JohnHowardReid
Director: BEN SHARPSTEEN. Script: Winston Hibler, Ted Sears, Alan Jaggs. Narrated by Winston Hibler. Photographed in CinemaScope and Technicolor by Ernest A. Heiniger. Film editor: Gene Armstrong. Music: Paul Smith. Animation effects: Joshua Meador, Art Riley. Special processes: Ub Iwerks. Sound supervisor: C.O. Slyfield. Executive producer: Walt Disney.Copyright 1955 by Walt Disney Productions. Released in the U.S.A. through Disney's wholly-owned Buena Vista productions. U.K. release: October 1955. Australian release through M-G-M. 3,004 feet. 34 minutes.COMMENT: The first of Disney's "People and Places" series to be filmed in CinemaScope. The director and his photographers make exciting use of the medium throughout, particularly in the opening aerial shots of the Alps, the closing shots from the top of the Matterhorn and a sequence in which the camera is mounted on a bobsled. Switzerland would seem a natural for CinemaScope. Pleasingly, the Disney team have taken advantage of every opportunity. And unlike the Fox shorts, the commentary is agreeably restrained. This movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Two-reel Short Subjects, losing to "The Face of Lincoln."
