Cast * Interesting Facts * The story of The Jungle Book * Richard M. Sherman Interview
Cast * Interesting Facts * The story of The Jungle Book * Richard M. Sherman Interview
Directed by: Wolfgang Reitherman
Written by: Rudyard Kipling (1894 novel), Larry Clemmons
Music by: George Bruns, Robert
& Richard Sherman
Released on: October 18, 1967
Running Time: 78 minutes
Budget:
Box-Office: $142 million in the U.S., $206 million worldwide
Mowgli...
Bruce
Reitherman
Baloo... Phil
Harris
Bagheera... Sebastian Cabot
King Louie... Louis Prima
Kaa... Sterling Holloway
Colonel Hathi... J. Pat O'Malley
Shere Khan... George Sanders
Elephants... Verna Felton
& Clint Howard
Vultures... Chad Stuart & Lord Tim Hudson
Wolves... John Abbott & Ben Wright
The Girl... Darleen Carr
In 1894 Rudyard Kipling completed the first of his series of short stories
which was compiled and put together as his best selling novel, The Jungle
Book.
The Jungle
Book (although not quite finished) proved to be Walt's last animated
film. In the late fall of 1966, a routine medical exam revealed that
Disney - a heavy smoker - was suffering from advanced lung cancer.
One lung was removed, but six weeks later, on December 15, he died in his
room at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, directly across the street from
the Studio. He was 65 years old. The Jungle Book was
released 10 months later.
It is also the
first of the Disney animated features in which the major characters were
based solidly on the personas of the voice-artists.
In The Jungle
Book, when Balloo realizes that they have to get back to the town before
the tiger, he says "We have to get to the town before Sheer Kahn!" but
if you listen carefully, he's actually saying "SH*T we have to... ...!"
When writers were
trying to come up with a storyline for Jungle Book, Walt Disney
told them specificly NOT to read the book. He wanted the story to be his
version, not Rudyard Kipling's original story.
Bruce Reitherman (Mowgli) is the son of Disney film director Wolfgang Reitherman
(1909-1985) who also directed him in The
Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977). Bruce's role in
The
Jungle Book may have played a role in his career aspirations in later
life -he is now an award winning nature film producer and director who
travels to exotic jungles around the world.
Originally, Mowgli's big bear pal was planned as no more than a cameo role.
However, with the voice talent of Phil Harris (1904-1995), a popular radio
and film star at the time, the character took on a life of its own and
his part in the movie expanded to one of the leads. "To this day,
kids come up and say "Baloo, can I have your autograph"' Phil once said!
He would later go on to provide his voice for Thomas O'Malley in The
Aristocats, Little John in Robin Hood,
and Patou in Don Bluth's Rock-A-Doodle,
which would be his last role.
Jim
Hill revealed that the film was originally supposed to feature Rocky
the Rhino, the nearsighted rhino who was slated to have a run-in with Mowgli
and Baloo. "Rocky was supposed to be the featured player in a high energy
slapstick chase sequence which was supposed to have occurred in the movie
right after King Louie's palace came crashing down. Rocky's sequence for
The
Jungle Book actually got fairly far along in the production process
before Walt decided to axe it. How far along? Detailed storyboards for
the scene were created. And Disney Studios had even gone so far as to hire
an actor to provide the voice for the short-sighted, short tempered rhino:
singer/comic performer Frankie Fontaine. You wanna see what Rocky was supposed
to look like? Go pick up a copy of Bob Thomas' "Building A Company: Roy
O. Disney and the Creation of an Entertainment Empire" (Hyperion Press,
1998). Then take a peek at that great picture of Walt and Roy the back
cover. Just behind the Disney brothers is a Rocky the Rhinoceros storyboard.
