Saludos Amigos was born out of a goodwill tour Walt Disney took to South America during World War II. In August of 1941 Walt, his wife Lillian, and about 15 of his artists, animators, musicians, and writers set out on a two month journey. The United States government had asked Walt to do the goodwill tour in hopes of preventing Nazi ties with the South American people. Walt didn’t want to just shake hands but also wanted to create films inspired by the tour to further the Good Neighbor Program. The results were Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros (1944) which captured modern South American life and culture.
Premiered: August 24, 1942 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Directed by: Bill Roberts, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Wilfred Jackson (sequences)
Produced by: Walt Disney
Sequels: The Three Caballeros (1944)
Cast:
Fred Shields – Narrator
Clarence Nash – Donald Duck
Pinto Colvig – Goofy
José Oliveira – José Carioca
Music by:
Edward Plumb
Paul Smith
Ned Washington
Charles Wolcott
Songs:
“Saludos Amigos”
“Aquarela do Brasil” by Ary Barroso
Academy Awards:
Best Musical Score (nomination)
Best Song – “Saludos Amigos” (nomination)
Best Sound Recording (nomination)
The Story:
Saludos Amigos begins with opening credits, to a song of the same name, with an outline of South America in the background. The credits include a list of the four short features: Lake Titicaca, Pedro, El Gaucho Goofy, and Aquarela do Brasil, and a dedication from Walt. He wrote “With sincere appreciation for the courtesy and cooperation shown us by the artists, musicians and our many friends in Latin America.”
There is a live action shot of Walt’s creative team boarding an airplane bound for South America. A narrator is explaining the purpose of the trip as finding inspiration for artists, musicians, and writers to find new personalities, dances, and music styles for their cartoon films.
The film switches from live action to animation as the plane heads down to South America. The plane is flying over a vibrant map to show where all their destinations are. Their first stop is Rio de Janeiro and then they head down to Buenos Aires. After, they head over the Argentine Pampas (agricultural low lands) before splitting into two team in Córdoba. One team heads over the Andes into Chile and the other head up to Bolivia, Peru, and Lake Titicaca.
A live action plane is shown landing and then we see scenes of Lake Titicaca and the local fishermen, with the narrator talking about their history. The next shot is of a colourful market and the narrator says that people come from miles around to sell their goods. Music is heard and the melodies have been handed down by their ancestors. Donkeys and llamas are shown while the narrator talks about what strong personalities the llamas have. Artwork by the animators of the locals and their customs is shown as a travel log before switching back to animation.
Donald Duck is looking out on Lake Titicaca while sitting on top of a sign that reads “Lago Titicaca. Altura 3812 Metros” and the narrator warns him about getting altitude sickness. In true Donald fashion he is determined he will not be susceptible to the sickness but ends up with all the symptoms. Donald has a camera and is talking pictures of the basket boats in the lake. The narrator talks about how durable the boat is but when Donald gets in, he manages to unweave the entire thing. Donald then gets in a new boat while the narrator warns about sudden strong winds. The wind sends Donald shooting off of the lake and right into a baker’s pile of dough. Donald then heads to the market and takes pictures of the locals. A young boy plays his homemade flute and is able to control his llama. Donald befriends the boy and wants to try to control the llama as well. The llama is not impressed when Donald makes him dance. Donald then rides the llama up a step mountain into the low clouds. Before he realizes the danger, they end up on a sketchy suspension bridge and poor Donald is terrified. The bridge breaks and the llama barely makes it to the other side but Donald ends up falling down and into a pottery shop. He lands in a large pot, slides down the hill into Lake Titicaca, and paddles away.
The film is live action again as the other team’s plane is taking off from Chile. The inside of the plane is shown with the artists working on their drawings. No cameras were allowed where they were so they have to make the sketches by memory. They were told stories of the pioneer mail planes that flew over the Andes and were inspired to use those stories in their cartoon. One artist draws a personified little plane and a typed up message reads “ Once upon a time in a little airport near Santiago Chile, there lived three airplanes.”
The animation begins with an airplane hangar that is home to a Papa plane, a Mama plane, and a baby plane named Pedro. The Papa plane carries mail between Santiago and Mendoza, Argentina. Pedro goes to school to learn the ABCs of flying. One day Papa catches a cold so he can’t fly the mail. Mama can’t fly the mail because she has high oil pressure so it was up to Pedro to get the mail from Mendoza. Pedro is excited and confident about the task but has trouble taking off. He finally makes it up into the mountains but he has to beware of downdrafts. He sees the big bully he had been warned about, Aconcagua the highest mountain in the Western hemisphere. But Pedro makes it past and picks up the mail in Mendoza like a pro. He heads for home, ahead of schedule and confident so he starts to show off some of his tricks. He meets a vulture and chases him. The chase completely distracts Pedro from his responsibilities and suddenly he is face to face with Aconcagua! Pedro gets caught up in a huge storm and keeps getting turned around. He loses the mail and nose dives down into the Andes to retrieve it, despite the warnings from the narrator. He finds the mail and tries to get above the storm. When he finally does, Pedro runs out of gas and falls back down into the stormy Andes. Back at the home field, his parents search the skies for him but do not believe he could have survived the storm. Somehow Pedro does survive and makes it home. Inside the mail bag is only one post card, which Pedro risked his life for.
