BACKING up the United States Navy's big guns and the Army's hard-hitting ground and air force, "Uncle Sam" has unleashed a powerful new type offensive, not directly against the enemy, but behind the lines. "Mickey Mouse" and his faithful colleagues, through Walt Disney and the artist who draw them, have taken over the big job of teaching soldiers and sailors how to fight, and civilians how to improve sanitation, combat disease, and perform other important functions that contribute mightily to winning the war.
[img]One of the many Disney cartoons that appear in aircraft.[/img]
Disney approaches the task by turning out 150,000 feet of instructional pictures combining live or actual photography, model photography and animated cartoons. Departments of the American and Canadian Governments sponsor the programme, which represents three-fourth's of Disney's production. Cartoons and live action teach Canadian gunners how to blast German tanks off the earth, and sell war bonds. Others, made for the U.S. Army Air Corps, Navy, Treasury and the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, serve a variety of purposes vital to offensive economic and political warfare.
Our pilots deserve protection against the fire of our own ground troops who may not recognise their own aircraft, and the cartoonist recently completed a picture that teaches an audience in fifteen minutes how to recognise these machines. Starting with a close-up still photograph of a machine, the artists enlarged and reproduced photographically on celluloid various recognisable parts of the craft. Line animation was added, the animation being photographed step-by-step for the screen. By this means the machine could be "stopped" in the air for study. Finally, the animation is reviewed in live action, a machine maneuvering for the camera in various positions. Almost every type of Allied and enemy craft will be given this individual treatment on film.
Some twenty reels are being produced under the supervision of the Bureau of Aeronautics, U.S. Navy. Warship Identification, Primary Flight Training, Rules of the Nautical Read and Aerology are other subjects currently in work for the Navy. Other pictures are being made fer the Army. These pictures will enable a sailor or soldier to learn in twenty minutes the basic types of aircraft, and with a little more study he will be able to tell at a glance whether it is an enemy plane or not that roars past his station.
Most ambitious of the Service films, one to be seen by every Army and Navy pilot, is "Aerology." After viewing the parts of this picture, which will equal in length three 5,000-foot features, a pilot should be able to recognise thunderheads, icing conditions and storms, and extricate himself before disaster overtakes him.
Similar techniques are incorporated in the films concerning warship recognition, films so highly confidential none but Naval officers and men are permitted to view them.
[img]Disney artist at work an idea showing method of smashing the Axis.[/img]
Somewhat more direct in training men to handle weapons is a picture of Canada's deadly anti-tank rifle. Not long ago J. L. Ralsten, Canadian Minister of National Defence, visited the Disney studio to discuss methods of teaching the use of important military weapons by means of amusing animated cartoon films. "May we insert a little slapstick comedy?" asked Disney. "Yes," replied Ralston, "if you think the comedy will relieve the tension of the lecture." I saw the results the other afternoon. Under the title, "Stop That Tank," two reels of live action and cartoons unfolded on the screen. In twenty minutes, with some sequences repeated for emphasis, an important details of setting up, aiming, firing, and knocking out German tanks were revealed.
Although the Service films will speed the training of millions of fighting men, most of Disney's efforts are directed at "selling" the United States to Latin America, and to raising standards of health and living in those countries. Twenty pictures are nearing completion, to be distributed by the Coordinator of American Affairs and the Rockefeller Foundation, in 35 mm. Technicolour and 16 mm. Kodachrome through theatres, churches, lodges and other meeting places, in nearly every city and village south of the border. Important among them is "The Amazon Basin," an agricultural and mineral watershed larger than the United States and more productive than the Mississippi valley. Cartoons will show our southern neighbours how they may develop this rich land.
[img]Disney {left} on a South American tour gets ideas far war films.[/img]
Other agricultural and public health films carry serious messages in a light vein, the subjects receiving novel treatment in order be convey dramatic messages so that the millions who see them will not forget.
Let us look at a couple. In "The Mosquito," the Seven Dwarfs demonstrate in twelve minutes how this malaria-carrier may be routed. "Sleepy" carries a can of oil into a swamp; "Sneezy" dusts a pond, others perform various roles. From the swampy scene, the camera cross-dissolves to a close-up of wigglers breeding, and through diagrammatic animation reveals in detail how the mosquitos carry disease from one human to another. You see the germs flowing through the skin into a female mesquite, and later from the mesquite to a second victim. Dramatic, unforgettable, and powerful lesson.
Disney artists worked out an unusually reflective approach for "Immunization." Many people are prejudiced against vaccination in any form; they do not understand. The human body is treated as a city, the bleed as an army of vigorous, red characters living in the city, disease as a rabble of ugly black germs. When the black fellows first attack, the defending soldiers are beaten back and the human city dies. Now a doctor injects healthy organism into the city, and the vigorous red soldiers, riding jeeps and tanks and reinforced by the hypodermic needle supplies turn back the invading disease hordes, driving them beyond the outer walls.
By these means "Mickey" and his make-believe friends are marching to war along dozen roads. Disney contributes every month insignia for fighting aircraft. You will find them on the side of war aircraft from Burbank to Cairo, from the Russian front to deep in the heart of Australia. Only recently two bombers roared into the Far East bearing replicas of "Donald" the duck. In one the duck was strangling a Jap, in the other warning: "Close-e Trap-e, Fool-e Jap-e." At the Studio, a crew of five artists keep busy turning out such insignia, which are presented to the fighting units. Yes, "Mickey's" gone all-out for victory, and his influence is being felt by fighting men and civilians alike, from the Canadian Arctic to the tip of Chile.
