Bambi

Coordinates	28°36′50″N77°12′32″N
Name	Bambi
Caption	Original theatrical release poster
Director	David Hand
Writer	Larry MoreyPerce PearceGustaf TenggrenFelix Salten
Starring	Bobby StewartDonnie DunaganHardie AlbrightJohn SutherlandPaula WinslowePeter BehnTim DavisSam EdwardsWill WrightCammie KingAnn GillisFred ShieldsStan AlexanderSterling Holloway
Producer	Walt Disney
Studio	Walt Disney Productions
Distributor	RKO Radio Pictures
Released
Runtime	70 minutes
Language	English
Gross	$267,447,150
Followed by	Bambi II

Bambi is a 1942 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten. The film was released by RKO Radio Pictures on August 13, 1942, and it is the fifth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.

The main characters are Bambi, a white-tailed deer, his parents (the Great Prince of the forest and his unnamed mother), his friends Thumper (a pink-nosed rabbit), and Flower (a skunk), and his childhood friend and future mate, Faline. For the movie, Disney took the liberty of changing Bambi's species into a white-tailed deer from his original species of roe deer, since roe deer do not inhabit the United States, and the white-tailed deer is more familiar to Americans. This film received three Academy Award nominations: Best Sound, Best Song (for "Love Is a Song" sung by Donald Novis) and Original Music Score.

In June 2008, the American Film Institute presented a list of its "10 Top 10"—the best ten films in each of ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Bambi placed third in animation.

Plot

In a forest thicket, a doe gives birth to a fawn whom she names Bambi. After he learns to walk, Bambi befriends Thumper, a young rabbit; then, while learning to talk, Bambi meets a young skunk whom he calls "Flower" (the skunk says that he does not mind this name at all, and the infant Bambi says, "Flower, pretty Flower").

After Bambi has completely learned how to talk, his mother takes him to the meadow, a place that is both wonderful and frightening' Bambi's mother warns him that deer are unprotected in the meadow as there are no trees or bushes to hide them, so they must take great care for their own safety. In the meadow, Bambi meets the female fawn Faline, her mother, Aunt Ena, and his own father, the Great Prince of the Forest. Crows suddenly begin to caw, startling all the animals to flee the meadow; Bambi struggles against the rushing animals, trying to find his mother, but his father arrives just in time to press Bambi and his mother out of the meadow before a hunter can shoot them. When Bambi asks why they all ran, his mother explains that "Man was in the forest".

During a harsh winter, Thumper teaches Bambi how to slide on ice. One day at the end of winter, Bambi and his mother go to the meadow and discover a patch of new grass, heralding the arrival of spring. As they eat, his mother senses a hunter and orders Bambi to flee. As they run, gun shots ring out. When Bambi arrives at their thicket, he discovers his mother is no longer with him. He wanders the forest calling for her, but she does not answer. His father appears in front of him and tells Bambi, "Your mother can't be with you anymore" (implying that she has been killed by hunters), then leads him away.

In the spring, an adult Bambi is reunited with Thumper and Flower as the animals around them begin pairing up with mates. Though they resolve not to be "twitterpated" like the other animals in love, Thumper and Flower each leave with newly found mates. Bambi is disgusted, until he runs into Faline and they become a couple. As they happily dance and flirt through the woods, another buck, Ronno, appears who tries to force Faline to go with him. Though he initially struggles, Bambi's rage gives him the strength to defeat Ronno and push him off a cliff and into a river below.

That night, Bambi and Faline continue to go through the woods dancing and flirting. Then the next morning, Bambi is awoken by the smell of smoke and the blowing of a horn. His father explains that Man has returned to the forest in greater numbers, and they must flee. When crows caw, Faline is awakened and searches for Bambi. Bambi goes back to search for Faline, but she is gone. While searching for Bambi, Faline is being chased by hunting dogs, and takes refuge on a cliff ledge. Bambi finds her in time and fights off the dogs, allowing Faline to escape. With Faline safe, Bambi kills the hunting dogs after kicking several rocks onto them, then runs but then Bambi is shot as he leaps over a ravine. The Great Prince finds him there and urges him back to his feet, when at the same time, a forest fire begins. Together, they escape the forest fire and go to a small island in a lake where the other animals, including Faline, have taken refuge.

At the end of the film, Faline gives birth to twin fawns a boy and a girl, Bambi stands watch on the large hill, and the Great Prince silently turns and walks away, while Bambi looks on proudly watching on his newborn children, just as his father did to him at his own birth.

