AUTHOR: DIDIER GHEZ | PUBLISHER: CHRONICLE BOOKS | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

This 208 page, high gloss hardcover gives insight into what it was like working in the Walt Disney Studios after the death of Walt Disney on December 15th, 1966. During this period, the animation studio was finishing work on The Jungle Book and beginning working on the last movie which Walt Disney put into production, The Aristocats. Despite having some interesting stories from that time, the book is more focused on conceptual art for features that never made the light of day and ended up on the cutting room floor, such as Cat Fish Bend. There was also at one time the idea of doing a follow-up to The Song of the South, and we also learnt that the original Pete’s Dragon was intended to be a two-part TV special.

The art in the book is truly spectacular to look at, with a heavy emphasis on the movies of that era. Aside from those mentioned above, prime examples here are The Sword in the Stone, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and The Rescuers. It’s incredible seeing how little the concept art to the finished project differs, and the accompanying text is both engaging and informative (the iconic Jungle Book character Shere Kahn is described in early concept work as “a Basil Rathbone type”).

One of the only downfalls in this book is that it tends to jump back and forth in a none linear way. A prime example of this is in the Ken Anderson chapter. Anderson being one of the earliest Disney animators, the book goes back all the way to his work on the Three Orphan Kittens (1935), and then on to his movies up to the 1980s in not that great a detail. While always insightful, it does leave you wanting to know more.

We highly recommend the book to any fan of classic Disney animation or fans of the medium in general. We’d also recommend picking up the previous four volumes of this series to get a much fuller story as to what it was like to work at Disney in their golden age through to the early renaissance era.