"The Three Caballeros"

Walt Disney and many more

Sometimes a Song can open a door to history and culture from the long ago — or from perhaps the not-so-long ago. Today’s song is in one way just a hoot of a tune among many which were recorded in the 1940’s when Bing Crosby had the great good fortune to work with a trio of stellar “back-up” singers — wildly successful in their own right! — known as The Andrews Sisters. I’ve written about them before (here) and about Bing several times. But there’s always more to every story, as we all know.

Our song for this week was “born” in Mexico and became a centerpiece of an early Disney animated film of the same name, “The Three Caballeros” (1944). Disney was making history with his animated films in those days, beginning with his simply astounding feature film, “Snow White” (1937), which that year one everyone’s heart and was nominated by the Academy for Best Musical Score. And after a year of astronomical box office success and popular acclain, Walt Disney was presented with an honorary Oscar at the next year’s Academy Awards ceremony. The popularity of this first-ever animated feature-lenght film has never waned, and some think has never been surpassed. In 2008, The American Film institute named “Snow White” the Best Animated Film of all time, and included it in their list of The Top 100 Films of all Time. Those were glory days, indeed, for Mr. Disney and really for the film industry in general. Consider this: the price of admission to “Snow White” was 10 cents for children, and in 1938 the movie was the top-grossing film ever (bringing in over $8 million dollars in its first run), holding this position for animated films for a very long time. Think of that: 800 million tickets had to be sold to make this sum — in 1938 dollars. And the stars of the show were cartoons!

I wish I had thought to ask my father when he was still with us if he saw “Snow White” in its original run. He’d have been eight years old, and with two younger sisters, even my very “near” grandfather might have parted with 30 cents for such a treat .. maybe. I do know that my father took me to see “Snow White” when I was a child, and I’ve looked up that date — which would have been in its 1967 re-release. What a treasure it was to see Disney films in those days, animated or not. But I am digressing here, because, after all, our song for this week is not one of the greats from “Snow White.”

Today I have for you a very different kind of animated Disney movie, one which Walt was certainly thinking about for awhile before production began. And this film was another “first” in American film — the first film to present real actors and animated characters interacting with each other as full characters. That film, “The Three Caballeros,” released in 1944, was conceived as Walt Disney’s contribution to the Good Neighbor Policy, via the arts. Any one here recall reading about that in school? Actually, the original idea for that policy came from Herbert Hoover, but was only formally adopted during Roosevelt’s first term, with the idea, first, of combatting the economic crisis of Great Depression by fostering trade with Latin America, and later also of pushing back against a growing Nazi presence to the south of us leading up to WWII. And so “The Three Caballeros” were goodwill embassadors, in a film which honored Donald Duck’s tenth “birthday” with a fanciful story involving birthday gifts which the famous duck received from Latin America —particularly from Brazil and Mexico — all set to popular tunes featuring great entertainers who were well known south of our border.

Walt Disney was a perfectionist in many ways. If he was going to feature Latin America, he was going to use the best talent he could get to do our neighbors justice, all in a package that would entertain all ages. Evidently, he had contacts in both Brazin and Mexico keeping an ear on the newest popular songs .. and managed to secure the rights to some excellent music, such as our Sometimes a Song, for this film. “The Three Caballeros” was written by a master of Mexican popular song, Manuel Esperón, who was well know in the film industry and in his career had contributed to dozens of Mexican movies. In fact, the Spanish original of our tune of the week had already been featured in a Mexican film of the same name, “Ay, Jalisco, no te rajes!” (1941). Of course the Disney lyrics in English were added later by the American lyricist, Ray Gilbert, who would go on to win an Oscar a few years later for his "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" from another Disney film, “Song of the South.” If you get a chance to watch full version of “The Three Caballeros,” be sure to keep an eye out for Carmen Miranda’s younger sister, Auroro, dancing with Donald Duck! As I said, a lot of talent went into the making of this film. And all the music for it is delightful.

Phew! I could go on and on, but for now I will leave you where I began, with the charming recording by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. And I’ll also attach the animated version of our song from the film. ¡Arriba!

Word & Song by Anthony Esolen is an online magazine devoted to reclaiming the good, the beautiful, and the true. We publish six essays each week, on words, classic hymns, poems, films, and popular songs, as well as a Friday podcast, alternately Poetry Aloud or Anthony Esolen Speaks. To support this project, please join us as a subscriber and please do share our posts.