THE RELUCTANT DRAGON – THE ORIGINAL 1941 FEATURE-LENGTH MOVIE (NOT THE LATER FEATURETTE)

The full cover of my official Disney VHS videocassette of The Reluctant Dragon that confirms it to be the original 1941 live-action/animated feature, not the later, shorter, entirely animated featurette (© Walt Disney Studio – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 4 April 2020, I watched a Disney movie that I'd only ever seen once before, but that is undoubtedly one time more than the great majority of movie fans, and here's why.

Most Disney fans - and many general cartoon fans too - will be familiar with the slightly-longer-than-normal (approx 15 mins) cartoon short entitled The Reluctant Dragon, based upon the Kenneth Grahame children's story of the same title. It has been released several times worldwide in both home videocassette and home DVD formats, sometimes standing alone but usually bundled with various other short(ish) Disney cartoons. Yet how many know that it was initially merely a segment in a much longer, feature-length Disney movie of the same title, which was mostly live-action, was released in 1941, but was never re-released in the cinema, and even today is rarely available in any home format outside the USA, thus making it one of Disney's earliest yet most obscure movies?

Originally following swiftly in the feature-length footsteps of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Pinocchio, and Fantasia, The Reluctant Dragon starred popular American radio star/comedian Robert Benchley, who visits Disney's newly-opened Burbank studio in the hope of selling to him the idea of making a cartoon based upon Grahame's story (and therefore conveniently overlooking the legality of trying to sell for his own profit someone else's story - but hey, this is only a movie, not reality!). However, in order to shake off a very officious teenage guide appointed to show him the way to Walt Disney's office, Benchley finds himself in a number of different rooms and departments, where he is shown by their friendly staff such integral aspects of animation as the multi-plane camera, how sound effects are created (using an excerpt of the then-incomplete movie Dumbo), how animation itself is achieved (using an excerpt of the also then-incomplete movie Bambi as well as a segment featuring Donald Duck), how real animals and human models are used as guides for the animators, how a story board for a movie is created and utilised, and much else besides. Essentially, the movie is a publicity film for Disney, but is very entertaining and educational in its own right. The climax of the film is when Walt Disney himself invites Benchley to watch their very latest cartoon before he listens to Benchley's idea - but the new cartoon is none other than The Reluctant Dragon - in other words, Benchley's idea is too late!

I've never understood why the full-length movie has never been re-released, because it is such a historically significant film, now more than ever, showing an animation world that has long been entirely superseded by modern-day digital animation techniques. True, at times it can be slightly corny, even a little twee, perhaps, especially Benchley's facial mannerisms and quips, and its extremely gentle, thoroughly wholesome nature makes it very much a movie of its time, which probably would not be appreciated by many modern-day audiences. Then again, what is wrong with a little corn, gentleness, and wholesomeness? Our harsh world of today could certainly benefit from some of those qualities.

I mentioned earlier that the full movie is difficult to obtain even in home viewing formats outside the USA, which is very true. Indeed, as far as I am aware it can only be purchased in Region 1 DVD format (i.e. compatible only with USA/Canada DVD players), not in any other Region format, so unless, if you live outside North America, you have either a multi-region DVD or have specifically bought a Region 1 DVD to play North American DVDs, you won't be able to watch it. And even the DVD is prohibitively expensive to buy from the USA via ebay, etc (upwards of £60), if you live outside North America - which made my fortuitous discovery many years ago a much-prized addition to my movie collection.

It must have been at least 20 years ago that one day, while visiting the public library in a small town called Darlaston, not far from where I still live, I was idly browsing through a box of sell-thru VHS videocassettes that the library had removed from its loan collection and were selling off for just 50p each. They were all arranged spine-up, and reading down them I suddenly spotted one entitled The Reluctant Dragon. Naturally, I assumed that it was the short cartoon, because as noted earlier this had been released as a separate cartoon in its own right, and as far as I knew, the full feature film that had originally contained it had never been released on videocassette in Britain. I pulled out its box, and the picture on the front cover seemed to confirm my expectation, as it was the very same picture that I had seen many times on videocassettes of the short cartoon. But then I turned it over and looked at its back cover - and my jaw quite literally hit the ground. Its cast list was headed by a certain Robert Benchley, and its running time was 65 minutes! Yes indeed, I was actually holding in my shaking hand the original 1941 feature version!

I opened the box, took out the cassette and inspected the tape, which seemed fine - so I raced over to the cash desk, handed over my 50p, and headed for home straight away. Praying that the tape was indeed fine, I carefully loaded it into my video recorder, and 65 minutes later, plus well over 40 years since I had first read about its existence, I had finally viewed this most elusive and thoroughly charming Disney feature-length production. Although over the years I have replaced many of my videocassettes with their DVD counterparts, this much-treasured videocassette is still very firmly part of my collection (indeed, it is the only example of this seemingly ultra-rare videocassette that I have ever encountered), and still plays beautifully, as I rediscovered when watching it again in April.

 

Finally: click here to view an excerpt from one of this movie's live-action sections featuring Robert Benchley.

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!

