By Todd Garbarini
The 1970s were an unorthodox time in
American cinema. It was an era in which an actress like Jodie Foster could play
a 12-year-old prostitute one year and appear in a family comedy about switching
bodies with her mother the following year. I can honestly say that's not something you
would ever see today.
In early 1978 my parents took me to see
Disney's Pete's
Dragon
(1977). Before the movie started, the
trailer for the R-rated Straight Time
starring Dustin Hoffman was shown. I
distinctly recall the scene of Hoffman doing an embarrassing number on M. Emmet
Walsh and stranding him on the highway. Crazy! The experience did not detract from the fact
that Pete’s Dragon, a live-action film
mixed with animation and the most expensive that Disney made up to that point
(roughly $8M, which is about $32M today), is a charming family film that
arrives on Blu-ray with a beautiful transfer. The story of a young orphan named Pete (Sean Marshal who has since left
acting for other pursuits) and his inarticulate, grunting sidekick Elliott (an animated
and sometimes invisible dragon) set in the 1920s features Shelley Winters as
Pete’s abusive adoptive mother trying to get him back; Mickey Rooney as Lampie,
a drunken lighthouse keeper who sees Elliott and tries to convince his doubters;
Helen Reddy as Nora (Lampie’s daughter) who thinks that Elliott is just an
imaginary friend; Jim Dale as Doc Terminus, a snake oil salesman and his
sidekick Hoagy (Red Buttons); and Jim Backus as the Mayor. The action is punctuated by a good number of
musical interludes, and the film was nominated for Best Original Song (“Candle on
the Waterâ€) and Best Original Score. It
won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score for Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn.
The mixture of animation and live
action cannot rival that of today’s computer technology, but it doesn’t detract
from the film, either. The performances
and the musical numbers are what really propel the story and make it a
fun-filled viewing until the end when it gets a tad elegiac as Elliott must
move on.
The set design is also fairly
spectacular, including a full-blown lighthouse that was built (and subsequently
torn down) for the film in San Luis Obispo, CA which doubles as the
tongue-twisting Passamaquoddy, Maine.
Disney is really getting it right by
releasing combo DVD and Blu-ray sets. I
wish that more studios would adopt a similar method of releasing films. Judging by the side-by-side comparison, it is
obvious that Blu-ray is the best method to watch the film. The clarity is far better than standard DVD,
and the sound is a lot richer than the previous VHS and DVD releases. I am hoping for a Blu-ray of One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing (1975),
which I saw at a drive-in when I was seven.
The Blu-ray features the following
extras:
Brazzle
Dazzle Effects: Behind Disney’s Movie Magic which illustrates the history of Disney’s mix of live-action
and animation. Narrated by Sean Marshall (Pete), the featurette runs just over
25 minutes and has a lot of nice behind-the-scenes footage during the film’s
production in 1976. It also compares the
technology of then to the computers of today.
Deleted Storyboard Sequence: “Terminus
& Hoagy Hunt Elliott†which presents a rare, demo dialogue track set to
visual storyboard sketches and runs two and-a-half minutes.
Original Song Concept: “Boo Bop Bopbop
Bop (I Love You, Too)†which is a first demo recording from 1976, with early
story sketches of Pete singing to Elliott and runs two and-a-half minutes (this
is included on the DVD).
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