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Eboni Kleifgen
The Jungle Book is a 1967 American animated musical adventure fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution. Based very loosely on the "Mowgli" stories from Rudyard Kipling's 1894 book of the same name, it is the final animated feature film to be produced by Walt Disney, who died during its production. It was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman and written by Larry Clemmons, Ralph Wright, Ken Anderson, and Vance Gerry. Featuring the voices of Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, Louis Prima, George Sanders, and Sterling Holloway, the film's plot follows Mowgli, a feral child raised in the Indian jungle by wolves, as his friends, Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear, try to convince him to leave the jungle before the ruthless tiger Shere Khan arrives.
The early versions of both the screenplay and the soundtrack followed Kipling's work more closely, with a dramatic, dark, and sinister tone, which Disney did not want in his family film, leading to writer Bill Peet and songwriter Terry Gilkyson being replaced.
The Jungle Book was released on October 18, 1967, to positive reception, with acclaim for its soundtrack, featuring five songs by the Sherman Brothers and one by Gilkyson, "The Bare Necessities". With a gross of $23.8 million worldwide, the film initially became Disney's second-highest-grossing animated film in the United States and Canada,[3] the ninth-highest-grossing film of 1967, and was also successful during its re-releases. The film was also successful throughout the world, becoming Germany's highest-grossing film by number of admissions.[4] Disney released a live-action adaptation in 1994 and an animated sequel, The Jungle Book 2, in 2003; a live-action/CGI hybrid remake directed by Jon Favreau was released in 2016, with a sequel to that film in development.
In the jungles of India, Bagheera the black panther discovers an orphaned baby boy and brings him to a pack of wolves, who name him Mowgli. Ten years later, the pack learns that the murderous Bengal tiger Shere Khan has returned to their part of the jungle. Knowing that he hates humans and will stop at nothing to kill Mowgli, the wolves decide that the latter must leave; Bagheera agrees to escort Mowgli to a nearby "man village", though Mowgli is reluctant to go.
Walt Disney first considered making an animated version of Rudyard Kipling's 1894 collection of stories The Jungle Book in the late 1930s.[33] In the early 1960s, after completing his work on The Sword in the Stone, story artist Bill Peet proposed The Jungle Book as the studio's next animated feature, seeing it as a "great chance to develop some good animal characters".[34][35] Disney agreed and acquired the film rights to all thirteen Jungle Book stories from the estate of Alexander Korda (who had produced the 1942 film adaptation) by April 1962, after having spent the previous ten years in negotiations.[36][37][38] At that point, Peet had written an early story treatment and developed the initial character designs.[34] Disney originally intended to closely follow Kipling's work, planning to make a film that would be "both naturalistic and fantastic, suggestive of the compelling stag fight in Bambi".[36]
After the box-office underperformance of The Sword in the Stone, Walt Disney decided to get more involved in the story development of The Jungle Book than he had been with the past two films.[44][45] Upon reviewing the storyboards, Disney felt that Peet's approach was too dark and depressing, and held a meeting, insisting on making the story lighter and more aimed at the family demographic.[13][34][46] Peet, who had been working on his treatment for over a year by then, refused, resulting in a long argument between him and Disney.[40][47][48] On January 29, 1964, Peet left the studio after another fight with Disney over the preliminary recording for Bagheera's voice as well as Disney insulting him claiming that he should see Mary Poppins for "real entertainment".[49][50][51] Peet would later admit in his autobiography that he was glad he didn't insult back at Disney over the film and left the studio when he did knowing that Disney would die two years after he left.[52]
After Peet's departure, Disney assigned Larry Clemmons as his new writer and one of the four-story men for the film, giving Clemmons a copy of Kipling's book, and telling him: "The first thing I want you to do is not to read it."[53][45] Clemmons still looked at the novel and thought it was too disjointed and without continuity, needing adaptations to fit a film script.[45] Clemmons wanted to start in medias res, with some flashbacks afterward, but then Disney said to focus on doing the storyline more straight: "Let's do the meat of the picture. Let's establish the characters. Let's have fun with it."[13]
