Director:
Bob Garner
Cast:
Walt Disney
John Lasseter
Julie Andrews
George Lucas
Disney Home Video presents Disneyland: Secrets, Stories & Magic. Running time: 81 minutes. Two DVD set. DVD released Dec. 11, 2007.
The Movie
Disneyland is more than a mere amusement park. It’s a sacred 160 acres for many. It’s a shrine to a man’s imagination and a child’s ability to beg their parents to take them cross-country for the ultimate vacation. It’s $91 a day to visit a Magic Kingdom that revolves around a mouse. This documentary was supposed to be released back in 2005 during the 50th anniversary of Disneyland opening. Like spending two hours standing in the queue for an E ticket ride, was Walt Disney Treasures – Disneyland: Secrets, Stories & Magic worth the wait?
If you’re expecting a historical documentary filled with the unvarnished truth about Disneyland, this isn’t it. This is the story of Disneyland as told by corporate talking heads. Most of the film plays like an industrial video or a sanctioned Travel Channel special. While it’s called Disneyland: Secrets, Stories & Magic, they don’t even expose the secret of Club 33. This mysterious private restaurant is the only place in the original park that you can buy liquor. Why wasn’t there a video tour of the hidden location and a sampling of the dinner menu? The Los Angeles Times did an article on Club 33, so it’s no longer a secrecy issue.
While the movie starts off with an introduction from Julie Andrews, there’s no narrator to the piece. The conversation floats between a variety of Disney employees and George Lucas. John Lasseter should have been the focus of this film. The director of Toy Story started off as a park employee. He talks about his time as the street sweeper in front of Space Mountain. There’s a passion as he acts out his routine from his time as the tour guide on the Jungle Cruise. He needed to guide this film around the park. He should have worked his old jobs. Why didn’t he get back on the boat? He needed to introduce us to various old timers that had a hand in creating the rides. Instead we’re stuck with a parade of corporate suits that want to outdo themselves in praising Walt’s vision. The intended audience for this documentary appears to be low level park employees who want to identify visiting brass. There’s probably only 30 minutes of a real documentary padded with 51 minutes of making sure executives have their required screen time.
Disneyland: Secrets, Stories & Magic is disappointing. Even when they get to interesting topics like failed rides, they skimp on the material. There’s rarely any excitement on the screen. You’ll probably only want to watch this once all the way through. However the bonus features make this Walt Disney Treasures title an essential buy for the devoted. There’s three episodes of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color that feature Walt showing off the latest elements being added to the park. People and Places: Disneyland U.S.A lets you stroll around the park during the early days. The extras give us a better look at the history of Disneyland than what’s covered in the film. Most of the vintage footage in Disneyland was clipped from these specials. This is a perfect supplement for the earlier Walt Disney Treasures – Disneyland USA DVD. The only thing missing from this tin is your set of mouse ears.
The DVD
VIDEO:
While the recent interviews are letterboxed, the picture is 1.33:1 so they don’t have to clip the vintage footage of the park. Most of the bonus features are 1.33:1. People and Places: Disneyland U.S.A is 2.35:1 anamorphic. They did a fine job on cleaning up the transfers.
AUDIO:
The soundtrack for the feature documentary is Dolby Digital Stereo. The bonus features are all Dolby Digital Mono.
EXTRAS:
People and Places: Disneyland USA (41:50) is exactly what a fan of Disneyland wants to see. This is a Cinemascope tour of the park from 1956. There’s plenty of attractions that have since been shuttered including a stage coach ride, fishing off Tom Sawyer Island, Indian dancing and Story Book Land. The Jungle Cruise has plenty of gunplay with the hippos although they exclude footage of the natives on the shore. Leonard Maltin and Imagineer Tony Baxter provide a commentary track that clues you into park history before it was overrun by High School Musical performances.
Operation Disneyland (14:01) is a closed circuit broadcast for ABC that Walt created to inform network honchos about what it took to pull off the live broadcast of the theme park’s opening. It’s black and white footage. This is amazing footage for folks working in modern TV production.
The Golden Horseshoe Revue (49:21) promotes the Disneyland attraction in Frontierland on Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. There’s a few special guests on the stage including Annette Funicello and Ed Wynn.
Disneyland Goes to the World’s Fair (49:55) has Walt show off his amazing mechanical dinosaurs. Disney created four exhibits for the New York World’s Fair in 1964. He gives us a peak into the secrets of these early robots. There’s an animated sequence explaining the history of fairs along with vintage footage of previous World’s Fairs. They show off the original It’s A Small World ride.
Disneyland Around the Seasons (49:58) is an excuse for Walt to hype how all the World’s Fair rides were installed at Disneyland. The footage of It’s A Small World appears to be lifted from the World’s Fair episode. You get to see the robot Abraham Lincoln speak. There is a sadness to this episode since it aired three days after Walt’s death.
Building Walt’s Dream: Disneyland Under Construction (37:43) is time lapse footage of the park taking shape. There’s a great sequence where Walt paces off the property and then climbs a tower to survey the site. It’s reminiscent of James Dean in Giant. Imagineer Tony Baxter and two other guys do a great job giving details of the rapid construction.
Ticket book is a reproduction of what it took to get on the rides. Do kids today understand the concept of the E Ticket ride? You can’t use this book to get into Disneyland.
Gallery has dozens of production designs for various rides.
The Inside Pulse
Don’t pay much attention to the documentary that’s the centerpiece of the boxset. The real reason to own it is the bonus features. People and Places: Disneyland U.S.A is the perfect time machine to transport you to the early days of the park.
