Copyright 9 July 1942 by Walt Disney Productions. Released through RKO Radio Pictures. U.S. release: 19 February 1943. New York opening at the Globe: 12 February 1943. Sydney release at the Embassy (as a support to Victory Through Air Power): 10 February 1944. 4 reels. 43 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Walt Disney and his artists tour South America, finding inspiration for four new cartoons.

NOTES: Plumb, Smith and Wolcott were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture (won by Ray Heindorf for This Is The Army). The title song was nominated for Best Song (won by "You'll Never Know" from Hello, Frisco, Hello). C.O. Slyfield was nominated for Best Sound Recording (won by Stephen Dunn for This Land Is Mine).

COMMENT: Although the credit titles are at pains to point out that the travelogue portion of Saludos Amigos has been blown up from a 16 mm original, the photographic quality in the print under review (aside from a little jerkiness and under¬exposure) is excellent. The film is top-class too, with just enough background to introduce, separate and give added point and detail to the four cartoons. These four cartoons are each so richly detailed in characters and backgrounds, their humor is so wittily inventive and their craftsmanship so consistently stylish and imaginative, they must rank amongst Disney's finest achievements in the short-subject medium.

Adding to the enjoyment of their individual styles, the first three cartoons do have one amusing feature in common - a clever commentary (expertly delivered by Fred Shields) which often gently sends up or is mockingly at odds with what we actually see on the screen. The visual throwaway gags are sometimes so fast (like the diaper flying over Pedro's hangar) the films need to be seen more than twice to appreciate them all. (Leonard Maltin has provided a full account of these many delightful touches in The Disney Films, Crown Publishers, New York, 1973.)

The last cartoon, "Watercolor of Brazil", is the most visually original, providing a foretaste of the stunningly surreal style used more extensively in Disney's follow-up feature The Three Caballeros.

Although most enthusiastically received by critics and picturegoers on its initial release, Saludos Amigos has never been theatrically reissued in its original form. The four cartoons were somewhat sloppily scissored into separate short subjects and reissued in 1955 when Disney's output of regular cartoons started to run down. Fortunately, the complete film is still available.

Musically, Saludos Amigos is also a treat, with Donald tumbling through the Samba and jigging a llama with a Peruvian whistle, Goofy and his trusty steed hoofing a vigorous Dance of the Farmer's Daughter. The title tune is catchy enough, but heard only so briefly one wonders why it was nominated for Best Song in preference to the wonderfully emotive "Brazil"?

This is the sixth animated feature done by the Walt Disney animation studio. There will be spoilers ahead:

Prior to US entry into World War II, the US Department of State got Disney to go on a goodwill tour of South America due to the popularity of Disney's characters in Latin America.Material gathered there was used to make this film, which proved to be sufficiently popular that Disney made a second film (The Three Caballeros) in the same vein.

At just over 41 minutes in length, this is just barely of feature length. Composed of live action footage and animation, it covers visits to the four countries of Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. Each section of the film describes what the Disney artists found in each country as inspiration, followed by short animated sequences based on the visits. Brief live action/animated transitions of flights are used to lead into the sections.

The first animated segment, "Lake Titicaca", shows Donald Duck visiting Peru as a tourist and interacting with a boy and his llama. It's typical Donald Duck and is rather funny. The highlight is Donald and the llama crossing a suspension bridge.

The second segment, "Pedro", concerns a little plane named Pedro and his flight to carry the mail over the mountains in Chile. It's a fairly standard short of the "small hero faces adversity and wins through" variety and is the weakest segment, mostly because the other three are more entertaining. It's still fairly solid.

The third segment is Argentina and its gauchos. The live action footage of gauchos leads into a Goofy short, "El Gaucho Goofy" and it follows the pattern of other Goofy shorts. The best part here is the slow motion footage of Goofy in action at the tail end of the short.

The fourth and by far the best animated segment is "Aquarela do Brasil" ("Watercolor of Brazil") which is the most lushly beautiful animation of the film. Donald makes his return in this and it also introduces Jose Carioca. The animation starts out as a series of watercolor drawings which become animated and things morph from one thing to another. The animation is fantastic and the music is marvelous. Donald meets Jose, who is awed at meeting "Pato Donald" and takes Donald out to see the sights and to dance the samba. Thje segment is too short and leaves me wanting more.

This is available on DVD and is well worth watching. Recommended.

The Disney movie "Saludos Amigos", which runs for little under 45 minutes, came out in 1942 when World War II was in full force and a certain movie called Casablanca hit theaters as well. Basically, this Disney work is a collection of four cartoons, each under 10 minutes. Between these cartoons, we find out some information about life in South America at that point. I did not like the introduction about cartoonists traveling down south, but the other sequences between the cartoons very informative and certainly worth a watch already for the contemporary historical documents they are.

The four cartoons were all created by different directors and also work as stand-alone films. The first is about Donald experiencing South American in his usual slapstick fashion. We see his struggles with a llama and with dizzy heights. The second is about little mail plane who suddenly gets called to action after his parents suffer from high oil pressure. I found the ending a bit too melodramatic, but everything else about this short film is very good, possibly my favorite from the quartet. The third is another how-to short film featuring Goofy about how Argentinians/Gauchos live. I like especially the sports-related Goofy shorts, but this one did not do too much for me. Finally, Donald is back and meets a Brazilian bird. A fruitful collaboration as these two caballeros join two years later for "The Three Caballeros" with another bird not seen yet in this short film. Also, I would like to emphasize one scene, where a bee gets swallowed by a carnivorous plant, then transforms into Donald and spits out the bee again. This example that the bee is not just gone shows how family-friendly these cartoons were and really neglected the presence of death completely unlike animated films these days.

"Saludos Amigos" scored three Oscar-nominations in the music/sound categories, which is fairly uncommon for a short film looking at today's standards. It did not win an Oscar, but its success was probably one of the main reasons for the sequel. Worth a watch for cartoon enthusiasts or people interested in the history of South America. Lots of Latin music included here as well.