Although most of Peet's work was discarded, the personalities of the characters remained in the final film. This was because Disney felt that the story should be kept simple, and the characters should drive the story. Disney took an active role in the story meetings, acting out each role and helping to explore the emotions of the characters, helping create gags, and developing emotional sequences. The Sherman Brothers re-imagined Peet's darker and more sinister version of King Louie as a more comedic character based around jazz and swing music. As Richard M. Sherman recalled: "...our discussion at the time [was], 'He's an ape, what does an ape do? Swings in a tree. The jazz is swing music and a guy literally swings if he's an ape'."[13] Clemmons also created the human girl with whom Mowgli falls in love, as the animators considered that falling in love would be the best excuse for Mowgli to leave the jungle.[40] Clemmons would write a rough script with an outline for most sequences. The story artists then discussed how to fill the scenes, including the comedic gags to employ.[54][55] The script also tried to incorporate how the voice actors molded their characters and interacted with each other.[56] The Jungle Book also marked the last animated film to have Disney's personal touches, before his death on December 15, 1966.[57]
Walt Disney wanted to bring in more well-known performers to voice the key characters of The Jungle Book (which was a rarity in his past works).[45] All the celebrities cast in the film had inspired the animators in creating the characters and helped to shape their personalities.[53][58] The studio held many auditions for the role of Baloo, initially searching for an Ed Wynn-esque voice.[6][59] The animators also tried out exchange students from India to see if they could get a voice with an indigenous quality, but the idea did not work out.[59] Disney eventually suggested Phil Harris after meeting him at a benefit in Palm Springs, much to the surprise of the animation staff, who could not imagine Harris (who was a comedian) as Kipling's character.[45][53][59] Harris nearly turned down the role after doing a test recording, as he could not see himself as the character, but reconsidered after the filmmakers allowed him to perform the way that felt the most comfortable to him.[6][33][60] Wolfgang Reitherman said when they "told [Harris] not to be a bear, but to be Phil Harris, he got in front of the microphone and tore that thing apart".[6] The casting of Harris prompted the story artists to expand the role of Baloo from an episodic part to one of the film's main characters.[61] Many of Baloo's lines were improvised by Harris.[45]
Disney had vultures bearing a physical and vocal resemblance to The Beatles, including the signature mop-top haircut. It was also planned to have the members of the band to both voice the characters and sing their song, "That's What Friends Are For". However, at the time, The Beatles' John Lennon refused to work on animated films which led to the idea being discarded.[64] The casting of the vultures still brought a British Invasion musician, Chad Stuart of the duo Chad & Jeremy. In earlier drafts of the scene the vultures had a near-sighted rhinoceros friend named Rocky, who was to be voiced by Frank Fontaine, but Disney decided to cut the character, feeling that the film already had enough action with the monkeys and vultures.[65]
Child actor David Bailey was originally cast as Mowgli, but during the film's production he hit puberty, and his voice changed.[45] As a result, Wolfgang Reitherman replaced him with his son Bruce, who had just voiced Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree.[66] The animators also shot a live-action footage of Bruce Reitherman as a guide for the character's animation performance.[13] Child actress Darlene Carr was going around singing in the studio when composers Sherman Brothers asked her to record a demo of "My Own Home". Carr's performance impressed Disney enough for him to cast her as the role of the human girl.[67] Clint Howard was cast as Hathi Jr.[17]
Early in the film's development, Bill Peet suggested Howard Morris for the role of Bagheera, but Disney did not approve of the choice, with Wolfgang Reitherman and other animators preferring either Karl Swenson or Sebastian Cabot.[8][68] Cabot was the final choice.[33] Several of the studio's voice regulars were cast in the film, including Sterling Holloway as Kaa, J. Pat O'Malley as both Colonel Hathi and Buzzie the Vulture, and Verna Felton as Winifred.[17][19][33]
Animation on The Jungle Book commenced on June 1, 1965.[69] While many of the later Disney feature films had animators being responsible for single characters, in The Jungle Book the animators were in charge of whole sequences, since many have characters interacting with one another. The animation was done by xerography, with character design, led by Ken Anderson, employing rough, artistic edges in contrast to the round animals seen in productions such as Dumbo.[13]
Baloo was also based on footage of bears, even incorporating the animal's penchant for scratching. Since Kaa has no limbs, his design received big expressive eyes, and parts of Kaa's body did the action that normally would be done with hands.[70] The monkeys' dance during "I Wan'na Be Like You" was partially inspired by a performance Louis Prima did with his band on a Las Vegas soundstage that convinced Disney to cast him.[45]
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