When you go to Baia, my friend, you'll never return! - The Three Caballeros

7 – The Three Caballeros

I really don't have too much to say about The Three Caballeros. It's very much a sequel to Saludos Amigos which was made only two years prior.

The whole thing revolves around Donald Duck's birthday as he receives gifts from Central and South America. Overall, it's less informative than Saludos Amigos but still tries to be at certain times. There are more animated sequences and mixing live action with animation which was pretty interesting.

The first segment is of a Penguin who longs for warm beaches so he tries to leave the south pole to go to one. It's a cute little story. I liked that they tried to give it a bit of a message. The message being that people are never really satisfied with what they have. It was cute, nothing incredible though.

The next segment was of a little gaucho who finds a winged donkey and uses him to win a race. I thought this one was a bit funnier but it had even less of a plot. These shorts aren't designed in a way to tell a really great story.

The next segment was more interesting to me personally as José Carioca takes Donald to Bahia in Brazil. There, he sees a woman played by Aurora Miranda and they dance to samba in the streets with her and some other live action people. I liked seeing the live action and animation mixing but a sequence later on in the film does it better I think.

After a few slapstick moments they meet Panchito Pistoles who rounds out The Three Caballeros. They sing The Three Caballeros theme song which was cute and funny and let you see how they interact with each other.

After this Panchito tells about Las Posadas, a tradition in Mexico that they do around Christmas. This one leaned much more heavily on informative than funny which I think was a nice break. There is a slapsticky bit near the end with Donald involving a pinata.

Next they take a flying sarape over beaches in Mexico where Donald starts chasing around women. It's a funny little scene but it was impressive to me how they mixed the live action and animation. This time when things happened in the live action, Donald would be affected by it.

The next chunk of the movie is basically a surreal Fantasia style music and dance sequence where Donald gets kissed by a woman and then sees images of colors and flowers. Again, it was interesting to see the live action and animation mixing but there wasn't a story involved so it kind of went on a bit longer than I would have liked.

So, The Three Caballeros. I am really starting to miss those big story movies from before. At least those I can make some real comments for. This feels like cheating if I say there's no character development or plot. It doesn't really bode well for me though, because this is only number 2 of 6 package movies that Disney ordered back then.

7 Down. 46 to go. More importantly, 4 more to go until Cinderella.