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Few pieces of human anatomy caused quite as much pearl-clutching among conservative media moralists in the 20th century as the uncovered belly button. Marilyn Monroe was barred from exposing her naked tummy up until George Cukor's never-finished 1962 film, "Something's Got to Give," while even Disney fan afoul of Hays Code era censors after threatening to reveal the titular character's navel in 1941's "The Reluctant Dragon." NBC similarly kept a close eye on Barbara Eden's unclothed midriff to ensure there was no funny business with Sidney Sheldon's '60s sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie" (although Eden later claimed it was a non-issue until members of the press made a fuss about it).

It would, of course, be more accurate to say that the exposed female waistline was responsible for most of this hand-wringing. William Shatner spent the '60s flaunting his abs to his heart's content on "Star Trek: The Original Series,...

Updated: There has been another round of content removal from Disney+, this time in the Emea region, which consists of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. More than 120 titles have been taken off this week, primarily Disney Channel original movies and vintage Disney live-action films, as well as a few series, including Zeke and Luther, Pepper Ann, So Random and the first three seasons of Nat Geo’s Genius and ESPN/Nat Geo docs.

According to sources, the takedowns were a result of a library title review. There have been several content purges at Disney+ over the last year amid cost-cutting, most notably the removal of a slew of original series last May.

Here is a list of movie titles that are said to be gone from Disney+ in Emea, compiled by Drew Ryan.

A Tale of Two Critters

America’s Heart and Soul

Angry Sky (ESPN)

Babes in Toyland...

Get those tissues ready because The Walt Disney Company is aiming to make audiences everywhere cry their eyes out with an all-new modern reimagining of 1942's Bambi. Even those who haven't seen the iconic film are all familiar with the titular naive deer who grows up in a world that is both beautiful and harsh. The Oscar-nominated film is one of many in Disney's vast pantheon of animated content, being the sixth animated feature film to be released by the then-young company following an incredible streak consisting of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Pinocchio, Fantasia, The Reluctant Dragon, and Dumbo.

In Ron DeSantis’ astonishingly pointless vendetta against Walt Disney World, it seems the Florida governor’s favorite insult to use against the corporation is “wokeness.” Ever since former CEO Bob Chapek criticized the governor’s homophobic and transphobic Parental Rights in Education Act — which forbids discussion of gender and sexual identity in public schools — DeSantis and his supporters have repeatedly accused the entertainment conglomerate of “echoing Democrat propaganda,” and engaged in a vicious legal battle over Disney World’s self-governing tax status that’s proved a huge headache for the state.

To hear DeSantis tell it, you’d think Disney World was a paradise for gays, and Mickey himself threw the first brick at Stonewall. That’s hyperbole, yes, but not by much. The reality makes Disney look far less rosy. For starters, Chapek (who has since been fired and replaced with his predecessor Bob Iger) initially stayed mum on...

It goes without saying that the history of animation is riddled with groundbreaking developments and touchstone moments that Disney continues to bring to the genre. The multiplane camera brought the illusion of depth. Xerography cut animation costs and sped up production. Caps (Computer Animation Production System) brought digital coloring, crisper animation, and CGI effects and environments, a big step forward for animation thanks to Disney's work with Pixar. Along those lines, Disney was among the first - but not the first - to marry live-action with animation in short-form, but was the first to do so for a feature-length project, 1941's The Reluctant Dragon, a live-action tour through Disney's animation studio with animated sequences. Since then, Disney has utilized the hybrid in a number of films: Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and (shudder) Song of the South. There was one film, in planning well before The Reluctant Dragon, that would...

The House of Mouse has long prided itself on providing wholesome entertainment for the masses with its feature films. Yet, as you might expect, there have been plenty of exceptions to that rule dating back to the company's early days — from Disney movies that featured racially and/or culturally insensitive depictions of certain people and places (like "Song of the South" and "Peter Pan") to films that included grisly acts of violence. Curiously, however, one of the rare cases of a Disney movie being censored came about for a very bizarre reason that had...

The post The Bizarre Reason Disney's The Reluctant Dragon Was Censored appeared first on /Film.

There's nothing that conveys the unconventional splendor of fantasy quite like the appearance of dragons. Westeros was just another medieval kingdom in Game of Thrones until dragons showed up. Maleficent was plenty intimidating, but when she added dragon transformation to her roster of spells, she truly became the Mistress of Evil. And Middle-Earth was never as magical as when a hobbit, a wizard, and a company of dwarves faced down Smaug to reclaim the Lonely Mountain.