Or--if you'd prefer to see a picture of Rocky with the rest of the cast
for Disney's "The Jungle Book" -- go chase down a copy of Don Hahn's "Disney's
Animation Magic: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at how an Animated Film is Made"
(Disney Press, 1996). On Page 9 on that book, right under the title "Act
1 - The Idea" is a size comparison chart of the entire original cast of
this animated feature. And there -- right between the vulture and the baby
elephant -- is beady eyed, slack jawed old Rocky the Rhino. So why did
Disney decide to cut this particular sequence out of the picture? Floyd
Norman--animation legend, recent Winsor McCay life-time achievement award
recipient and all-around nice guy--told me that Walt "just didn't find
the business [that Disney's animators had come up with for this Jungle
Book character] very funny." I've also heard that Disney decided to
cut this slapstick-heavy scene because it came right on the heels of the
King Louie palace sequence. Walt reportedly thought that it was bad moviemaking
to put two high energy comedy sequences back to back. So--even though Frankie
Fontaine had already recorded Rocky's voice, and the Jungle
Book production had already cut together a leica reel of all the
storyboards to be used in this sequence--once Uncle Walt said that the
rhino scene was out, that scene was out. No questions asked. Legendary
animator Milt Kahl was the artist who was supposed to animate Rocky. It
was only after the rhinocero's big scene got cut out of the picture that
Milt got assigned to Shere Khan--which many consider to be Milt's finest
work."
King Louie is voiced by jazz legend Louis Prima. Prima became so wrapped
up in his character he would call up and beg for an expanded role. 'Let
me fight the tiger', Prima pleaded, "I could do a great death scene".
Walt Disney died
during the shooting of this movie. Had The Jungle Book not
been a commercial success, Disney Animation would have been closed.
The Jungle
Book was such a huge success in 1967, right after Walt Disney's death
and when the studio was in a creative low, that a sequel was considered
an an LPs worth of songs called More Jungle Book was put out into
the market to see how it would do. Sales were poor so the idea of Jungle
Book 2 was dropped.
A theatrical
sequel was released in February 2003.
The
Jungle Book was made during a time of transition. Not only transition
for the animation staff having to deal with the death of Walt Disney, but
the transition of principle interests within Disney's life at the time.
It was no secret that, with the advent of television and Disneyland in
the 1950's, Disney's attention was no longer primarily focused upon his
animation studio. The animators who were used to working with him
found themselves at a loss when working on Sleeping
Beauty. The boss was not so easily reached for opinion as
he was too busy planning Disneyland, working on television, and honing
a then-new live-action film department. This sense of aloofness increased
with features like 101 Dalmatians.
Ken Anderson designed its "heavy ink" background quality to mesh well with the heavy lines of Ub Iwerks new Xerox process. Disney made no secret of the fact that he did not approve of this messy line quality in his features. As perfect as this design quality was for 101 Dalmatians, it was equally inappropriate for Disney's next animated feature, The Sword in the Stone. This feature's lack of proper story/character development further proves Walt's lack of interest in his animated product. It is quite possible that, during the time of this film's production, Walt was more concerned with his pavilions for the New York World's Fair and his modern cinematic masterpiece, Mary Poppins. The fact that Poppins, released a year later, was such a strong picture reveals Disney's strong interest in this particular product.
By the time the Disney studio got around to The Jungle Book, Walt Disney's mind had moved further out of the realm of animation. By this time he had not only Disneyland, television, and live-action film to occupy his time, he was hard at work on his newest dream, Walt Disney World. This project would demand his entire creative reserve and leave no room for a project like The Jungle Book. This very fact may have been that which moved Walt Disney to find such a simple solution for his problem. By hiring voice actors who were already known for their definite personalities, Walt would have to waste no time helping the storymen define the individual characters. This would cut costs on the film and free more of his personal time. Of course, the Disney studio was already using the Xerox process and had no qualms about recycling their own animation. Just as the Xerox process had been inappropriate for The Sword in the Stone, it was perfect for such an unconventional feature as The Jungle Book. Not only did it cut costs, it provided an almost irreverent line style to match the irreverence of the film's story.
The
main aspect of The Jungle Book which garners praise (beside the
built-in voice personalities) is its incredible song score. This
song score was originally to have been written by composer/lyricist Terry
Gilkyson. Once Walt decided that the original Kipling material was
not ideally suited for depiction in a Disney film, he threw out all but
one of the songs written by Gilkyson and asked Robert B. Sherman and Richard
M. Sherman, who had done such a marvelous job with Mary
Poppins, if they would write some songs for the project.
