Song of the South on DVD...sorta

[Sesshomaru-sama]

I hope it will not be some sort of trouble coming out of this release. I would really love to see this movie.

[SplashMountain]

I would really like to own this movie. I just got to see it for the first time last month, at a rare screening.

[linklewtt]

DisneyGuy, i tried your link and that's just a bootleg version...na i want an official Disney released version with special features and everything...seriously, who buys DVDs just for the movie?

[disneyguy]

Originally Posted by linklewtt

who buys DVDs just for the movie?

Me.

-DisneyGuy

[linklewtt]

^^why? that's such a ripoff

[Ezra]

Originally Posted by Sesshomaru-sama

I hope it will not be some sort of trouble coming out of this release.

This movie should never have had trouble to begin with. Song of the South wasn't the racist travesty it was made out to be at all. Walt Disney did everything possible to make sure it's presentation was respectful, including hiring an NAACP attorney as a consultant. The movie was a victim of Hollywood infighting, and didn't deserve the treatment it recieved.

[linklewtt]

^^ya, and it was hailed as a great movie when it first came out...but somewhere along the way something happened and it got banned

[TonyT]

Political correctness happened =[

[spidermickey]

I also would love to own this piece of disneyana on DVD. I have a video copy from England, but it's grainy.

[Chris]

For some clarification here: Song of the South was boycotted by the NAACP (back before the film even opened), but was never 'banned' in this country at all. The decision to keep it in the vaults was strictly Disney's own choice.

[linklewtt]

^^well, i think that's what we mean...banned by Disney in the US

but hopefully Disney can realize that this movie is a piece of history and Disneyana and many collectors would like to have it for its Disney value. The movie is a good movie, and it doesn't deserve to rot in a so called vault until the end of its days.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by linklewtt

^^ya, and it was hailed as a great movie when it first came out...but somewhere along the way something happened and it got banned

This is what I was talking about in my earlier post. Your post implies it was somehow banned. It wasn't. Disney can't "ban" their own material. They just choose to not sell it.

[Ezra]

Originally Posted by TonyT

Political correctness happened

All this happened WAY before Political Correctness existed. What happened was this:

To get an authentic southern flavor to Song of the South, Disney hired a southern writer named Dalton Reymond to write the screenplay. Reymond had already consulted on films set in the deep south, such as Bette Davis' Jezebel and The Little Foxes, and Gary Cooper's Sarasota Trunk. While Reymond's screenplay had a certain charm, it was unfortunately riddled with the typical negative stereotypes of the time.

To help solve this problem, Disney hired Clarence Muse to consult on the film. Muse was an NAACP lawyer, writer, director, composer and actor. Disney also hired leftist screenwriter Maurice Rapf to clean up the script. Rapf's screenplay gave the black characters a subtle dignity that they sorely needed without compromising Joel Chandler Harris' original stories. There's an especially wonderful moment when Uncle Remus and Johnny's grandmother share a moment together on her front porch, talking quietly about kids these days. Some things are universal.

According to Rapf, Clarence Muse resigned from the picture because he felt he should star in the movie himself, and was furious that Disney hired James Baskett. Muse took it upon himself to circulate the offensive Dalton Reymond script to the NAACP and the American Council on Race Relations as a current working script, knowing full well that the screenplay was undergoing a complete overhaul at his suggestion.

Disney chose to premiere Song of the South at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Joel Chandler Harris' hometown. This choice was unfortunate in that Atlanta was a segregated city in 1948 and black people could not see the film at the Fox durring it's initial run. This meant that no one at the NAACP was able to actually see the film before condemning it as glorifying slavery and presenting an idyllic master-slave relationship and containing all the cliche's in the book.

So when the film finally opened in Los Angeles, New York, Boston and San Francisco, there were mobs of protestors outside the door before the first screening, none of whom had ever seen the film. That's how Song of the South became the target of an unfair rumor campaign, and fell victim to Hollywood infighting and corruption.

Don't get me wrong, Song of the South is certainly not perfect. After all, it was 1946 and it is a product of it's time. And using the Tar Baby story was certainly an unfortunate choice. But Walt Disney made every effort to give this movie class and dignity. And compared to movies like The Oxbow Incident and Pinky this movie really succeeds in the effort.

[linklewtt]

Originally Posted by Chris

This is what I was talking about in my earlier post. Your post implies it was somehow banned. It wasn't. Disney can't "ban" their own material. They just choose to not sell it.

ya, sorry for the confusion...i knew that Disney decided not to sell it, not that the US banned it. But i mean, deciding not to sell it for political/rascist reasons...sounds like they banned their own product from ever seeing the light of day again in the US right, at least supplied officially by them.

[hillneerg]

The DVD that is available in the states (from an obvious source) isn't bootlegged as such (so they say). The explaination given is that you buy a second hand copy of the video. They make one back-up copy for you on DVD, buy the video back from you and send you uoy of the DVD and charge you for that plus the work entailed less the buyback price of the VHS tape. If it is illegal, I am surprised that Disney haven't stepped in. It was certainly still available six months ago.
I got one as it is my disabled son's very favourite film and we only have it on VHS and it's getting played to destruction.
It's not a very good copy, being from a VHS tape (complete with the odd wobbly line travelling down the screen and rather light colours) and there are no chapters, extras or anything else.
Being from the UK, I wouldn't like to comment on the legalities of making a backup copy of something that you already own (as technically you have just paid for the VHS tape).
Personally, I too would rather like a remastered DVD to be released with those little etras they put on them.

N.B.
I hope I haven't upset any rules with this post. If I have, I apologise unreservedly and please edit it if you deem it necessary.
Hillneerg