Sometimes, the movies get it VERY right...

... even if one was a 1964 children's classic. If you're like me, you'll really enjoy this "blast from the past," especially the names (that I never really 'caught' until this titled clip) of the Directors. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt9JpYRulSk&feature=related

Not just how well reserved a performance Dick Van Dyke gave, but how bold and undisguised the message was. I love how the father is totally bought into the Program and the kids don't "get it".

BTW, did any of you catch the actress playing The Bird Woman? It's Jane Darwell (acclaimed performance as Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath) and her appearance is starkly contrasted to the bastion of greedy capitalist bankers later in the film.

(I have always been and shall always be something of a radical liberal) To this day the song "Feed the Birds" makes me cry. I think it is one of the most beautiful and meaningful songs I have ever heard.

It's is always interesting to me to ponder the contrasts of the messages in films like this and even today like Wall-E. Disney films often have messages that emphasize our responsibilities to one another & the world we live in. The messages are progressive & liberal. (Note this is just my opinion or interpretation of the movies). Disney/Pixar movies are hits. Yet Disney as a corporation does very corporate unfriendly things. It is hostile to labor. It did have factories (don't know about now but definitely in the early nineties.) in Haiti. The corporation could have easily paid the Haitians a living wage but chose not too--giving on a few cents for the work done & then selling the t-shirts and caps for mucho bucko here in the states.

Maybe its just that the arts are creative and 'liberal' & since the movies, music are arts the message comes across in the movies.


P.S. Not a Disney movie but if you haven't seen it get Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" The opening scene of the accounting firms as pirates on the High Accountansea is a riot and real visual, musical interpretation of the banking industry.

was the only one who cried at "Feed the Birds"! Thank you for sharing that. :hug:

Probably because it made little sense to me at the young age I watched it. Or did it? Considering my current political views. Talk about Prescient.

They'll just BREED!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX4Ppm-cPZI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VwU_oS2ErQ

Nominated for 13 Academy Awards, more than any other Disney film, won 5, and was the highest-grossing film of 1964. Still appeals to children (and adults) 45 years later, as it has elements that appeal to kids, a relevant story and themes, and plenty of witty lines to appeal to adults.