About a month ago, Jim Hill gave me a call. He informed me that he had just scored an invite to the “Lady and the Tramp” screening at Hollywood’s El Capitan theatre, where the newly-digitally-remastered-&-restored version of this classic Disney film (Which debuts on DVD today, by the way) would be having its world premiere. And Jim asked if I would be interested in covering the event for JHM.
Photo by Frank Zephyr
Well, to swipe a quote from another film classic, this was an offer that I could not refuse. I mean, how could one turn down the chance to see the very first feature length animated film to be shot in Cinemascope for the big screen? Not to mention that fabulous pre-film panel discussion featuring John Canemaker, Andreas Deja, Theo Gluck, Richard Sherman, and the GREAT Stan Freberg!
Unfortunately, my busy work schedule prevented me from bringing JHM readers timely coverage of this wonderful event (Sorry about that, Jim). And given that several other Disneyana sites (Chief among them MiceAge and Laughing Place ) have already beaten JimHillMedia to the punch by posting wonderful stories about that very same evening at the El Cap … I urge you now to go check out those articles. So that you can then read a detailed description of what this wonderful event was actually like.
Anyway … Given that I’m getting to “Lady and the Tramp” ‘s 50th anniversary party pretty late, I thought that I’d take a rather different approach to my coverage of the event at the El Capitan.
You see, the highlight of that night’s panel discussion (for me, anyway) was the presentation of “Lady and the Tramp” artwork directly from the Disney Animation Archives. Master animator Andreas Deja treated the audience to dozens of examples of preproduction artwork & rough animation drawings. All of it strung together beautifully by Deja’s expert analysis of each piece.
It’s often been said that “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Well, if that’s truly the case, then here are roughly 9,000 words on the awesome beauty of Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp.”
Photo by Frank Zephyr
Photo by Frank Zephyr
Photo by Frank Zephyr
Photo by Frank Zephyr
Photo by Frank Zephyr
Photo by Frank Zephyr
Photo by Frank Zephyr
Photo by Frank Zephyr
Photo by Frank Zephyr