The animated map is back and shows the plane crossing the Pampas and heading to Buenos Aires. There are live action shots of Buenos Aires shown and the narrator talks about how impressed Walt’s team was with both the big city and the Pampas. They saw pictures of gauchos (Argentine cowboys) and wanted to meet them. Walt and his team are then shown interacting with gauchos and sharing a meal with them. During the meal, skilled dancers entertained everyone with traditional country dances. The gauchos served as the inspiration for the next cartoon as they reminded the animators of the American cowboy. An animated map of Texas is shown as that is where they are looking for their leading man. The film zooms in on the landscape and cowboy Goofy is found. This segment is again narrated but almost every object that the narrator mentions is said in both English and Spanish.
Goofy is whisked down to Argentina and is shown the differences between his outfit and the traditional gauchos’ clothes. Goofy first is dressed in every outfit, complete with a poncho that covers it all. Goofy is then given a horse companion who does not behave and is more in control of Goofy than the other way around. Goofy and his horse then have an authentic barbeque meal before participating in the sport of catching rheas (relatives of the ostrich). A bird is captured and tied in one motion using a bolas. The narrator suggests to study the action in slow motion but somehow Goofy manages to throw the bolas and capture himself, his horse, and the bird in one bundle. The next scene is at nighttime and Goofy and his horse are camping out under the stars. Goofy is playing the guitar and is singing a romantic ballad but the music is revealed to actually be coming from a record player. Goofy starts to dance the different traditional country dances before being sent back to his homeland.
The animated map then shows focus on Rio de Janeiro and live action views of the city are shown. The live action is turned into artwork of the city and a drawing of a parrot is seen. The parrot is based on Old Papagaio, a bird from Brazilian stories, and with the help of the wardrobe department the parrot becomes Joe Carioca. The music of Brazil, the Samba, is heavily featured for the rest of the film. The Samba is the music that captivates the whole city when it is carnival time and footage of everyone dancing at the carnival is shown. The narrator describes the carnival of three days of singing, dancing, and celebration. It has the spirit of Mardi Gras and New Year’s Eve rolled into one. Every year hundreds of songs are written for the carnival and each composer hopes that their song will become that year’s big hit. One song stood out to Walt’s team to be the perfect background music for a film about the beauty of Brazil.
Credits are shown of “Aquarela do Brasil” (Watercolors of Brazil) which is the song featured in this segment. A blank piece of paper is shown with an animated artist painting a landscape on the paper. The paintbrush fills in the colours of the water first and paints with watercolour the beautiful tropical landscape. There are palm trees, flamingos, and bananas that turn into toucans. Donald Duck appears and the paintbrush paints him a parrot friend. The parrot hands him a card that says “ José Carioco. Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.” Donald slowly sounds out the words and José quickly corrects his pronunciation. José asks Donald if he has a card and Donald accidently hands José an ace of spades but then finds his card which reads “Donald Duck. Hollywood” José is very excited that he gets to meet THE Donald Duck! José insists on showing Donald the town and teaches him the Samba. José can turn objects such as his umbrella and Donald’s hat in to musical instruments but much to Donald’s dismay, he doesn’t have the same talent. Donald gets over his disappointment and ventures off with José. The paintbrush paints them a little café and they have a drink. The paintbrush then paints a beautiful Samba dancer for Donald to dance with and the shot zooms out of an animated Rio de Janeiro.
Trivia:
- Saludos Amigos was released in the U.S. on February 6, 1943.
- A documentary of Walt’s trip to South America was made in 2008 titled Walt & El Grupo. If you are having trouble finding the complete version Saludos Amigos, it is included in the DVD of this documentary as a bonus feature.
- The film refers to the bird El Gaucho Goofy is chasing as an ostrich, or avestruz in Spanish, but since ostriches are only native to Africa, the bird is actually a rhea.
- Saludos Amigos is the shortest Disney animated feature film at 42 minutes.
- This was Mary Blair’s first project for Walt Disney. Her bright and bold style went on to influence the artistic look of Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. She is also well-known for creating the whimsical design of the classic attraction it’s a small world.
- The postcard that Pedro has in his mailbag is addressed to a Jorge Delano from a Juan Carlos. Jorge Delano was a cartoonist and filmmaker from Chile who Walt met on the tour. Juan Carlos hosted a party for Walt and his team in Mendoza, Argentina.
Representation in the Disney Parks:
The Three Caballeros is represented in the Disney Parks, which include some characters from Saludos Amigos, but there is nothing exclusively from this film. Come back next week to find out where The Three Caballeros is represented!
Check out the other films of Disney’s Package Era:
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