Cast

Bobby Stewart as Baby Bambi

Donnie Dunagan as Young Bambi

Hardie Albright as Adolescent Bambi

John Sutherland as Adult Bambi

Paula Winslowe as Bambi's Mother and the Pheasant

Peter Behn as Young Thumper

Tim Davis as Adolescent Thumper and Adolescent Flower

Sam Edwards as Adult Thumper

Stan Alexander as Young Flower

Sterling Holloway as Adult Flower

Will Wright as Friend Owl

Cammie King as Young Faline

Ann Gillis as Adult Faline

Fred Shields as Great Prince of the Forest

Margaret Lee as Mrs. Rabbit

Mary Lansing as Aunt Ena and Mrs. Possum

Production

Sidney Franklin, a producer and director at MGM films, purchased the film rights to Felix Salten's novel Bambi, A Life in the Woods in 1933, intending to adapt it into a live action film. Deciding it would be too difficult to make such a film, he sold the film rights to Walt Disney in April 1937. Disney began working on crafting an animated adaptation immediately, intending it to be the company's second feature length animated film and their first to be based on a specific, recent work. However, the original novel, written for an adult audience, was considered too "grim" and "somber" for the young audience Disney was targeting, and with the work required to adapt the novel, Disney put production on hold while it worked on several other works. In 1938, Disney assigned Perce Pearce and Carl Fallberg to work on the film's storyboards, but attention was soon drawn away as the studio began working on Fantasia (1940).

Walt Disney attempted to achieve realistic detail in this animated film. He had Rico LeBrun, a painter of animals, come and lecture to the animators on the structure and movement of animals. Animators also visited the Los Angeles Zoo. A pair of fawns (named Bambi and Faline) were shipped from the area of present day Baxter State Park in Maine to the studio so that the artists could see first-hand the movement of these animals. The source of these fawns, from the Eastern United States, was the impetus for the transformation of Felix Salten's roe deer to white-tailed deer. A small zoo was also established at the studio so animators could study other animals, like rabbits, ducks, owls, and skunks at close range. The usage of the multi-plane camera also added to the realism of the backgrounds.

The realism that Disney was pushing caused delays in production; animators were unaccustomed to drawing natural animals, and expert animators could only manage around eight drawings a day. This amounted to only half a foot of film a day, unlike the normal rate of production of ten feet. This equaled less than a second of film versus over thirteen seconds. Animators now had a broader spectrum of animation styles, from the wider stylization of Mickey Mouse to the naturalistic look of characters like the stag version of Bambi. They also learned more techniques with the multiplane camera, expanding their knowledge of its usage. Additionally the paint laboratory had developed hundreds of new colors for the production that were used in future films. The Platinum Edition DVD went on moratorium on January 31, 2007. According to the Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition official site, Bambi is scheduled to be released as part of the Diamond Line on Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack on March 1, 2011 and in a 2-Disc DVD on April 19, 2011.

Reception

Bambi lost money at the box office for its first release, but recouped its considerable cost during the 1947 re-release. Although the film received good reviews, the timing of the release, during World War II, hurt the film's box office numbers. The film did not do so well at the box office in the U.S., and the studio no longer had access to many European markets that provided a large portion of its profits.

Legacy

The off-screen villain "man" has been placed #20 on AFI's List of Heroes and Villains.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney has credited the shooting death of Bambi's mother for his initial interest in animal rights, an example of what has been called the Bambi effect.

Soon after the film's release, Walt Disney allowed his characters to appear in fire prevention public service campaigns. However, Bambi was only loaned to the government for a year, so a new symbol was needed, leading to the creation of Smokey Bear. Bambi and his mother also make a cameo appearance in the satirical 1955 Donald Duck short No Hunting: drinking from a forest stream, the deer are startled by a sudden trickle of beer cans and other debris, and Bambi's mother tells him, "Man is in the forest. Let's dig out."

In 2006, the Ad Council, in partnership with the United States Forest Service, started a series of Public Service Announcement ads that feature footage from Bambi and Bambi II for wildfire prevention. During the ads, as the Bambi footage is shown, the screen will momentarily fade into black with the text "Don't let our forests...become once upon a time", and usually (but not always) ending the ads with Bambi's line "Mother, what we gonna do today?" followed by Smokey Bear saying "Only you can prevent wildfires" as the Smokey logo is shown on the screen. The ads air on various television networks, and the Ad Council has also put them on Youtube.

Sequel

Bambi II was released as a midquel sequel to Bambi. Set in middle of Bambi, it shows the Great Prince of the Forest struggling to raise the motherless Bambi, and Bambi's doubts about his father's love. The film was released direct-to-video on February 7, 2006. While the film was a direct-to-video release in countries like the United States, Japan, Canada, mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, it was a theatrical release in some countries like the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Australia and some other European countries.

Copyrights

The copyrights for Bambi were inherited by Anna Wyler, Salten's daughter, who renewed them in 1954. After her death, Wyler's husband sold the rights to Twin Books, which subsequently filed a law suit against Disney, claiming Disney owed it money for the continued licensing for the use of the book. Disney countered by claiming that Salten had published the story in 1923 without a copyright notice, and was thus immediately entered into the public domain. Disney also argued that if the claimed 1923 publication date was accurate, then the copyright renewal filed in 1954 had been registered after the deadline and was thus invalid. The courts initially upheld Disney's view; however, in 1996, the Ninth Circuit Court reversed the decision on appeal.

References

External links

Official Disney Bambi DVD website

Category:1942 films Category:American children's fantasy films Category:American coming-of-age films Category:Disney animated features canon Category:Films about animals Category:Films based on children's books Category:Films featuring anthropomorphic characters Category:Films shot in Technicolor