THE ASPHYX

The Asphyx publicity picture (© Peter Newbrook/Cinema Epoch United Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

It took several weeks between buying it, chatting about it on Facebook, and actually watching it, but on 23 November 2019 I finally sat down to view the rare, reconstituted uncut version on DVD of a supremely classy and highly unusual British horror movie from 1972 - yes indeed, The Asphyx.

Based upon an original idea by Christina and Laurence Beers, directed by Peter Newbrook, and starring Robert Stephens and Robert Powell, The Asphyx tells how Stephens's Victorian-era rogue scientist character, Sir Hugo Cunningham, deeply interested in psychical phenomena and early photography, discovers via his photographs that every person at the moment of their death is visited by their very own spirit of death, a spectral entity known as the asphyx, and that if their asphyx can be trapped and held prisoner indefinitely, that person will be immortal. Some wonderful steampunk scientific apparatus to achieve this exceedingly fraught, dangerous task by Cunningham and his assistant Giles (Powell) is featured, but as might be expected, not all goes to plan - indeed, their plans soon go horrifically awry.

Visually, it is a beautifully-filmed Hammer-like feature film in the classic Gothic genre, and its plot a highly original concept in moviedom at the time of its release. Having said that, many years ago I had read a sci-fi novel from 1981 by Ian Watson entitled Deathhunter that utilised a somewhat similar plot line, so for that reason The Asphyx story was not as startling for me as it would otherwise no doubt have been.

My DVD is the collectible 2-disc version, containing both the cut but gorgeously-preserved UK version (its uncut version is lost), and the same version but with several minutes of additional footage inserted that had been extracted from the uncut but less-gorgeously-preserved US version in order to reconstruct the lost uncut UK version - this latter reconstructed version being the one that I watched tonight. The inserts were readily recognisable by virtue of their inferior viewing quality, but that was far less significant than seeing how they fleshed out certain segments of the story.

I first learned of The Asphyx over 40 years ago as a teenager, but never succeeded in catching it on TV, so my viewing of it last November was the fulfilment of a long-held ambition, and did not disappoint - it was definitely well worth the wait!

The entire UK cut version of this movie can presently be viewed for free here on YouTube.

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE! 

My paperback edition of Ian Watson's sci fi novel Deathhunter (© Ian Watson/Corgi Books – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

EVENING PRIMROSE

Evening Primrose on DVD (© ABC TV channel – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Not a movie this time, but instead a one-off near-movie-length TV special - so for one day only, Shuker In MovieLand becomes Shuker In TVLand.

On 27 April 2017, I finally tracked down another long sought-after fantasy rarity. Ever since hearing Sarah Brightman singing the haunting song 'I Remember Sky' on her album 'The Songs That Got Away', I have always hoped that one day I'd get to see the obscure 1966 made-for-American-TV musical Evening Primrose, by Stephen Sondheim (songs and lyrics), from which this song originated, because it had such a weird storyline, yet had never been made available commercially (a DVD of it now exists - see later) and never shown at all in Britain.

A group of people secretly live their entire lives inside a large department store, remaining hidden from all customers and staff during the day by posing as store mannequins, coming alive, as it were, only at night when the store is closed. None is ever allowed to leave this enclosed community in case they betray its presence in the store, and if anyone ever does try to escape they are visited by the fearful 'Dark Men', summoned by the formidable Mrs Monday, who transform them into mannequins permanently.

One day, a very disillusioned-with-life poet named Charles Snell (played very earnestly by Anthony Perkins of Psycho fame) decides to stay in the store after hours, whereupon he unexpectedly meets the closeted community, who accept him into it, but he also falls in love with one of its members, a young woman named Ella Harkins who has been there ever since she was accidentally separated from her mother while shopping there aged just 6 years old. She sings 'I Remember Sky' to the poet, in which she recalls memories from her life in the outside world, before she became part of the store's secret community all those years ago. Charles and Ella plan to escape, to make a life for themselves outside the store and in the real world, but what happens? Do they succeed?

Now, like I've done, you can find out for yourself, by clicking here to watch this fascinating 51-min-long curiosity currently accessible on Dailymotion's website. It was originally screened as part of ABC's ABC Stage 67 anthology TV series, and was in full colour, but its unique master version subsequently went missing and has never been found - tucked away in some TV/film buff's private collection, perhaps? Happily, however, the version on DailyMotion is a good-quality b/w copy. There is also an excellent webpage devoted to Evening Primrose here.

Although specifically written for television, this little-known Sondheim musical subsequently made its professional stage debut when  in July 2005 it was performed for several nights as part of the Lost Musicals series staged at London's Lilian Baylis Studio. There was also a semi-staged single-night performance held at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater on New York City on 22 October 2010.

Last but definitely not least, click here to listen to Sarah Brightman's beautiful version of the song 'I Remember Sky' that first alerted me to the existence of this unique, bewitching fantasy musical, one that so very greatly deserves to be far better known and much more appreciated than it is. Who knows, perhaps Evening Primrose will be 'rediscovered' one day and transformed into the major movie that in my view it was always meant to be?

[Update: I have now purchased the official Evening Primrose DVD, which not only contains a top-quality b/w version of it, but also includes some fascinating extras as well as a detailed booklet filled with hard-to-find facts concerning this magical but long-overlooked production's conception and history.]

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film/TV reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!