Destino

Early in 1946, Walt Disney started a collaboration with famous surrealist painter Salvador Dali, fresh out of his first collaboration with Hollywood: the design of a dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound.
Somewhat frustrated by the fact that a good portion of  the dream had been cut out, Dali embarked on what he thought would be a more appropriate medium for his art: animation.

Walt Disney teamed him up with studio artist John Hench who had worked on Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, etc.
Their assignment was a short film based on a song called Destino by Dora Luz (who had appeared in The Three Caballeros) which struck a chord with Dali because of his interest in Destiny. At the time, Disney manufactured mostly shorts or "package features" (a mixture of shorts put together) with smaller production values than for Snow White because the War had left the studio somewhat crippled financially. So a musical short in the style of Make Mine Music or Melody Time with a Dali twist seemed the thing to do.

The two artists exchanged their knowledge and ideas and many production sketches came out of it. There was even color test footage made from a production background and two cels sliding towards each other to reveal the form of a dancer when they merged together.

Apparently, Dali designed sketches, scenes and moods and it was John Hench's task to find continuity between these sequences.

For some unclear reason, the project was shelved, probably under Disney's orders (he apparently disliked the base-ball player idea), and Dali was paid off.

But it was not the end of Destino. Some 50 years later, during production of Fantasia 2000, the staff came across the filed-away artwork for the film and with the support of Roy Disney and help of John Hench, it was decided to give French director Dominique Monfery the task of making a short film from this basis. It was made in the now-defunct French animation studio in Paris.

The film is now available on youtube but I strongly suggest you buy the Fantasia 2000 Blu-ray for pristine quality and also for the very informative and complete documentary about the film: Dali & Disney: A date with Destino.

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That's all for today folks!