Walt Disney Treasures: Walt Disney on the Front Lines DVD Review

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Disc 1: (Click title to view that portion of the review)
Propaganda & Entertainment Shorts
Donald Gets Drafted, The Army Mascot, The Vanishing Private, Sky Trooper, Private Pluto, Fall Out; Fall In, Victory Vehicles, The Old Army Game, Home Defense, How to be a Sailor, Commando Duck

Educational Shorts
Thrifty Pig, Seven Wise Dwarfs, Food Will Win the War, Out of the Frying Pan and into the Firing Line, Donald's Decision, All Together, The New Spirit, The Spirit of '43, The Winged Scourge, Defense Against Invasion, The Grain that Built a Hemisphere, Cleanliness Brings Health, The Unseen Enemy (What is Disease?), Planning for Good Eating

From the Vault
Der Fuehrer's Face, Education for Death, Reason and Emotion, Chicken Little

Disc 2: (Click title to view that portion of the review)
Victory Through Air Power (1943 feature film)

Training Shorts: Four Methods of Flush Riveting, Stop That Tank, Training Film Montage

Bonus Features: On the Set of V.T.A.P., Theatrical Trailer, Galleries, Conversations

Running Time: 383 Minutes (165 on Disc Two) / Rating: Not Rated
1.33:1 Fullscreen (Original Ratio) / Dolby Digital Mono (English)
Originally Released between 1941 and 1945
Subtitles: English; Closed Captioned / DVD Release Date: May 18, 2004
Two single-sided, dual-layered discs (DVD-9); Suggested Retail Price: $32.99

REVIEW CONTENTS
Page 1: Disc 1 - Shorts and Audio & Video
Page 2: Disc 2 - Victory Through Air Power, Training Shorts, Bonus Material & Closing Thoughts

DISC 2: VICTORY THROUGH AIR POWER, TRAINING SHORTS, AND BONUS FEATURES

Disc 2 opens with a cheerful 38-second introduction by Leonard Maltin. He talks about Victory Through Air Power and the bonus features to be found here.

VICTORY THROUGH AIR POWER

Maltin introduces this as "the most unusual feature film Walt Disney ever made." Victory Through Air Power, he says, is meant to send a message rather than entertain. Adapted from a book by Alexander P. de Seversky, this 1943 film calls on America to focus energies on long-range bomber planes in order to win World War II.

Victory Through Air Power opens with messages which declare that America has been saved from past struggles by men of vision of courage. The scrolling notes then reveal that the film is dedicated to Billy Mitchell, an Army general whose advice to look into aerial assaults in the years after World War I went mostly ignored or ridiculed by the nation.

After this, we are treated to an amusing animated history of aviation, which starts from the turn-of-the-20th century test flights by the Wright brothers. We see aviation being explored by various nations for various purposes and then airplanes put to limited use in World War I. While it does purport to be a documentary of sorts, it keeps a light-hearted tone and features some warm, colorful '40s-style Disney animation.

This evolves into a fact-imparting section on how air power has advanced in the recent years to a potent and efficient means of carrying out war, which segues into Alexander de Seversky, whose credentials are given.

Born in Russia, Seversky lost his right leg when his plane was shot down at the age of 22. Seversky came to America in 1918 and becomes a friend and advisor to Billy Mitchell, and eventually a naturalized citizen. Made a general in the American army, Seversky goes on to invent a number of instruments to improve military aviation. After this, twenty-one minutes into the film, de Seversky makes his first appearance and talks briefly about how the introduction of aircrafts means changes the face of traditional warfare.

More animated artwork maps out the plan for Europe to respond to Nazi Germany, which is powerfully depicted with a dramatic score and expressionistic animation. Even with an abundance of dramatic cues, at this point, the film is simply recanting war strategies with narration, which may leave some viewers cold. The point the film makes, is that the Allied powers need to embrace military aviation to get the advantage over the robust Nazi units. Surface fighting, we're told, gives Hitler the edge.

De Seversky speaks directly to the camera for much of the film, a method which is livened up by having him move around while doing it to avoid it seeming like a lecture. De Seversky's friend and fellow aviator H.C. Potter directed his live action sequences, while Disney veteran David Hand (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) supervised the animation which was directed by James Algar, Clyde Geronimi, and Jack Kinney.

Including the 4½-minute introduction, the film runs just under 1 hour and 10 minutes. Presented in a slightly windowboxed 1.33:1 (fullscreen with overscan) transfer, Victory Through Air Power features surprisingly clean picture quality and strong audio in its Mono track. The sound effects of the air bombings are heavy on bass and the DVD soundtrack reveals an attention to detail in the film's sophisticated audio mix. One minor detraction is that sometimes, de Sevorsky's on-screen comments are mixed quite a bit lower than the rest of the audio, so you may have to adjust the volume.

Victory Through Air Power is a unique old Disney film. One doesn't watch it in the same way they watch other early works from the studio like Treasure Island. In 1943, the film was meant to inform and persuade, and its message is no longer relevant six decades later. Nonetheless, its nature, subject matter and interesting use of Disney animation makes it rewarding to watch.

TRAINING SHORTS

In a 92-second introduction, Leonard Maltin proclaims these Training Shorts the "least celebrated" but perhaps "most significant" of Disney's wartime creations. Disney made these films to teach specific skills to various branches of the armed forces. Maltin explains that these films have gone unseen for a long period of time because they were made in secrecy and only recently declassified.

Four Methods of Flush Riveting (9:30)
Produced under the technical direction of The Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Disney's Burbank neighbors, this training short utilizes quick, inexpensive animation to teach the skill of flush riveting.
Naturally, this is a rather dry instructional video. There is very limited animation, and as Maltin points out in his intro, it was not created to be entertaining. There is, nonetheless, a novelty factor to seeing a Disney project like this.

Stop That Tank (21:32)
This instructional video made for Canada begins with some comic cartoon relief for soldiers. An animated Adolf Hitler is portrayed as a raving madman who remains shouting about being oppressed, even when he is condemned to hell. The video and audio quality of this short is noticeably lesser than the shorts on Disc 1. The animated antics run just over 3 minutes, and the rest of the short praises the Boys Anti-Tank Rifle. Like the previous training short, there is some limited animation which demonstrates the usefulness and parts of this weapon. There's also live action footage of soldiers firing the rifle and very brief cartoon moments intended to lighten the mood. This short is intended to be informative, not entertaining, and in that regard, it succeeds!

Training Film Montage (5:11)
With narration from Maltin, this reel contains bits and pieces from some of the over 200 training films Disney made for the army. Maltin's commentary explains why one film was restricted; it contained formulas to mix a glue that could be used to create weather-sealed patches on wooden airplanes. Maltin touches upon a wide range of instructional films and also discusses the different methods of animation which were used for these works.