Saludos Amigos

 

(1942)
Directed by Norm Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Ham Luske, Bill Roberts
Written by Homer Brightman, William Cottrell, Richard Huemer, Joe Grant, Harold Reeves, Ted Sears, Webb Smith, Roy Williams, Ralph Wright
Starring (Voices) Pinto Colvig, Clarence Nash, José de Patrocinio Oliveira
IMDB Entry

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in the early 1940s Disney was in a difficult financial situation. And in order to stay afloat, they took part in the governmental Good Neighbor Policy, developed to counteract Nazi influence in South America. Disney took a commission from the State Department to put out a film to improve relations. The result was Saludos Amigos.*

Like most of  Disney's "full length" films of  the 1940s, this was made up of several segments.  The first is live action and shows various Disney animators (including Walt) traveling down to South America to get ideas for the feature. Then we go into several sequences:

• A tour of Lake Titicaca with Donald Duck (voice of Clarence Nash), including some live action sequences
• Pedro. This is a short animated film about an anthropomorphic airplane that flies over the Andes to deliver the mail. This was later released as a stand-alone animated short.
• El Gaucho Goofy. This transports Goofy (voice of Pinto Colvig) to Argentina to work as a gaucho and sees how they live.
• Aquarela do Brasil. The finale takes Donald to Brazil, where he meets José Carioca (José de Patrocinio Oliveira), a parrot who shows up later in The Three Caballeros. Donald learns to dance the Samba in a Brazilian festival, using a combination of live action and animation.

Of note is that José de Patrocinio Oliveira is given a voice credit, the first in Disney's history, and the last for years. In addition, one the songs in the Brazilian segment is known as "Brazil," played during the Terry Gilliam film of the same name.

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* Spanish for "Hello Friends." The intent of the movie is very clear.