Of course, Gilkyson's "Bare Necessities" remains the most loved and best
remembered song from the film, but the Sherman Brothers did not fail to
please with their contributions. The Sherman Brothers had the knack
for writing in several different genres of music, no matter for what the
material may have been originally intended. Who else could have jazzed
up the Arthurian legend of The Sword
in the Stone with a number like "Higitus, Figitus?" Once
again, with The Jungle Book, the Sherman Brothers wrote in a wide
variety of musical styles, each one helping to define the character for
whom it was written.
Once the film was completed, it remained to be seen whether it would be a hit. If it was a hit, the studio would know that animated films without Walt's guiding hand might be possible. If it was a failure, the animation studio may well be disbanded.
Fortunately, the film was a hit -the first animated film ever to achieve
gold record status, and the classic toe-tapping tune 'Bare Necessities'
was nominated for an Oscar- and history shows that this was the testing
ground for the post-Disney animated film. But the greater challenge
was to come three years later with the release of The
Aristocats (1970), which was truly the first film made without
Walt, not The Jungle Book.
From the April 2003 issue of Dreams
Magazine
How was Walt Disney's The Jungle Book born?
The
first version of the story was written by great animator and storyman Bill
Peet, with songs by Terry Gilkyson. His draft was very faithful to Rudyard
Kipling's original book, very dark and mysterious. Walt Disney hated it
and told Bill: "This is not the movie I want to make. It is too dark and
depressing." Bill Peet replied that this was the way Rudyard Kipling had
meant it, to which Walt replied: "But this is not the way Disney will produce
it! I want a funny movie and there is nothing funny about this story. And
there's only one good song." It was The Bare Necessities which Walt
liked a lot.
So one day, my brother and I got a phone call from Walt, who asked us
to meet him in his office. The first thing he asked us was: "Do you know
The
Jungle Book?" I said, "Yes, it is a British film from the '30s with
Sabu as Mowgli, that's pretty much all we know." He said: "Did you read
the book?", which we hadn't. "Great, then just make sure you don't read
it! I want you to simply keep in mind that The Jungle Book is about
a little boy raised by the wolves and who, for his own safety and well-being,
must return to the men's village because he's lived his whole life with
animals and is now too old for that, plus there is a nasty tiger named
Shere Khan who wants to kill him. This is all you need to know. Now, what
I want from you is that you think of the darkest and most mysterious scenes
of this story and make them funny through your songs. Write as many funny
songs as you can based on this story!' We then met with the story team,
including Larry Clemmons whom we worked a lot with, and director Wollie
Reitherman, so that we could identify scenes we could slip songs in.
Can you tell us more about these songs?
One of the most terrifying scenes in the original story was when the monkeys and their king kidnap Mowgli. This was a horrifying experience for the young boy. And we had to make this funny. So the first thing that came to our mind was to call King Louie "the king of swingers" since he's a monkey and is used to swinging in the trees! So he had to be a jazzman! We wrote I Wanna Be Like You and played it to Walt and the rest of the team, with the animators. Everybody agreed it would make for a very funny scene! This was the first song we wrote for the movie and everybody loved it.
Next, we thought the character of the snake was too scary and we wanted to make him funny, so we thought he should have a problem pronunciating the S-es, and elongate them. It gave something like "Trussst in me / Jussst in me / Sssshhhut your eyessss and trusssst in me." It made him really funny and lots of different ideas then emerged, like the trouble he's having with his tail. It was all the funnier since the snake is a scary animal to start with! Walt loved it and thought of giving Kaa an hipnotic, kaleidoscopic look.
Next we worked on Colonel Hathi's March. We wanted to make it a parody of military songs.
The scene with the vultures was another scary and weird scene from the
original book, and we wanted to pay tribute to the Beattles by giving them
an accent somewhere in between a cockney and Liverpool accent, in a musical
number like the Barbeshop Quartett! Walt loved the line in That's What
Friends Are For: 'We never met an animal we didn't like.' And we loved
writing all these songs!"
