True-Life Adventures: The Origin of the Jungle Cruise

Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventures was a documentary series produced between 1948 and 1960. This series consisted of seven half-hour featurettes and seven full-length feature films. The entire film series was narrated by Winston Hibler. Many of these films won Academy Awards, including Walt’s famous 1954 wins where he holds the record for the most wins for a single person in a year. Out of his four wins, two of them were for True-Life Adventure films, Bear Country and The Living Desert.  The True-Life Adventures served as the main inspiration for the original Jungle Cruise attraction, particularly The African Lion. Other Disney nature documentaries have been inspired by the original True-Life Adventures such as the television show in 2000, The New True-Life Adventures, and the popular DisneyNature films which had its first release, Earth, in 2007.

Short Films:

Seal Island
Released: December 21, 1948
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by: Walt Disney and Ben Sharpsteen
Music by: Oliver Wallace

The very first True-Life Adventure film takes place on the Pribilof Islands in Alaska. Walt Disney asked naturalists Alfred and Elma Milotte to capture some general footage of Alaska, without really having a specific story in mind. When Walt saw the raw footage, he loved the shots of the fur seals and asked the couple to focus on them. The result was the half-hour Seal Island featurette and the start of True-Life Adventures. Disney’s distributor, RKO Pictures, did not think that a nature documentary would do well in theatres so they refused to release Seal Island.  Instead Walt asked a friend of his, who owned a theatre to run the film for one week in order to qualify for the Oscars. Sure enough, Seal Island won Best Live Action Short Subject (Two-Reel) and RKO Pictures was more than happy to distribute Seal Island and any other True-Life Adventure short films.

Synopsis: Fur seals gather on the islands in the spring to find a mate. The young males challenge the older bulls for the females which would result in a fight. In the fall months, the herds migrate to the Pacific Ocean to spend the winter.

Beaver Valley
Released: July 19, 1950
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by: Walt Disney
Music by: Paul Smith

Beaver Valley, another half-hour featurette, also featured nature footage by Alfred and Elma Milotte shot in the Rocky Mountains. At the 1951 Academy Awards, Beaver Valley won Best Live Action Short Subject (Two-Reel) and at the first Berlin International Film Festival, it won a Golden Bear for Best Documentary.

Synopsis: A beaver shares his living space in the Rocky Mountains with moose, deer, raccoons, otters, crayfish, and frogs.

Nature’s Half Acre
Released: July 28, 1951
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by: Walt Disney
Music by: Paul Smith

The third True-Life Adventure short film, Nature’s Half Acre, featured footage by cinematographers Murl Deusing and John Nash Ott. Most of the footage used was time-lapse photography and microphotography showing an ordinary meadow. Nature’s Half Acre won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject (Two-Reel) and was initially released as a featurette playing before Alice in Wonderland.

Synopsis: Nature’s Half Acre focuses on the insects and plants of a small meadow. The film goes through each season and shows how the life here survives.

The Olympic Elk
Released: February 13, 1952.
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by: Walt Disney
Music by: Paul Smith

Filming took place in Olympic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. This was the first True-Life Adventure to not be nominated for an Academy Award.

Synopsis: A study of the Olympic elk, also known as the Roosevelt elk, which shows their lives throughout the seasons. The elk live in the Pacific coast rain forest during the winter and then move to the summer feeding grounds. September is mating season when the males battle for reign of the herd.

Water Birds
Released: June 26, 1952
Directed by: Ben Sharpsteen
Produced by: Walt Disney
Music by: Paul Smith

Water Birds was created with the help of the National Audubon Society and the Denver Museum of Natural History. This half-hour featurette won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject (Two-Reel) in 1953.

Synopsis: This film shows different accounts of the lives of water birds. It features how each bird is adapted to their specific environment such as the different shapes and sizes of their beaks and bodies. The feeding habits and courtship rituals of the birds are main topics of the film.

Bear Country
Released: February 5, 1953
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by: Ben Sharpsteen
Music by: Paul Smith

Filmed on location in Yellowstone Nation Park in Wyoming, Bear Country won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject (Two-Reel). It was released along with Peter Pan.

Synopsis: This half-hour featurette focuses on the lives of black bears in Yellowstone Nation Park. Their story begins from the time they are born and taught survival by their mothers to living their lives on their own as adults.

Prowlers of the Everglades
Released: July 23, 1953
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by: Ben Sharpsteen
Music by: Paul Smith

Prowlers of the Everglades features footage by Alfred and Elma Milotte. They filmed in Everglades National Park which is at the very bottom tip of Florida. This half-hour featurette shows many aspects of the everglades but focuses on the alligator. It was promoted with the tagline: King of Nature’s Most Mysterious Swamp!

Synopsis: Prowlers of the Everglades features the habits of many animals such as raccoons, skunks, otters, and different species of birds. The alligator rules the swamplands and consumes all of the diversities of wildlife.

