1 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/v27388qbbke.jpg]] |
2 | |
3 | ''The Living Desert'' is a 1953 documentary feature from Disney, directed by James Algar. |
4 | |
5 | It was made as part of Disney's ''Film/TrueLifeAdventures'' series of nature documentaries. ''The Living Desert'' focuses on the wildlife of the American deserts of the inter-mountain west. After an opening that explains why the American desert is a desert--namely, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges block the moisture coming in from the Pacific, leaving the land east of the mountains dry--the film focuses in on the animals that live in the western deserts. Birds nest in cacti, bobcats chase wild pigs and are chased in return, tortoises battle for a mate, and flowers bloom. |
6 | |
7 | ''The Living Desert'' was the first feature-length entry in the ''True Life Adventures'' series, which began with the short film ''Film/SealIsland'' in 1948. It also led to a parting of the ways between Disney and Creator/{{RKO}}, which had been distributing all Disney films since 1937. After RKO refused to distribute ''The Living Desert'', Walt Disney founded Buena Vista Film Distribution Co. as Disney's in-house distribution arm. ''The Living Desert'' grossed over $4,000,000 against a $300,000 budget, making it Disney's biggest profit-maker up to that point. |
8 | |
9 | ---- |
10 | !!Tropes: |
11 | |
12 | * AddedAlliterativeAppeal: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuckwalla Chuckwalla]] lizards are described as "diminutive dinosaurs who dine on daisies." |
13 | * AllOfTheOtherReindeer: One sequence features the story of a skinny ground squirrel who is ostracized by his peers for being a runt until he wards off a poisonous lizard. |
14 | * AnimatedCreditsOpening: Starts with an animated sequence depicting the trade winds which bring rain to the Pacific coast, and how the Sierras and Cascades block the rain from the inter-mountain West, leaving it a vast desert. Then the film cuts to live-action with a shot of Mount Whitney. |
15 | * ArtisticLicenseHistory: The Salton Sea is described as the "remainder of an ancient ocean." Actually the Salton Sea, formerly the Salton Sink, was formed in 1905 when the Colorado River overflowed a canal and a dam burst, flooding the basin. |
16 | * BladeOfGrassCut: Many close-ups of flowers blooming in the desert. |
17 | * {{Dramatization}}: As with most nature documentaries of the era, the bulk of the action was staged, with the filmmakers putting animals in studio sets made to look like the desert. |
18 | * EerilyOutOfPlaceObject: The "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones sailing stones]]" of Death Valley, which leave tracks as they sail across the salt flats, a motion that in 1953 had never been observed and wasn't understood. (It took 60 more years and time-lapse photography to reveal that high winds and temporary ice sheets caused by condensation were the cause.) |
19 | * InvitedAsDinner: Or so the narrator describes it when a tarantula comes out of its hole to catch a beetle. |
20 | --> "Guests that might pop over for dinner--her dinner, of course." |
21 | * LoveTriangle: A male tortoise is making mating displays to a female when another male tortoise shows up. They fight, eventually one male flips the other male over, and the winner goes off with the female. |
22 | * {{Narrator}}: Winston Hibler, who also co-wrote the script, narrates. The narration is drolly humorous, and serves to provide comedy, anthropomorphize the animals, and make them come off as "cute". |
23 | * PintSizedPowerhouse: The "tarantula hawk", not actually a hawk but a wasp. It kills a tarantula with a poison sting and then moves a large rock (which, to a human, is like towing a 30-ton truck with your teeth) while digging a hole to bury its victim for her young to feast on. |
24 | * SceneryPorn: Most of the film was obviously shot on soundstages but there are some shots of the desert Southwest in all its beauty. One scene shows Monument Valley, star of many a Creator/JohnFord film. |
25 | * TitleDrop: Two for the price of one, as the narrator says that "This True Life Adventure is the story of nature's living desert." |
26 | * TimeLapse: Used for the final, beautiful sequence of desert flowers blooming after rain. |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext Film / TheLivingDesert
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load