The original cast is truly remarkable and had a real influence on the personality of the characters. What are your memories of Louis Prima (King Louie), Phil Harris (Baloo) and Sterling Holloway (Kaa)?
When we finished I Wanna Be Like You, we immediately thought it had to be performed by a jazzman. Originally, we even thought of Louis Armstrong, who had recorded some of our songs for other movies, so we knew him already. We thought it was a great idea but as we were going to contact him, someone told us: "Did you realize that the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] might be offended if the king of monkeys is a Black man? This could be interpreted as an insult." We were galaxies away from thinking that way, we didn't want to insult anybody. All men are created equal and we had picked Louis Armstrong for his incredible talent. So we moved on and thought of Louis Prima, who had also recorded many of our songs and that we are big fans of. Our luck star made it so that Tutti Camerata, who was the musical director of Disney's records, was very good friend with him. We played our song to Louis Prima and his orchestra, Sam Butera and the Witnesses. at the end of the song, he looked at my brother and I with a very serious look on his face (which was unusual since he was often very funny onstage) while everybody else was dead silent, and he said: "So you want to make me a monkey?" We said "Yes", and he simply replied: 'Well, you got me!" They scared us on purpose because they loved the song and made them ours to turn it into something amazing!
Then Phil Harris came onboard. He was truly somebody unique, very special, who gave a wonderful performance for this song in particular and Baloo in general. It was a real treat to work with him. It's interesting to think that Louis and Phil could never work together on the soundtrack since they were hundreds of miles away each time one of them was available for a recording session. We had to record their part separately then mix them together. It was really weird because they were supposed to talk to each other in the song. When Louis Prima sang "Oo be doo be doo", Phil Harris was supposed to reply the same thing. But he said: "These are not my words." So we offered him to ad lib. It became "Oo be doo be doo / ree ba na za", and turned into an actual dialogue in scat: it was incredible! We had something magical. Before their death, both artists said that The Jungle Book was one of the accomplishments that made them immortal. We were very proud because these two gentlemen were truly extraordinary.
As for Sterling Holloway, we were very close to him since we worked with him on all the songs for Winnie the Pooh. One day, Walt asked him if he could voice Kaa the snake, and he totally changed his personality to become this scary and threatening animal, it was amazing! The difference between the soft and sweet Winnie was breathtaking. He gave an amazing performance and improved on a few lines, like: "It’sss gonna ssslow down my ssslithering".
So we benefited from some of the best voices in teh word! For the part
of the young girl, we contacted Darleen Carr. She was shooting a movie
for the studio called Monkeys, Go Home! (1967) with Maurice Chevalier,
in which she had to sing. She had a really sweet and pure voice, so we
asked her to try out the song in our office during the lunch hour. We recorded
a demo as I played the piano, and her performance was so nice that we played
it to Walt. A year later, when it was time to record the final soundtrack,
we were looking for a singer and Walt told us: "You already found her!
The young girl from the demo!" He really could remember everything! He
had heard her only once and she was stuck in his memory: "She's the one!"
So we asked Darleen Carr to come back to sing again My Own Home,
and it was very emotional.
The fact that a big part of I Wanna Be Like You was ad libed is very unusual for a soundtrack.
Well, this song was conceived as a very collaborative project from the
beginning. We tried to have a jazz opening, then we said: "Now, improvise!"
The orchestra was having fun. Cappy Lewis, the solo trumpetist, imagined
a solo that purposefully did not match what we had written. But it's the
fact that so much was improvised that makes this song so good.
The Trashin' the Camp sequence in Tarzan, with its scat and trumpet, is a vibrant and emotional tribute to this song.
It was indeed a good idea to use scat for that sequence. But you know,
we didn't invent scat. It goes back to Louis Armstrong. He recorded the
first scat, Hee Bie Jee Bies, in 1926. For me, he's the real king!
I
Wanna Be Like You was a sort of tribute to him. Tarzan shows
us what you can learn from the past. It's a very good thing. It's good
to get your inspiration from the past, to make it yours to build your own
path.
My Own Home is very different from all the other songs you wrote for The Jungle Book.
