Song of the South, After the Civil War, down in the Deep South state of Georgia, a little boy named Johnny (Bobby Driscoll) is excited about a trip to visit his grandmother living on a rural cotton/tobacco/rice/pecan plantation. However, his visit soon turns painful as he learns that his parents are separating, and his dad returns to Atlanta. Determined to run away, he starts off for Atlanta with all his possessions in a bag. As he starts leaving the plantation, he hears former slave-turned-sharecropper Uncle Remus (James Baskett) telling a group of people stories about Brer Rabbit. He stops to listen, and people start looking for him. Uncle Remus reassures them he knows where the boy is. Then he befriends Johnny and thru his Brer Rabbit stories convinces him to stay at home. Johnny befriends a little girl named Ginny. She gives him a puppy, and her older brothers want to drown it. Uncle Remus once again saves the day with his stories. Johnny’s mother gets angry because Uncle Remus kept the dog, so she demands he not tell any more stories. Uncle Remus, unhappy about the way he’s being treated, leaves for Atlanta. Johnny chases him and is injured by a bull. Although he almost dies, one of Uncle Remus’ stories pulls him through.
An embarrassment for the Disney people, but not to anyone who enjoys great movies
Song of the South, Political correctness having been pounded into our heads by the media, I can understand the underlying racial issues that have blunted this Disney film’s reputation–no one really wants to be reminded of this particular era (the post-Civil War) when rich Southern white folks called the shots and the black folk did all the hard work–but I can’t imagine any film-goer of any color passing up the chance to see James Baskett as Uncle Remus (this was his swan song, dying about a year after this film’s original release and just a few months after winning a special Oscar for his contribution). I saw this in the 1970s at a drive-in theater and the experience was magical, it stuck with me for years. It’s an emotional, lovely movie about childhood, the friendship between kids and adults, and the confusion about right and wrong. There are no issues here about white and black, but then, this isn’t the proper film to address those issues. It is the South at the turn of the century, and in that regard it’s not much different from “Gone With The Wind”. There are beautiful animated interludes and a handful of terrific songs, Brer Bear is a riotous Disney character, and the live-action youngsters (Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten) are wonderful–the scene where he gives her his fancy collar is quite poignant. Driscoll and Patten were later teamed in Disney’s “So Dear To My Heart”, which is also worth finding. “Song of the South” is a film with a great big heart that needs to come out of the vaults. Let viewers judge for themselves.
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