available in the Disney Movie Rewards program along with some of the other Movie Club exclusives.
The "Reluctant Dragon" segment is the main attraction, along with three other cartoon shorts, on the Disney Animation Collection Volume 6 DVD, which was released in America on May 19, 2009. The other films bundled with it were Ferdinand the Bull, Goliath II and Johnny Appleseed. In the UK, the "Reluctant Dragon" segment was paired with Mickey and the Beanstalk and released during 2004 on DVD as Disney Fables Volume 6.
On August 12, 2014, the full-length feature version of The Reluctant Dragon was released in HD as a bonus feature on The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad/Fun and Fancy Free Blu-ray set.