Song of the South (1946) [Restored]

4.6
(73)

Uncle Remus draws upon his tales of Brer Rabbit to help little Johnny deal his confusion over his parents’ separation as well as his new life on the plantation. The tales: The Briar Patch, The Tar Baby and Brer Rabbit’s Laughing place.

Director: Wilfred Jackson & Harve Foster.
Stars: Ruth Warrick, Bobby Driscoll, James Baskett, Luana Patten, Lucile Watson, Hattie McDaniel, Erik Rolf, Glenn Leedy, Mary Field, Anita Brown, Georgie Nokes, Gene Holland, Nick Stewart (voice), Johnny Lee (voice).

1948 Academy Awards – Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song (Allie Wrubel/Ray Gilbert).
1948 Academy Awards – Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture (Daniele Amfitheatrof/Paul J. Smith/Charles Wolcott).
1948 Academy Awards – Honorary Oscar to James Baskett.

asd

DOWNLOAD THIS FILM

Note: All the credit for this gorgeous transfer goes to “Notelu“, big thanks to him for his incredible work on this restoration which I believe took him several years to complete. Highly recommended to watch in 720p to appreciate details.

How would you rate this movie?

Click on a star to rate it!

12 Comments

  1. Michael
    February 4, 2019
    Reply

    wow, restored. I love this movie. Jon you are the best

  2. February 4, 2019
    Reply

    I’ve got a blu-ray from a very nice IB Technicolor print made a few years ago. I’ll be interested to compare the two.

  3. February 5, 2019
    Reply

    Thank you, Jon. I never saw this film until today. What a treat.

  4. George Kolter
    February 11, 2019
    Reply

    Disney has kept this bottled up for years because of the ‘R’ word. last time it was in theaters was in 1986 if you were around back then, now MARY POPPINS is being attacked for the very same reasons as SONG OF THE SOUTH, let the people real people judge it, not the so called political correctness bunch decide..if it’s offensive.

  5. Steve
    November 8, 2019
    Reply

    Well, it looks like Disney is continuing not to acknowledge the existence of this movie by not allowing it on their streaming service, Disney plus, as well as other choice edits to classics. Like removing the Stinky Pete blooper scene near the end of Toy Story 2 because of #metoo and the crows from the original Dumbo animated film. These revisionist actions are a disservice to history and stunting future generations from learning from the past. If we want to remove any bad thing that has happened on and behind=the-scenes of films, you might as well remove a huge swath of anything produced from Hollywood then and now.

    And this is coming from a millennial which is the usual scapegoat for the PC censorship you find in most clickbait articles. I’m sure there are some within my generation that are overly PC but from a guy who lived in the suburbs when wooden and metal slides and jungle gyms were my recess, number munchers was the primary edutainment computer game in the classroom, watching R-rated movies under the legal age and not losing my mind to the violent video games of Mortal Kombat coming out into the arcades at the time, I find it hard to believe that my generation would turn into the one learning from history about the atrocities of the Nazi’s and degrading that word to in an insult you use for people who disagree with you on the internet. Maybe I’m just the outlier but I’m hoping we can get back to a sense of normalcy and understanding instead of the crazy stuff I keep hearing about every day in entertainment.

    Can we get out of this slump of safe, mediocre and rehashes of films that can’t offend anyone that happens to complain on Twitter and start producing actual works of art again that push some boundaries? How many franchises must bomb before you realize who your actual audience really is and not be protected by pop culture journos for cinematic failures who constantly throw fans under the bus to keep their media access? For entertainments sake, they better change their ways soon or they will collapse onto themselves, especially with Disney owning about 33% of the box office at this time.

  6. Anonymous
    November 12, 2019
    Reply

    I remember seeing this film years ago & thinking that the white adults were rotten & conceited and the black adults were sincere & loving. Just the impression I had.

  7. dl alvarez
    March 9, 2020
    Reply

    Bobby Driscoll’s starring role reads like Denton Welch, a child groomed in velvet and lace, prancing through an idealized Reconstruction Era. The young actor captures a perfect cocktail of confusion and utter trust in adults there in his squished face: what would become the poster-face of childhood for post-WW2 white America.

    When the character he plays, Johnny, runs headlong across dangerous territory, we can see a perfect allegory for the years that lie ahead for Driscoll, fraught with the perils that live on the seedier side: Driscoll in LA pool halls with Hollywood badboys, Robert Blake and Dean Stockwell. Beatnik-Driscoll, Driscoll the jailbird (charged with drug possession, assault, burglary, and check kiting), and a Driscoll hanging out in the Warhol Factory.

    In Song of the South (spoilers ahead) Johnny wakes from a fever dream to a room full of impossible adult promises. They tell him this story will have a happily ever after. In real life, the fever dreams that Driscoll experienced were induced by heroin, and the adults didn’t hang on. Bobby Driscoll died not only alone, but in an abandoned building, unrecognizable. His unclaimed body was buried in an unmarked grave.

    Reimagine then the closing sequences of this film, where the fantastic stories of Uncle Remus surround the children living under the memory of the Antebellum South, as a sort of afterlife. Mr. Bluebird is on Bobby’s shoulder.

  8. Wilbert
    May 16, 2021
    Reply

    political correctness gone mad. When I was a child I saw the trailer for this on other disney movies but I never got to see it. I remembered the song from the trailer and watned to see it, to my surprise it was not on disney plus, not on dvd or bluray for purchase so here I am

    -Wilbert

  9. GREGORY
    July 11, 2021
    Reply

    Awww Jon, thank you for this. My late father who read me the UNCLE REMUS stories when I was little took me to see this when I was a bit more grown up. Happy memories!

  10. Wayne K
    November 20, 2023
    Reply

    I love seeing people rant into the void! OR, type into the back end comments section that no one will see. Are we all THAT lonely and unable to express ourselves in public that we have to all end up here whining about a film no one remembers? smh

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *