Happy Columbus Day! - The Magic Voyage

Bavaria Film, 1992

Voices of Dom DeLuise, Corey Feldman, Irene Cara, and Samantha Eggar

Directed by Michael Schoemann

Music and Lyrics by Scott Santaro

There were a flurry of movies released in 1992 in honor of the 500th anniversary of Columbus crossing the Atlantic in search of treasure. The Magic Voyage began life in Germany as a spoof of the historical vision of Columbus as a scholar and adventurer, with the addition of a woodworm character from an earlier animated film on Noah's Ark. After it inflated to Germany's most expensive animated film to that point, the US stepped in and started making changes. How well did this work out? Let's start with the narrator (Mickey Rooney) as he reveals how people (supposedly) still thought the world was flat in 1492, and find out...

The Story: Pico the Woodworm (Feldman) is looking for more adventure than he ever found eating books. He moves in with bumbling Christopher Columbus (DeLuise), who believes the world is a cube. Pico eats his globe until it's round and Columbus changes his tune. While Columbus convinces the fawning Queen Isabella (Eggar) and her less impressed husband King Ferdinand (Dan Haggarty) to give him three ships so he can find gold in the Indies, Pico falls for the lovely moon sprite Princess Marilyn. She's being held in the castle chandelier by a wicked being known as The Swarm Lord. Pico tries to free her, but the Swarm Lord takes her overseas instead.

Pico's late joining Columbus on his voyage, thanks to a trio of rats who think he's lunch. He convinces them that there's cheese on-board, but they leave him behind, and he has to ride over on a seagull. Even after he joins Columbus, there's still trouble. Columbus is a terrible sailor who gets horribly seasick, and the entire crew is tired of his shenanigans and are ready to mutiny. Columbus barely manages to avoid being hung when he finally sees the New World...but even when they arrive, they encounter out-of-place wildlife, natives, and the Swarm Lord, who is determined to get Marilyn's powers no matter what.

The Animation: Well, we do have some lush artwork under the credits in the opening and backdrops in Marilyn's description of her home and when they get to the New World. Otherwise, I'm not sure where those millions of dollars went. It wasn't to the animation. The characters move jerkily, and the designs waver between too cartoony for the subject matter and too stiff.

The Song and Dance: The sheer audacity of doing a musical satire about one of history's worst sailors gives this a sheen of kitsch that's really its only saving grace now, along with some mildly funny lines from DeLuise. At the least, it's slightly more interesting than the notoriously dull live-action movies about Columbus released in 1992, 1492: Conquest of Paradise and Christopher Columbus: The Discovery. And they did get a few historical details at least somewhat right; Columbus really was a lousy sailor and leader, and his crew really did almost mutiny. 

Favorite Number: We kick off with Pico describing why he opted to trade eating and reading books for the open road in "Pico the Adventurer." Columbus and Pico tell each other - and all of Madrid - why "A Fellow Like You" is a treasure. Marilyn describes "A World of Magic" to Pico when they're in the chandelier. Columbus and Pico placate the mutinous sailors with "A Life of the Sea" and why they love their jobs. 

Trivia: There's actually two English-dubbed versions of this movie. My review is based after the far-easier-to-find Hemdale Corporation release. Atlas Pictures put out an earlier version with an entirely different cast that's never been on home video in North America.

What I Don't Like: Hoooo boy. Where do I begin with this one? How about all the historical facts they got wrong, from King Ferdinand and his screechy advisor being bad guys to Columbus actually finding gold (he never did in San Salvador in real life and died a broken man) to the misconception about people thinking the world was flat? (In real-life, people knew the world was round since the time of the Greeks.) Pico's not the only one who finds the affair between Isabella and Columbus to be silly and distasteful, too. And even if they had to include Pico as comic relief, they did not need the side plot of Marilyn and the Swarm. That not only made no sense, it seemed to come from another movie entirely. Speaking of the supposedly fearsome Swarm, not only did Columbus take them down way too easily in the end, but he did it the dumbest and most anti-climatic way possible. 

What's with all the talking? Everyone is constantly talking in this movie, even when the visuals should be enough to carry it. Apparently, there was a lot of ad-libbing from the cast that got into the film. That can add spontaneity, but in this case, it doesn't move the film along or have really much of anything to do with the plot and should have been trimmed or cut. The songs are annoyingly generic, and Feldman isn't that great of a singer. 

And what was with all the other talking animal sidekicks? The rats and beaver add nothing to the story (though at least they did admit the beaver was out of place), and the seagull only carries Pico around. There's also the brief and awkward appearance of the natives at the end. Anyone with even the remote knowledge of Columbus knows he treated the natives badly and took many as slaves. Here, they just let him go with the gold and a smile.

The Big Finale: I've heard this movie went over better in its native Germany. It does supposedly have a few fans with fond memories of renting this on video in the mid-90's, but...I'm not one of them. The animation is terrible, the characters are dull, the story is silly, and the music is useless. Unless you share those fond memories, I wouldn't touch this voyage with a hundred-foot-telescope. 

Home Media: If you absolutely must see this, the second English dub can be easily found on streaming, usually for free. (The DVDs for both the English and German dubs are insanely expensive.) 

Tubi

Happy Columbus Day! - Where Do We Go from Here?

20th Century Fox, 1945

Starring Fred MacMurray, June Haver, Joan Leslie, and Gene Sheldon

Directed by Gregory Ratoff

Music by Kurt Weill; Lyrics by Ira Gershwin

First of all, Musical Dreams Movie Reviews will be on hiatus for vacation from October 13th through October 18th. Regular reviews will resume the 19th...which is why you'll be getting an extra review this week to make up for it. 

German songwriter Kurt Weill didn't have much luck in Hollywood. His three major hits of the late 30's and early 40's - Lady In the Dark, One Touch of Venus, and Knickerbocker Holiday - came to the screen without most of his music. Still determined to go Hollywood, Weill joined Ira Gershwin (who worked with him on Lady In the Dark) and screenwriter Morrie Ryskind to create this one-of-a-kind wartime fantasy. Let's head to a USO canteen in the Bronx to find out just how unique this World War II fairy tale is...

The Story: Bill Morgan (MacMurray) wants to be a soldier to impress USO hostess Lucilla Powell (Haver), but he's been rejected by every branch. He find a genie (Sheldon) in a bottle left at a scrap drive who gives him three wishes. He wishes to be in the army...and lands in the American Army at Valley Forge. George Washington (Alan Mowbray) recruits him as a spy, but he's almost shot by the Germans as a traitor. His request to be in the Navy takes him to Columbus (Fortunio Bonanova), whose crew he convinces not to mutiny. He heads to New York, only to buy Manhattan from an enterprising Native chief (Anthony Quinn). The Dutch residents don't believe him and toss him in jail. If he can't stop the ancestor of his sweetheart Sally (Leslie) from getting married and do a prison break fast, he may never be born or join the Armed Forces! 

The Song and Dance: I give these folks credit for attempting something totally different. There's no other musical out there quite like this one. MacMurray does better than you might think as the poor guy whose desire to fight for his country and impress a pretty girl lands him in some sticky situations. Look for Herman Bing as the German officer who leads the "Rhineland" number and the local farmer Katrina is to marry in the Dutch sequence. The Technicolor costumes and settings still look pretty decent too, occasionally a bit saturated due to a different Technicolor stock, but not that bad. 

Favorite Number: Bill wonders how "All at Once" a guy like him could love a vivacious girl like Lucilla as he trips and tumbles amid piles of dirty dishes in the USO kitchen. Lucilla and the hostesses do a big chorus number at the USO to raise "Morale" for the soldiers. While Bill yammers on about all the wonderful things that will be discovered in the future, Sally's ancestor Prudence and the chorus at Valley Forge think the important thing is what happens "If Love Remains." Lucilla's ancestor Gretchen leads the German soldiers through the rousing "Song of the Rhineland" at the beer hall. 

The big one here is that operatic sequence. "The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria" has Columbus arguing with his crew over whether the world is round or not, and Bill convincing them that finding pretty girls at Cuba is more important than mutiny. 

Trivia: There was a fourth historical sequence set in the Wild West with Roy Rogers, but it was apparently cut, along with a musical number for the Native/Manhattan Island segment. 

MacMurray went on to marry June Haver in the early 50's. 

What I Don't Like: Yeah, this is one bizarre musical. A genie helps a guy out by making him a soldier throughout American history? Talk about strange. Like its hapless hero, it never seems to have found it's place or its audience. It's an ultra-patriotic wartime romp...released just a few weeks after the Germans surrendered and the war in Europe ended. Weill's music isn't nearly as memorable as his trio of 40's stage hits, and Haver and Leslie come off as bland and interchangeable in dull roles. 

The Big Finale: This is another one people seem to either think is a lost gem, or just don't quite understand. If you love MacMurray, Weill's other work, or wartime musicals, it's worth checking out at least once for the novelty factor alone. 

Home Media: Never available on video, it finally debuted via the 20th Century Cinema Archives made-on-demand DVD collection in 2012. 