Related: 10 Dragon Movies To Watch Now That Game of Thrones Is Over

Dragons can be campy and comical creatures, like in Disney's The Reluctant Dragon in 1941, or they can be terrifying guardians to conquer, like in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad in 1958. As dragons have been featured in cinema, they've gone through a metamorphosis, and four-legged beasts have become two-legged winged creatures, known in films like Reign of Fire as wyverns. No matter their configuration,...

In 1937, Disney released its first animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. From there, we saw Pinocchio, Fantasia, and The Reluctant Dragon. However, Snow White was truly the beginning of it all with the Disney princesses.

Related: 10 Ridiculously Hard Disney Cosplay That Fans Pulled Off

For many of us '90s babies, we grew up with Disney's princesses and wished our lives were like the women we watched on screen. The older we got, Disney kept on pumping out bigger and better Disney princess films but a piece of us will always love the original movies better. From Elsa and Anna in Frozen to Aladdin's Princess Jasmine, let's compare the two vibes.

(Welcome to Out of the Disney Vault, where we explore the unsung gems and forgotten disasters currently streaming on Disney+.) One of the new titles offered on Disney+ is the six-part documentary The Imagineering Story, directed by Leslie Iwerks. The overall documentary is meant to capture the heft and sweep of decades’ worth of creative pioneering […]

The post Revisiting ‘The Reluctant Dragon’, Disney’s Often-Forgotten and Uniquely Controversial Blend of Animation and Live-Action appeared first on /Film.

Disney has shared a new trailer for their upcoming Disney+ streaming service and it’s over 3-hours long! I don’t know if you want to spend over three hours seeing what Disney+ has to offer when it launches, but you have the option!

Disney+ also posted all of the films and TV shows coming to the streaming service on a super long Twitter thread, which I included below the trailer. As you’ll see there’s a ton of stuff that will be available that will make Disney fans happy. Gargoyles and several other classic 90s animated series are among them along with a lot of old weird films that have been pulled out of the Disney vault.

If you don’t want to watch the trailer or scroll through the Twitter feed, I shared the full list of titles for you. Check everything out below and let us...

This Sunday, I’m pleased to be part of a new series of Walt Disney presentations on Turner Classic Movies. I’ll be joining Ben Mankiewicz to introduce a full evening of Disney treats, including the classic Silly Symphonies short Santa’s Workshop (1932) and two other wintry cartoons, the wonderful behind-the-scenes feature The Reluctant Dragon (1941) featuring Robert Benchley, my boyhood favorite Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955), the Oscar-winning True Life Adventure The Vanishing Prairie (1954), and another film I’ve always liked, Third Man on the Mountain (1959) starring James MacArthur, Michael Rennie, Janet Munro, and Herbert Lom, followed by Perilous Assignment, an...

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Walt Disney Home Entertainment has been dropping catalog titles on Blu-ray for a while now. Once every few months we’ll get a higher end title like The Little Mermaid or the upcoming Sleeping Beauty that gets their own time in the limelight. In between those, they’ve been delivering smaller films and collections in groups of four or five at a time. This time around they’ve mixed it up a little by giving us two newer top-shelf releases with three timeless tales.

Hercules Special Edition brings the story of the Greek hero to Blu-ray for the first time. The Academy Award-nominated movie is filled with great songs and plenty of laughs thanks to Danny DeVito and company. Bonus material includes “From Zero to Hero” Sing-Along, “No Importa La Distancia” Music Video with Ricky Martin, and “The Making of Hercules” featurette.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ swinging ape man comes to...

Moviefone's Top DVD of the Week

"Locke"

What's It About? Tom Hardy stars as a construction foreman who's driving to London to attend the birth of his child. You really shouldn't have stressful conversations on your cell while driving, but Ivan (Hardy) doesn't care. He has to make sure his big job tomorrow goes as planned, confess to his wife that he cheated on her with a co-worker, and coaching the aforementioned co-worker through the premature birth of their baby. Yikes.

Why We're In: Hardy is more than capable of commanding the screen for the entirety of the movie. Although you hear other characters' voices, it's all Hardy, all the time. Who could argue with that?

Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week

"Love Streams" (Criterion)

What's It About? John Cassavetes and real-life wife Gena Rowlands star as siblings who turn to each other for support after being left by everyone else in their lives.

A slew of classic Disney movies are hitting for the first time on Blu-Ray, including one double-pack release, and you’re going to want to make sure to pick these up. You haven’t paid attention to some of these titles for a while, and it’s about time you got the chance to catch them on Blu-Ray. The best part is that there’s a great mix of releases hitting. Bedknobs and Broomsticks is all but lost in the cultural consciousness, and it deserves a return. The Academy Award-winning movie from the year I was born is filled with a lot of fun and adventure, and like most Disney films, holds up well for a whole new generation.

The rest of the group covers a great spectrum, including two animated “big” titles, and a 10th Anniversary release. There’s a lot to expose your family to here, so check out all the info below,...

When Mark Hall's death was announced, one of Britain's leading animation businesses put a message on Twitter: "Deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend Mark Hall. Our company would not be here without him." Hall neither founded that business nor took any part in it. But its directors learned their trade under his unique guidance and inspiration, and never forgot it.

In his long professional life, Mark had two consistent passions. One was for filming stories by great children's writers, in ways which would respect and amplify the original work. The other was for teaching the craft and technique of animated film. The company he founded with Brian Cosgrove was born in the 1960s, when UK animation was a failing cottage industry and even Disney was in the doldrums. So they daringly built their team of film-makers from scratch, bringing new young recruits out of art colleges...

Always one of my favorites from Disney, Dumbo has been released as a special 70th Anniversary issue Blu-Ray and DVD. One of the truly magical efforts in the Disney collection, the courageous little elephant has stolen the hearts of viewers since it was first released.

The story itself hardly needs any introduction at this point (though even fans may be surprised when forced to recall that the feature is only 64 minutes long), but the amazing restoration and reissue deserves its own fanfare.

Going back to the original nitrate negative, the film has been restored to its original splendor, and the Blu-Ray looks far better than one could hope, especially considering the original process, and how long ago this was. It's a wonder to behold, and filled to bursting with an amazing palette that really shows off how it was meant to look.

Much like the recent release of Bambi, the...

Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

Boccaccio ’70 (1962)

Synopsis: Four legendary filmmakers direct some of Europe’s biggest stars in Boccaccio ’70, a landmark anthology film. Mario Monicelli (Big Deal on Madonna Street), Federico Fellini (8½), Luchino Visconti (The Leopard) and Vittorio De Sica (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow) direct Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg, Romy Schneider and more through four stories of unashamed eros. Modeled on Boccaccio’s Decameron, they are comic moral tales about the hypocrisies surrounding sex in 1960s Italy. Monicelli’s “Renzo e Luciana” (cut out of the original American release) is a frothy tale of young love and office politics in the big city. Fellini’s notorious “Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio” features Ekberg as a busty model in a milk advertisement whose image begins to haunt an aging prude. Visconti’s “Il Lavoro” stars Romy Schneider as a trophy wife enduring her husband’s very public affairs,...

Comic-book writer who created thousands of uncredited stories, including many for Disney

One night in the 1960s, at the height of the Us-Soviet space race, a middle-aged comic-book writer, Del Connell, stood in his backyard in California watching one of the regular rocket tests by Nasa's Saturn engine suppliers, Rocketdyne, and had a thought. How would it be if a 20th-century family were, in the manner of the Swiss Family Robinson, cast away in space? The first issue of his Space Family Robinson was published in December 1962. Three years later, the idea was reborn – with the Robinsons, but without attribution to Connell – as Irwin Allen's successful television show Lost in Space, which ran for three seasons and in its turn inspired a 1998 feature film.

It is characteristic of the work of Connell, who has died aged 93, that, despite having written thousands of the comic strips and books that were...

With Disney Animated classic Dumbo coming up on its 70th anniversary, the House that Mickey built has been hard at work remastering the film for a hi-def video and audio release. On September 20, 2011, you can get your hands on Dumbo: 70th Anniversary Edition, a 2 Disc package Blu-ray and DVD Combo pack, that contains the typical Disney heaping helping of special features.

Bonus Features:

DVD:

· Deleted Scene – “The Mouse’s Tale”

· Deleted Song – “Are You a Man or a Mouse?”