Feature Films:

The Living Desert
Released: November 10, 1953
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by:  Walt Disney and Ben Sharpsteen
Music by: Paul Smith

Once again, Walt had a hard time convincing RKO Pictures the value of a documentary, though this time it was a full-length feature film. Walt and Roy ended up deciding to distribute their own films and parted ways with RKO Pictures. They set up Buena Vista Distribution, which still distributes all of Disney’s films to this day. Filmed in Tucson, Arizona, The Living Desert was made with a budget of $500 000 but made $5 Million in its original release. It won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature as well as awards at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, and a special achievement award at the Golden Globes. The Living Desert was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2000.

Synopsis: This film demonstrations the everyday life of the animals and plants of the deserts in the American Southwest. Animals featured are scorpions, rattlesnakes, kangaroo rats, roadrunners, and desert tortoises. The film ends with a flash flood which causes the beautiful plant life to blossom after the rain.

The Vanishing Prairie
Released: August 16, 1954
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by: Walt Disney and Ben Sharpsteen
Music by: Paul Smith

Cinematographer Tom McHugh led a team of 12 photographers on an adventure throughout the interior of North America. They explored many locations such as the Mississippi River, the mighty Rockies, the Canadian grasslands, and all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.  The theme music was reused in the Disney film Westward Ho, the Wagons (1956) with added lyrics written by Hazel George. The Vanishing Prairie won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and also won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Synopsis: The Vanishing Prairie has a typical theme of survival through the changing of the seasons. It features the stories of bighorn sheep, mountain lions, pronghorn antelope, prairie dogs, and buffalo.

The African Lion
Released: September 14, 1955
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by: Ben Sharpsteen
Music by: Paul Smith

The African Lion was filmed over three years on the African savannah by Alfred and Elma Milotte. They took their time and would continuously film until they got enough footage to make an interesting documentary. The finished product only used about 6% of the total footage the couple filmed. A behind the scenes television show was released, along with Beaver Valley, on December 29, 1954. The African Lion won an award at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Synopsis: This True-Life Adventure not only focuses on the life of the lions but also other animals on the savannah such as giraffes, elephants, baboons, and rhinoceroses. This film shows the complex African ecosystems including the effects a drought will have on the animals. The story ends with an eventual tropical storm which brings new life to the savannah.

Secrets of Life
Released: November 6, 1956
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by: Ben Sharpsteen
Music by: Paul Smith

The technique of time-lapse photography was heavily used in this film. Secrets of Life does not only focus on life on land but also the sea and sky. This documentary wanted to let the audience know how complex every aspect of life can be and how a small protozoa can fit into the big picture of unseen nature.

Synopsis: Secrets of Life generally focuses on the themes of survival and reproduction with examples of numerous different species. Animal species featured are stickleback fish, spiders, bees, and ants. Many plants are features as well with a focus on their airborne seeds. The grand finale is a volcanic eruption.

Perri
Released: August 28, 1957
Directed by: N. Kenworthy Jr. and Ralph Wright
Produced by: Winston Hibler
Music by: Paul Smith

Perri was the first and only “True-Life Fantasy,” meaning it was a combination of a documentary with fictional characters and fictional plot. It was based off of Felix Salten’s story Perri: The Youth of a Squirrel. Felix Salten also wrote the story that inspired Bambi. The original story takes place in Europe but Disney filmed in the forests of Utah and Wyoming. Perri was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Musical Score but lost to The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Synopsis: Perri is a young female pine squirrel who lives in the forest and finds a mate named Porro. Her father sacrificed himself to save Perri and her brothers from a marten when they were young.There are three seasons in the film: Time of Beauty, Time of Peace, and Together Time.

White Wilderness
Released: August 12, 1958
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by: Walt Disney and Ben Sharpsteen
Music by: Oliver Wallace

Filmed in Canada’s subarctic and Alaska’s wilderness, White Wilderness won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Cinematographers Hugh A. Wilmar, James R. Simon, and Herb Crisler, along with his wife Lois, spent three years collecting footage for this film.

Synopsis: Some of the animals featured in White Wilderness were wolves, wolverines, polar bears, musk ox, caribou, beluga whales, seals, and walruses. Scenes depicted the wildlife hunting, playing, and migrating.

Jungle Cat
Released: December 16, 1959
Directed by: James Algar
Produced by: Ben Sharpsteen
Music by: Oliver Wallace

Jungle Cat was the last installment of the True-Life Adventure series. This film focuses on the wild South American jaguar. A Disney photography team spent two years in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil filming footage for the film.

Synopsis: The history of the species is quickly given and then the day to day life of the cat is shown. Two adult jaguars mate and teach their kittens how to hunt and survive. They battle a crocodile, a boa constrictor, and a pirarucu. The cats encounter other animals such as otters, tapirs, wild pigs, sloths, monkeys, iguanas, and anteaters. The film ends with a sunset on the Amazon River.