American Cinematographer - November 1988 - 42

Sheet music

wolf at their doors, found a vicarious release in watch¬

cover

for the

ing the Pigs defeat their Wolf. Undoubtedly there is
some truth in this
theory, but Three Little Pigs cannot be
taken very seriously as a "statement" about the De¬
pression. To begin with, it has never been clear exactly
what that "statement" was supposed to be. Some have
seen it as an endorsement of the
recently-elected Frank¬
lin D. Roosevelt, a promise that the New Deal would
cure the ills of the Depression. On the other hand, the
Wolf is defeated by the old-fashioned virtues of hard
work and individual initiative, and the Practical Pig's
warning that "work and play don't mix," so some have

pigs' hit
utilizing art

song,
from the one-sheet

poster.

seen

the film

writer has

even

tribute to Herbert Hoover. (One

suggested that the Practical Pig looked a

bit like Hoover, a trait which was never mentioned in
the model sheets!) This explanation of the film's popu¬

larity overlooks the other,

explicitly Depressionperiod which failed to
approach the success of Three Little Pigs. Walter Lantz's
Confidence, released in July 1933, is a good example; in
it Oswald the Rabbit goes to Washington to confer
directly with Roosevelt on the nation's economic woes.
The film's message could not be more clear, but it is
hardly remembered at all today
Certainly the success of Three Little Pigs owes
something to the elusive factor of timing - being re¬
leased at a time that was psychologically "right." This
was illustrated when the film was given a belated
release in Finland, along with a package of other
Disney shorts. Surviving records indicate that it was
popular in Finland, but not spectacularly so; it was
outgrossed there by both Santa's Workshop and Birds in
the Spring.
oriented cartoons of the

familiar with the tremendous role Rennahan

played in
early history of Technicolor. At the time, studios
wishing to make Technicolor films were obliged to
have them photographed by Technicolor personnel and Disney's color cartoons, which had begun less
than a year earlier with Flowers and Trees, were no
exception. They were the first cartoons to use Techni¬
color's new three-strip process, and a great deal of
testing and experimentation were still called for. Accor¬
dingly, for Disney's early color films (including Three
Little Pigs), Rennahan worked with Bill Cottrell, the
head of Disney's camera department.
Cottrell recalls today that the presence of
Technicolor personnel quickly became a mere formal¬
ity. For each successive frame, Cottrell would raise the
platen on the camera table, remove the cels from the
previous frame, make any necessary adjustments to
the background, put the new cels in place, and replace
the platen - whereupon Rennahan would push the
button that exposed the frame! "But," Cottrell adds
quickly, "that's the way it had to be done. And Ray was
a very nice man. You know, it was just a job that he had
to do." Soon Disney's color production was stan¬
dardized and running smoothly, and Rennahan was
free to give his full attention to such live-action pictures
as
Becky Sharp. But when Disney began tentatively to
venture into live-action production (Victory Through Air
the

causes

of the film's success, its

Power, The Three Caballeros) in the Forties, Rennahan's

immediate and spontaneous. United Art¬
distributor, was unprepared for the
short's extraordinary popularity, and found itself un¬
able to satisfy the demand for prints. "They had it
booked for more theaters, and they were taking it from
one theater to a
neighboring theater so they could run it
and then bicycle it back," says Dick Lundy. "And they
were running the Spanish and French prints also; they
were
running every print they could get their hands
on
I mean, here in L. A. I don't know what happened
in the rest of the country, but I know that here, that's the
way it was."
That, indeed, was the way it was everywhere.
As public interest refused to abate, but actually in¬
creased, the press began to enjoy turning from more
serious news of the day to report on the latest develop¬
ment in the Pig craze. First-run theaters, whether or
not they could obtain the film, incorporated its charac¬
ters and music into their stage prologues. Theaters that
were
showing the film began to compete with each
other with elaborate promotions and advertising. One
Brooklyn exhibitor displayed three live pigs in a cage

work

outside his theater

was once

again seen in Disney films.
popular explanation of the great suc¬

Another

impact

times. The year

American

Cinematographer

was

ists, then Disney's

and was promptly charged with
cruelty to animals when the cage was judged too small.
One

of Three Little

Pigs is that it served as a tonic for the
1933 was one of the worst of the
Depression, and millions of Americans, faced with a
cess

Whatever the

same

unexpected side effect of Three Little

Pigs' popularity (and, surely,
well)

was

contributing factor

the separate popularity of its theme song,

November 1988

American Cinematographer - November 1988

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