Walt & El Grupo Website and Review

The documentary Walt & El Grupo, directed by Ted Thomas, son of animator Frank Thomas, now has a website at WaltandElGrupo.com. The film documents the goodwill tour of South America that Walt Disney and select members of his staff took during 1941. The trip was taken at a turbulent time in history, just as America was entering WWII and smack-dab in the middle of the infamous Disney studio strike. It ultimately helped inspire the studio’s Latin America compilation features: Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros.

We’d previously posted a review of the film by Karl Cohen on Cartoon Brew. Yesterday, I ran across a new review by Scott Kirsner of the Cinematech blog. It’s a mixed critique: Kirsner appreciates the film’s “jaunty Latin American soundtrack and its sense of context” but says it ends up “feeling too much like an itinerary-based family slide show.” He adds that “the film suffers from a major personality void,” because none of the eighteen Disney personnel who went on the trip are interviewed in the film (owing to the fact that they’re all deceased). Needless to say, I’m still really looking forward to seeing the film.