Year Released:1957
Michael's Movie Grade:A
History
Perri was the first True Life Fantasy film to come out of the Disney studio. True Life Fantasies have a lot in common with Disney's True Life Adventures. However these films instead of being straight nature documentaries, would use nature photography footage to help tell a fictional story. A subject to use for this idea was found in Felix Salten's book Perri. The Disney studio had already adapted a Felix Salten book for the animated feature Bambi.
One of the directors on this film was N. Paul Kenworthy, who worked as a photographer on the first Disney feature length nature documentary The Living Desert. The other director was Ralph Wright. Ralph Wright had directed the Disney documentary short Saim, but may be better know to Disney fans as a writer for the studio's animated films. He worte for shorts such as Donald's Crime, No Sail and Plutopia, as well as features such as Bambi, Peter Pan, and Lady and the Tramp.
This film featured the use of nine cameramen, including co-director N. Paul Kenworthy Jr., and Walt's nephew Roy Edward Disney. These cameramen spent two years filming in the Uintah National Forest of Utah so that they could get enough usable footage for the film. They also spent a winter in Jackson Hole Wyoming, Though they got 200,000 feet of footage. only 8,000 feet were actually used in the film.
Perri was quite successful at the box office, and was somewhat successful with critics as well.
Review
Incredibly lovely film.
Thanks to the film having more of a story-line, and it being more character driven than the straightforward nature documentaries from the studio, the narration and humor are no longer intrusive upon the rest of the film. While that felt out of place in those films, they work great here. They help in establishing this film's great characters. Perri and Toro are in fact just as great as the animal characters in Disney's animated films. This film not only doesn't have as strong of faults as those in previous Disney nature films, but it still does everything that made those films good just as well, and sometimes even better. The photography is amazing. Every moment is just beautiful to look at. The fiction aspect of this story even allows for some great moments of film making that would not appear in a straightforward nature documentary. The dream sequence for instance is fantastic. The mixing of documentary and fiction film making is great here.
Overall this is one of Disney's most overlooked gems. A must see.
Film Credits
Directors: N. Paul Kenworthy, Ralph Wright
Writers: Ralph Wright, Winston Hibler
Based on a book by Felix Salten
Narrator: Winston Hibler
Producers: Winston Hibler, Walt Disney
Music: Paul J. Smith
Songwriters: Hazel George, George Bruns, Winston Hibler, Paul J. Smith, Ralph Wright
Photographers: Joel Colman, Roy Edward Disney, Warren Garst, John P. Hermann, N. Paul Kenworthy, David Meyer, Walter Perkins, William Ratcliffe, James R. Simon
Editor: Jack Atwood
Production Manager: Louis Debney
Sound Artist: Robert O. Cook
Special Effects: Ub Iwerks, Joshua Meador, Peter Ellenshaw
Resources Used
The Disney Films by Leonard Maltin
-Michael J. Ruhland
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