Lloyd Alexander's Unused Script

Excerpts from Didier Ghez' interview with The Black Cauldron's co Director Richard Rich

from the book Walt's People Volume 2

"DG: The Black Cauldron took 10 years to produce. What were the greatest ideas that were discarded through production?

RR: The story went in many different directions. They even had the writer, Lloyd Alexander come in and do a screenplay. They brought in another writer to do a screenplay But with Disney's animation approach at that time, the storyboard was key. It was more of a collaborative effort.

        Then Pete Young took that one and went to a room by himself. Pete died when he was still on that project. He was just a young guy in his late twenties.

He went in and brought lots of things and got people excited.

but [the challenge] was more in trying to find the approach to that film and to that story that would meet the Disney qualifications. The conflict was always about how far to push the darkness in it. in attempt to find a middle ground, it was probably too scary for kids but not too scary enough for the teenage market. I don't know that the balance was ever found, but it was an attempt to move off of the sweetness but still having the sweet qualities of Disney in there, with a love story, and Gurgi."

"DG: Why did you end up up not using the script by Lloyd Alexander?

RR: As often the case, animation is such a visual thing. The Lloyd Alexander script was extremely long, too long, Condensing the story into a seventy-five minute story was extremely difficult for him."

Storyteller Record Albums

Storyteller and read along from Disneyland Records (Walt Disney Records)  narrated by the legendary movie trailer narrator Chuck Riley 

                                                                                

When The Black Cauldron was in theaters in 1985 in Sweden.... It was even more severly cut

from  https://www.non-disneyinternationaldubbingcredits.com/taran-och-den-magiska-kitteln--the-black-cauldron-swedish-voice-cast.html

               

• Premiere (first dubbing) : 11/29/1985
• Premiere (second dubbing) : 07/01/1998 (VHS release)

• There are two Swedish dubs of this film. The first from 1985 and the second from 1998.
• Several scenes were cut out of the Swedish 1985 dub as the censors thought they were inappropriate for children. These scenes were not dubbed in the original dub. The scenes that were cut are in the third YouTube video.
• The original dub is unavailable for public viewing as it is being kept in the Swedish Archives. There are several extracts that have been uploaded online which are the only pieces to be publicly viewable.
• The second dubbing was made for the first sales (and only) VHS release in 1998. The reason for the creation of the second dub was to dub the scenes cut from the Swedish premiere.

                                       The Black Cauldon - Swedish Original Dub Scenes

                         The Black Cauldon - More Scenes from the Swedish Original Dub.avi

                                Black Cauldron - Removed Scenes in Swedish Original Dub

Donald Duck Magazine drawing

                                 https://hellyeahprydain.tumblr.com/post/14619456135

Model Sheet Oddities

Back full on topic on The Black Cauldron (1985)

Here are two animation model sheets that are made for the film

from lowery.com: https://auction.howardlowery.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=3392598

They named the mean dog "Burny"?

So they are not "henchmen" nor "barbarians", but Huntsmen.

Are they the film's Huntsmen of Annuvin  perhaps?

Bobby Driscoll

Walt Disney's Peter Pan (1953) turned 67 on the 5th of this February of 2020.

It got me to thinking about the Disney veteran, former child star, actor and artist Bobby Driscoll [1937 - 1968]

I remember when I was young,

my family and I would watch VHS tapes of Disney Sing Along Songs and the Disney classics.

Disney's Sing Along Songs: Zip A Dee Doo Dah (1986) had some clips of the popular songs from the Disney catalogue as well as the title song Zip A Dee Doo Dah from  Song of the South (1946).

While Song of the South was (and still is) permanently withheld from circulation,

Bobby's second Disney film  So Dear to My Heart (1949) was available at the time, so this was one of the films we watched a lot.

memories aside,

 here is a documentary about Bobby.

interesting articles not talked about in the documentary: The Role I Liked Best... (Saturday Evening Post; 1951-01-27) — DIX - Disney Index Project (relaunch β) (dix-project.net)

Driscoll Appeal Against British Court Conviction Is Lost - Disney Cancels Plans to Bring Child to England Next Year (Showmen's Trade Review; 1949-11-05) — DIX - Disney Index Project (relaunch β) (dix-project.net)

some photographs from Early development of Sleeping Beauty (1959) from the early 1950's with Bobby Driscoll and Kathern Beaumount

              Images from the 2008 "50th Anniversary Edition" of Sleeping Beauty (1959) DVD


Milt Kahl one of Walt's top animator's, who animated and designed Peter and Wendy, did character designs for The Black Cauldron (1985).
You can see Milt's drawings as posted by animator Andreas Deja here: https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/02/milt-kahls-black-cauldron.html






                                     

video with a short history about Bobby Driscoll who was buried on Hart Island. also in the video an interview with Black Cauldron special effects animator and current Disney animation film preservationist Dave Bossert.

you can also check out this Bobby Driscoll tribute blog here: http://rememberingbobby37.blogspot.com/

1969 interview with Lloyd Alexander

Happy New Year of 2020!

Last year was the 50th anniversary of the last book of The Chronicles of Prydain: The High King.
it was Published in 1969.

In the same year the books series author Lloyd Alexander did an interview for Imperial International Learning's  Meet the Authors.