Secrets of Life

This is a review of a 1950's Disney nature documentary, as I explain below: 

I viewed this Disney True-Life Adventures nature documentary for several reasons. First is that most of those are available on Disney+ (the infamous one isn’t, but more on that at the end) yet I had to use Letterboxd to find the link to those documentaries & thus those may be seldom viewed. As we all know, anything on a streaming service is liable to be taken down, no matter if we have any foreknowledge or not. If an entire new show (Willow) can be taken down in an attempt to save cash, it can happen to 50’s nature documentaries that seem to be hidden on the platform.

In 70 minutes, the footage shows plants and animals not only trying to reproduce in a wide variety of ways, but attempting to survive in the world; it is augmented by narration that at times attempts to be “cute” with dialogue. The footage is all shot well; at the appropriate times time-lapse photography is used. I learned a lot personally from all the information that was presented. Like with many, how bees create honeycombs was endlessly fascinating. As it also was augmented w/ a nice score and had a few animated interludes done by Ub Iwerks, overall I really was fascinated with this presentation.

By the by, it does remind me that on Blu & UHD, there are some productions still waiting for me to view them. Chiefly, there’s Planet Earth II-long ago I discussed how the OG Planet Earth was incredible-but there’s also some others waiting for me to (probably) love them.

Starting tomorrow I’ll move away from Disney for a bit… those not familiar w/ True-Life Adventures, in the 50’s and 1960 they did a series of at first shorts then feature length documentaries devoted to nature; some of that footage was repurposed in later years in new shorts. Some are on Disney+; for some reason, the one where someone staged lemmings diving off cliffs to their deaths by tossing them to a fatal plunge below is not included…

1958’s White Wilderness featured that scene and probably even now people believe that because of migratory urges, they unwittingly commit mass suicide; that myth existed for long before that but after White Wilderness… as why would Disney lie? It wasn’t until decades later that this was exposed as poppycock. No one should be clamoring for me to review White Wilderness, as that won’t be happening.