· Taking Flight: The Making of Dumbo – A journey back to the origins of the film as everybody’s favorite baby elephant takes wing.

· The Magic Of Dumbo: A Ride of Passage – Witness the excitement and magic of Disneyland’s most popular ride through the eyes of a child.

· Audio Commentary with Pete Docter, Paula Sigman and Andreas Deja

· Sound Design Excerpt from The Reluctant Dragon

· Original Walt Disney Television Introduction

Blu-ray:...

Ten years ago Dumbo got a 60th Anniversary DVD release, and now, wouldn't you know, it's time for its 70th Anniversary. What's different 10 years later? Blu-ray. As you might expect, Disney is putting out a special 70th Anniversary Edition, remastered in high-def, for special Blu-ray, DVD, and combo pack editions. Personally, Dumbo and Robin Hood are those two unsung champions in the Disney vault that no one seems to give proper tribute to. It's nice to see Dumbo finally making his HD debut on September 20th. To fill you in on the details, we've got a special release trailer, the special features details, and the packaging art - just hit the jump to check them out.

If by some chance you're not familiar with the tale of Dumbo, here's the official synopsis:

The inspirational tale of Dumbo, the courageous baby elephant who uses his sensational ears to soar to fame...

The release of Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 was right about Dumbo coming to Blu-ray this year. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has scheduled the Dumbo 70th Anniversary Edition for release on Sept. 20 on DVD and high-definition Blu-ray.

The Oscar-winning (best music score) animated movie is perhaps one of Disney’s sweetest films, telling the story of a baby elephant in a circus who’s ridiculed because of his incredibly large ears. He’s sent to be a part of the clown acts, but with his only friend, Timothy Q. Mouse, Dumbo proves he’s quite amazing.

Unlike today’s animated films, Dumbo didn’t have a hugely famous voice cast, but the movie is filled with Disney’s usual memorable characters, including those wonderful crows singing “When I See an Elephant Fly.” (Scroll down for a great clip.) Released in 1941, Dumbo was the studio’s fourth animated movie.

For this new disc release,...

Via FILMdetail, a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse of how cartoons were made at Walt Disney Studios circa the late 1930s:

Disney loved to self-mythologize its production process -- and still does to this day -- but this is decidedly less hyperbolic than something like, say "The Reluctant Dragon," the 1941 Disney feature that's partly about the making of a Disney feature. To me, the whole message of this short is summed up by Walt Disney's signed card in the "Snow White" credits.

Disney was an incredible creative force, but aside from a hygiene film made near the end of World War II, he never directed a film after 1935. Though Disney himself cast every deciding vote, his films were incredible collaborations between all the various aspects of production we see on display here (there are no less than six credited directors on "Snow White" alone). I think I've mentioned it here before, but...

As Age Of The Dragons arrives on DVD and Blu-ray, Duncan takes a look at the history of dragons in the movies…

It's no wonder so many of us have grown up geeky, for dragons have been a strong mainstay of children's movies for decades now. With their inextricable link to the fantasy genre, many of us have been brainwashed into a fixation with them before we even knew what was happening. Well, that's a decent enough excuse, anyway, should you ever find yourself needing one in a dragon-based argument, which I'm sure there aren't nearly enough of.

Pity the children growing up from the mid-nineties onwards, as they've barely been able to make it through one whole year without a dragon movie being released, a trend which sees no sign of slowing. This year has already seen the release of Age Of The Dragons, starring Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones...

The sixth and final volume of the Disney Classic Short Films collection finally found a way to load a disc with cartoons of genuinely similar moral themes. While Mickey and the Beanstalk did well in that regard as far as plots are concerned, the cartoons accompanying The Reluctant Dragon all take a different stance on identity and what it means to measure expectations of who people think you should be against who you actually are. Each of the cartoons does this in its own way – some more deftly than others. While more consistently thematically, it’s also worth noting that the average age of the four cartoons in this set is noticeably lower than those in other volumes; where volumes 1-5 each had about 2-4 cartoons from the mid 1930s, this volume has but one – and its 1938 creation date gives it a stylistic leg up over its 1933/1934 brethren of past volumes.

St. George and the Dragon are back, but the rules are a little different this time! From renowned author Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows) comes this charming tale of a lonely dragon and the little boy who befriends him. This delightful musical was adapted by Steven C. Anderson with music by Dana P. Rowe and lyrics by John Dempsey.