That's true, this song is not funny. We wrote it because we needed a
conclusion, which was not easy. We thought it was a good idea for the little
girl to appear. She would help Mowgli to discover the emotions that a young
man can feel for a girl. He would see a beautiful young girl with beautiful
eyes coming to get water, and he would fall for her, wanting to follow
her. It's the magic of life, which draws a boy to a girl, and a girl to
a boy... and Mowgli to the man's village. We imagined some sort of siren's
song based on the story. At the same time, Ken Anderson, the wonderful
artistic director, was in charge of drawing the story. We had never seen
his work on this scene and he had never heard our song. One day, we went
to his office and it was incredible to see that his drawings matched exactly
our song! The tears were coming to his eyes when he heard it for the first
time. It was as if we had written the same piece! Each detail could be
found in the drawings and the music. We showed everything to Walt and the
animators, and he told us: "This is it! This is the end, let's go! -Father’s
hunting in the forest / Mother’s cooking in the home / ‘Til the day that
I am grown (…) Then I will have a handsome husband / And a daughter of
my own / And I’ll send her to fetch the water / I’ll be cooking in the
home": it is the wonderful conclusion to the circle of life!
All the songs you wrote had a subtitle: Colonel Hathi’s March (The Elephant Song), I Wan’na Be Like You (The Monkey Song), That’s What Friends Are For (The Vulture Song). Why is that?
Before writing each song, we wrote a subtitle on each sheet, and only
after did we name them. The subtitles stayed and we still call I Wan’na
Be Like You, The Monkey Song. This made it easier for us to
remember the characters and inspired us.
The most interesting of all these subtitles is that of My Own Home: The Jungle Book Theme.
That was the studio's idea. This theme was often used in different parts
of the movie. That's why it became the theme of the movie, which follows
you during the entire adventure. George Bruns used it between each scene,
each encounter with a different animal, to remind you of Mowgli's ultimate
goal, his true destination: he must not live with the wolves, but with
the men. And you understand this when you hear and see the young girl by
the river. She represents the evolution of human life. Mowgli is led to
her and one day, they will get married, have kids, and everything can continue.
It's this obsessing theme that guides you and draws you to the end. I never
talked about it before, but this aspect of the movie holds all its sense.
The entire success of the movie comes from the fact that this is all expressed
with great subtelty.
The two great principles from Disney's films, laughter and emotion, are wonderfully combined in this movie.
Walt first insisted that the movie be funny, then when he heard this
song which speaks from the heart, has this little extra soul... Walt dealt
a lot with the theme of dream through Someday My Prince Will Come
for instance, but in this case, the dream is simply to have kids, to live
your own life in your own world, and Mowgli is going to be able to be part
of it. This is very subtle, and it's the way Walt had wanted it. He really
believed in family.
Can you talk to us about More Jungle Book, for which you and your brother wrote Baloo's Blues and It's A Kick?
At that time, they were already talking about a Jungle Book sequel,
but it never happened. It was a time when the studio had a hard time moving
forward. However we did write two new songs, and two more were supposed
to be incorporated. It eventually was released as an LP in 1969. You can
actually hear these two songs performed by Phil Harris on the movie's soundtrack
on CD. The Jungle Book 2
that Disney released recently is different from the sequel originally envisioned
in the '60s.
It's funny to think that The Jungle Book features a song originally written for Mary Poppins.
You must be referring to The Land of Sand. This song was written
as an instrumental piece for a scene in which Mary Poppins takes the kids
on an imaginary trip around the world. They arrive in the middle of the
Sahara desert and there she starts to sing using the same melody. But this
sequence was abandoned and we were left with that hypnotic song. That's
when we thought that we could use it for Kaa, and it's exactly what we
did--with new lyrics.
The last word is yours...
I would simply tell you that we had a lot of fun writing the songs of
The
Jungle Book, and that we did it in ideal conditions, surrounded by
the best animators and storymen, most of which are no longer with us. But
they are still alive in our heart and the characters they created will
live forever. I am still very proud to have been part of that group. It
was the last animated movie supervised by Walt Disney and he was very involved
in every aspect of the project. You can find all his humor and sensibility
in this movie, which is why it's been so successful.
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