I am in love with this set of four photos capturing Walt and Lillian acting silly together in a photo booth. We don’t get to see them acting naturally together very often. Usually one or both of them in “on stage” in some way. Here… Read More »Walt and Lillian in a Photo Booth
The second I saw this recently unearthed photo of uncle Walt, I knew just the quote to go with it. “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths” – Walt Disney
(RtoL) Julie Andrews, Walt Disney and P.L. Travers
We’re still waiting for our Walt Disney bio-pic, but production has finally begun on a movie that focuses on one of the most interesting chapters in Walt’s life, his 20-year courting of P.L. Travers in order to secure the movie rights to her popular novels and the character Mary Poppins, and the testy partnership the upbeat filmmaker develops with the uptight author during the project’s pre-production in 1961. Walt knew he had a good thing there and the success of Mary Poppins allowed the Walt Disney Company to make many more innovations, including financing most of the 1967 expansion at Disneyland and transportation at WDW. This will be the first time Walt Disney has been portrayed in a dramatic movie production.
Two-time Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks (“Philadelphia,” “Forrest Gump”) will portray the legendary Disney alongside fellow double Oscar-winner Emma Thompson (“Howard’s End,” “Sense and Sensibility”) in the role of the prickly novelist. Before actually signing away the book’s rights, Travers’ demands for contractual script and character control circumvent not only Disney’s vision for the film adaptation, but also those of the creative team of screenwriter Don DaGradi and sibling composers Richard and Robert Sherman, whose original score and song (Chim-Chim-Cher-ee) would go on to win Oscars at the 1965 ceremonies (the film won five awards of its thirteen nominations).
“Saving Mr. Banks” will film entirely in the Los Angeles area, with key locations to include Disneyland in Anaheim and the Disney Studios in Burbank. Filming will conclude around Thanksgiving, 2012, with no specific 2013 release date yet set.
When Travers travels from London to Hollywood in 1961 to finally discuss Disney’s desire to bring her beloved character to the motion picture screen (a quest he began in the 1940s as a promise to his two daughters), Disney meets a prim, uncompromising sexagenarian not only suspect of the impresario’s concept for the film, but a woman struggling with her own past. During her stay in California, Travers’ reflects back on her childhood in 1906 Australia, a trying time for her family which not only molded her aspirations to write, but one that also inspired the characters in her 1934 book.
Read More »Production Begins on “Saving Mr. Banks” starring Tom Hanks as Walt Disney
Last year a British film archive discovered a print of an 1928 Oswald The Lucky Rabbit short that had previously been thought lost. “Hungry Hobos” was the 20th out of 26 Oswald films worked on by Walt Disney and his team of animators before he… Read More »Lost Oswald Short Restored and Shown at Film Festival
Back in 2006 someone put Walt Disney’s childhood home in Chicago on ebay. It didn’t sale and has been off and on the market ever since. This is the home Walt’s father built with his own hands and Walt Disney himself was born in, yet… Read More »Walt Disney’s Chicago Home Still For Sale
Walt Disney would have been 110 years old today. The man was a lot more complicated than the ‘Uncle Walt’ character he created for public consumption. Here are a few books I recommend if you’re looking to gain more insight into the man who started… Read More »Happy Birthday Walt!
Andy and Sara Neitzert have produced what looks to be a charming documentary film chronicling the history and life of Walt Disney’s “hometown” Marceline. They’ve just released a trailer and I love how it focuses on the people, not just the place. There are still… Read More »Marceline – Walt’s Home Town Documentary
Get ready, Mouseketeers, for the house that just hit the market. Photo courtesy Flickr user Loren Javier via CC-License Disney’s home from 1932-1950 in Los Feliz, CA, a beautiful four-bedroom estate built by Walt himself, is currently listed at $3.65 million, a small price to pay… Read More »$3.65 Million? How About My Soul Instead?