JohnHowardReid Copyright 9 July 1942 by Walt Disney Productions. Released through RKO Radio Pictures. U.S. release: 19 February 1943. New York opening at the Globe: 12 February 1943. Sydney release at the Embassy (as a support to Victory Through Air Power): 10 February 1944. 4 reels. 43 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Walt Disney and his artists tour South America, finding inspiration for four new cartoons.NOTES: Plumb, Smith and Wolcott were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture (won by Ray Heindorf for This Is The Army). The title song was nominated for Best Song (won by "You'll Never Know" from Hello, Frisco, Hello). C.O. Slyfield was nominated for Best Sound Recording (won by Stephen Dunn for This Land Is Mine).COMMENT: Although the credit titles are at pains to point out that the travelogue portion of Saludos Amigos has been blown up from a 16 mm original, the photographic quality in the print under review (aside from a little jerkiness and under¬exposure) is excellent. The film is top-class too, with just enough background to introduce, separate and give added point and detail to the four cartoons. These four cartoons are each so richly detailed in characters and backgrounds, their humor is so wittily inventive and their craftsmanship so consistently stylish and imaginative, they must rank amongst Disney's finest achievements in the short-subject medium.Adding to the enjoyment of their individual styles, the first three cartoons do have one amusing feature in common - a clever commentary (expertly delivered by Fred Shields) which often gently sends up or is mockingly at odds with what we actually see on the screen. The visual throwaway gags are sometimes so fast (like the diaper flying over Pedro's hangar) the films need to be seen more than twice to appreciate them all. (Leonard Maltin has provided a full account of these many delightful touches in The Disney Films, Crown Publishers, New York, 1973.)The last cartoon, "Watercolor of Brazil", is the most visually original, providing a foretaste of the stunningly surreal style used more extensively in Disney's follow-up feature The Three Caballeros.Although most enthusiastically received by critics and picturegoers on its initial release, Saludos Amigos has never been theatrically reissued in its original form. The four cartoons were somewhat sloppily scissored into separate short subjects and reissued in 1955 when Disney's output of regular cartoons started to run down. Fortunately, the complete film is still available.Musically, Saludos Amigos is also a treat, with Donald tumbling through the Samba and jigging a llama with a Peruvian whistle, Goofy and his trusty steed hoofing a vigorous Dance of the Farmer's Daughter. The title tune is catchy enough, but heard only so briefly one wonders why it was nominated for Best Song in preference to the wonderfully emotive "Brazil"?

SlyGuy21 I had never heard of this before I looked it up, compared the other animated Disney movies before this where I at least saw them once during my childhood. Normally, I would skip this because it's just a few shorts crammed together, and those are pretty hit or miss. That being said, I enjoyed this little movie. It's not as good as "Pinocchio" or "Fantasia", but it's length combined with the quality of the shorts and the educational factor shoot it up to those levels. It's not stretched to over 60 minutes, it has a job to entertain and inform you, and when the job's done, the movie ends. It's simple, and straight-forward. I'm not sure how accurate the information about South America is 70+ years later, but I learned something from this, so I say give it a watch with your kids if you want.

John T. Ryan ALTHOUGH THE EFFECT of this animation/live action hybrid was less spectacular than Disney's other efforts, such as SNOW WHITE, FANTASIA, BAMBI and DUMBO; it certainly was a success. Both at the Box Office and in critical praise, SALUDOS ANIGOS was adjudged a winner; both domestically and in the overseas marketplaces.SUCCESS IN THE third area of its reasons for existence were even more overwhelmingly effective than had been anticipated by anyone. The behind the scenes genesis of the film was an alliance between Disney and the United States Department of State. Presents us with a most perfect example of collaboration between the Private Sector and the Public in the form of the U.S. Federal Government, Roosevelt Administration.UNLIKE MOST SUCH experimentations, this one worked and paid big dividends for both parties.IN MMAKING SHORT work of a long story, the State Department underwrote a good will tour by Walt and a group of his artists, musicians and writers. The tour was of South America with stops in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Chile and some others. The purpose was two fold. One being as a sort of bulwark against the growing fascination with Fascism on the Conytinent; with the other's being an extended junket by the Disney Company in discovering the customs, manner of dress, language, literature and music of the many countries and regions of South America. Both ends were highly successful.THE SCENARIO FOLLOWS the real life tour of the Disney crew and uses the tour by airplane as the link between four animated segments. The first finds American tourist, Donald Duck, replete with faithful camera, visiting the Bolivia-Peru border at Lake Titicaca. The second finds a story very much like LITTLE TOOT (the tugboat); but has at its center a family of anthropomorphic airplanes whose job is to fly the mail over the Andes Mountains. The third examines how the Argentine Gaucho is the South American equivalent of the Cowboy of the Old West. Segment four brings Donald Duck to Rio de Janero in Brazil; where he meets and interacts with Portuguese speaking Parrot, Jose Carioca.ONE FURTHER OBSERVATION which we found was regarding the format that they used in framing the individual story segments. As a central dramatic device, Disney chose that of the touring artisans being moved about the continent from one country to another their charter airliner; much in the same manner that the real tour did. THE FICTIONAL MOVIE flight reminded us of our 4th grade geography book. In it one character "Peter Martin" was privy to his father's trans-global flight in which the two (along with us 9 year olds) visited all of the continents save for Antarctica.THE GREAT STORY of behind the scenes story of SALUDOS AMIGOS and its sequel, THE THREE CABALEROS, is told in the 2008 documentary film, WALT & EL GRUPO.

movieteen91 "Saludos Amigos", is a short (but, at the same time, long) Disney film featuring four animated shorts set in South America. Surprisingly, I found myself LAUGHING throughout the film (I'm a Looney Tunes guy, not a Mickey Mouse guy. What gives?!). The Donald and Goofy segments in particular provide good insight into the customs of these Spanish-speaking people. The cartoon about the plane had good animation, yet it was a little too "cutesy" for me. By the last segment, however, I had grown tired of this film. Donald and Joe Carioca (who both appeared in "The Three Caballeros", one of my childhood favorites) appear in a dull and tacked-on short that can't seem to decide if it's supposed to be a pretty cartoon about the scenery of Brazil or a comedic cartoon full of Donald-style gags. Then, without warning, the film abruptly ends, leaving me even more disappointed. To wrap it up, this film is a nice time-waster, but see it for the first and third cartoons, and the live-action segments.