DVD

Happy Columbus Day! - The Road to El Dorado

Dreamworks, 2000

Voices of Kevin Branagh, Kevin Kline, Rosie Perez, and Armande Assante

Directed by Eric "Bibo" Bergeron and Don Paul

Music by Elton John; Lyrics by Tim Rice

Uh, remember I said back in April that The Prince of Egypt was Dreamworks' only traditionally animated theatrical animated musical? Well...I was wrong. In my defense, this is far less traditional take on the genre. In 1995, Jeffery Katzenburg read a book on Hernan Cortes ransacking old Mexico and thought the Age of Discovery would be a great setting for a musical. By the late 90's, the darker, more adult story took a turn to the goofy as it was transformed into a comic adventure in the style of the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby Road To... movies of the 1940's and 50's. It was a huge flop in 2000, but how does the tale of two con-artists who discover a lost city in the Mexican jungle look today? To find out, let's head to Spain, where Cortes (Jim Cummings) is recruiting men to join him on a quest to the New World, and find out...

The Story: While Cortes calls sailors to his ships, con men Tulio (Kline) and Miguel (Branagh) use rigged dice to win money off sailors...though ironically, they win a map to hidden treasure off one fairly. The guards (and an angry bull) chase them to the dock, where they hide in pickle barrels that are loaded onto Cortes' ship. They manage to escape, thanks to the horse Altivo (Frank Welker), and eventually make their way to shore.

Excited about the possibility of unlimited gold, Miguel convinces Tulio and Altivo to follow the map with him. After many mishaps, Tulio is about ready to give up when they run across a native woman (Perez) running from guards. When they notice how similar the two men and horse are to their totem, they bring them through the falls and into the sprawling city of El Dorado. The Chief (Edward James Olmos) believes them, but his blood-obsessed high priest Tzekel-Kan is more skeptical until the two seemingly stop a volcano from erupting. As Tulio gets to know opportunistic Chel better, Miguel gets to know the city. He's in love with the culture, and doesn't appreciate his partner chasing after the lady...but it'll take both of them to evade not only Tzekel-Kan's magic, but Cortes as well.

The Animation: Gorgeous enough to make you wish Dreamworks hadn't fully embraced computer animation after this bombed. The colors are brilliant and warm, the backdrops lush and extraordinarily detailed, especially in El Dorado. While some of the 3D computer effects haven't dated well, others still look good to this day - particularly the work they do to make the gold at the end look like real gold, rather than just yellow. 

The Song and Dance: This is one of the funniest animated musicals out there. Branagh and Kline recorded together, even having mock fights in the studio with plastic swords, and you can hear their delight in throwing off ad-libs. (Many of which were so witty, they made it into the finished film.) Perez more than matches them as the smart girl who sees the guys as her ticket out of El Dorado. The action is genuinely rousing and well-done, and Elton John's music is probably his second-best from a film after The Lion King. Hans Zimmer contributed a delightful Spanish-tinged background score as well. Armande Assante has a grand time chewing the jungle to ribbons as the priest who thinks sacrifices and fear are the way to govern the people of El Dorado.

Favorite Number: "The Trails We Blaze" shows mishap after mishap (mostly happening to Tulio) as the grifters and the horse follow the map through the jungles. "It's Tough to Be a God" gives us Tulio and Miguel's early views on their newfound status among the people of El Dorado, and it gets wilder and wilder and more psychedelic as the two grow more inebriated. "Without Question" is the lovely ballad that accompanies Miguel exploring the city and learning to appreciate its inhabitants. The heartbreaking "Friends Never Say Goodbye" accompanies the montage showing how Tulio and Miguel's relationship fractures, even as Tulio prepares to leave for Spain. The lilting "Someday Out of the Blue" on the end credits is one of John's finest ballads (and is my personal favorite John single).

What I Don't Like: A lot of critics at the time complained loudly about the cliched plot...and yeah, they have a point. This is nothing many people haven't seen in movies ranging from the afore-mentioned Road to... series to the more dramatic Man Who Would Be King. There's also times I wonder what audience Dreamworks intended this for. Kid-oriented gags like them suddenly stopping the volcano and some of the jokes with the horse and armadillo mix a little awkwardly with scarier sequences like the chase with the magical jaguar, some near-swears, and Tulio and Chel's obvious attraction.

The Big Finale: I think audiences - and critics - at the time were still conditioned to think all animated musicals had to be Disney princess extravaganzas. This has long picked up a cult following that enjoys the action and finds the dialogue endlessly quotable, and it more than deserves it. If you're a fan of jungle adventures or either of the leading men, or are looking for a good animated movie for older elementary and pre-teen boys, you'll want to hit the road and take a look at this. 

Home Media: That cult following assures that it's easily found on all major formats, often for under five dollars.

DVD

Blu-Ray

Amazon Prime