I just rewatched this classic Disney cartoon for the first time in half a century and was vastly amused. Prokoviev's music was fine, the animation was sprightly, Sterling Hayden's narration held the same amusing, quavery-voiced simplicity as always, and Walt Disney, famed as a rabid anti-communist and union hater, had produced a fine parable of the power of collective action to resist a vile oppressor in defiance of the warnings of the old and outmoded authority figures of a patriarchal society.
This is not something that will strike your average, or even your above-average youngster being exposed to this fine piece of narrated program music, but that is clearly the subtext as Peter disobeys his grandfather to go hunting the wolf in the company of other members of the lumpen-proletariat, in the form of a cat and two birds -- natural enemies. Nor is the army -- represented by the hunters with their bombastic kettle drums -- of much help, for Peter, the woodpecker and the cat have already captured the wolf and mother Duck is found to have survived. The people have triumphed!
I doubt if Disney thought much about this. The music is still good, and the art is still excellent. But the thought amuses me.
This is not something that will strike your average, or even your above-average youngster being exposed to this fine piece of narrated program music, but that is clearly the subtext as Peter disobeys his grandfather to go hunting the wolf in the company of other members of the lumpen-proletariat, in the form of a cat and two birds -- natural enemies. Nor is the army -- represented by the hunters with their bombastic kettle drums -- of much help, for Peter, the woodpecker and the cat have already captured the wolf and mother Duck is found to have survived. The people have triumphed!
I doubt if Disney thought much about this. The music is still good, and the art is still excellent. But the thought amuses me.