If you ever want me to watch Bambi you better start after the opening credits. I am not interested in seeing Bambi's mom die, and with the re-release of the movie, there is lots of trivia coming out about the film. Donnie Dunagan, who portrayed Bambi was told while he was recording the scene after Bambi's mom died, that his real mom was in trouble. On The View he said, "They said, 'Your mother is in trouble, call for your mother,' and I said, 'Wait a minute, I just saw my mom and she looks fine.' A very astute man behind me said, 'Your mother is in trouble here in the studio; we're gonna put you on the speaker, call for your mother...' I believed she was in trouble."
This is a six year old kid. His mom was in the studio, and then she is gone and the producers id this to him. It is so wrong. The actor worked in movies until he was 12 and then he became a legal orphan after he had a fight with his family. Who does that to their 12 year old kid? You have to wonder if something like that messed him up. He said he does not hold any grudges against the producers.
Bambi, Old Yeller...hate those movies...def not for kids
ReplyDelete@Misch - I agree, I was traumatized by that movie as a kid. My poor mother couldn't go anywhere without me on her heels for what I am sure seemed like forever.
ReplyDeletewow a hollywood producer manipulated a child actor, shocker!...not.
ReplyDeleteStil not as bad as the writer/director of powder having sex with underage teenage actors.
Hey, director Victor Fleming slapped Judy Garland while filming the "Wizard of Oz." (She kept giggling when she was supposed to hit the Cowardly Lion and Fleming had enough and took her aside and slapped her. Then she got her scene in the next take.)
ReplyDeleteThe story is told here:
http://www.omg-facts.com/view/Facts/21045
Just thinking about the Bambi makes me tear up. I don't know that I can watch it ever again.
ReplyDeleteBecame a legal orphan?!?!?!?! Why didn't I know I could do that! Lilo should take a lesson. No, probably Ali needs that lesson just before her plane takes off for Japan!
ReplyDeleteI've read Vicente Minnelli did the same thing to Margaret O'Brien in "Meet Me In St. Louis" right before they starting rolling the scene where she destroys the snowmen.
ReplyDelete@ _-_=_, you know that is RIGHT!
ReplyDeleteI love Disney, but they sure know how to screw a child star up don't they? Wow.
That's a juicy tidbit, timebob.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 6 they showed Bambi in our school library. I cried so hard at that scene the teacher made me sit in another part of the library by myself for the rest of the movie.
When they came out with the anniversary vhs tape, we watched it on a snowy Saturday while I was PMSing. When Bambi's father was shot I cried out, "HIS FATHER DIES, TOO???" Bawled my eyes out so much my husband told me to go into the kitchen to make him a coffee so my mind would be taken off of it, LOL.
That poor kid. They couldn't ask him to pretend?
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ReplyDeleteMan, that scene is hard enough to watch without knowing that you're listening to a 6 year old who really thinks that his mom's in trouble.
ReplyDeleteJackie Cooper wrote in his Bio that when a particular scene in THE CHAMP called for crying the Director told him his dog had just died. Thats's child abuse in my view.
ReplyDeleteWatch the documentary on The Exorcist. William Friedken pretty much damaged Ellen Burstyn to get a shot of her screaming in pain when Regan slaps her across the room during the crucifix scene. And at the end, when the priest was giving last confession to Karras, the director slapped him across the face, just so he could get a shot of the guys hands shaking.
ReplyDeleteThose adult people were pretty damned shocked at the time, so I can only wonder what a 6 year old must have been thinking.
Several years ago there was a biography of Natalie Wood out. According to that book, there was one movie where she had to cry for a scene - don't remember which movie right now - and she was having trouble. So her mother took her outside, reached into her purse, and took out a glass jar with a butterfly in it. Reaching in she took out the butterfly and tore its wings off. Natalie screamed and began bawling, and her mother rushed her back in to complete the shot.
ReplyDeleteReading that book I felt really sad for Natalie. Her mother sounded like a real horror. No wonder she had so many problems.
It makes me wonder what they told the kid that did Pinocchio. When his Dad got swallowed by the whale and Pinocchio is SOBBING," Father!"
ReplyDeleteThat is truly effed up.
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget seeing Bambi at the movies with my mom as a kid & hearing some much younger child in the theater saying (in heavy NJ accent) "Ohhh myyyy Gooood" over the fire scene.
Most of the Disney movies involving parent death scar me.
BTW, I watched The Year Without a Santa Clause this year after someone on here suggested it. The DVD came with 2 other claymation/cartoon movies...one of them was "Nestor the Long Eared Christmas Donkey". Can we talk about how traumatizing THAT movie is??? (Again with the parent death).
My mother never let me see Bambi and at 40 (nearly 41), I don't think I ever will see it.
ReplyDeleteOMG Nestor the Long Eared Donkey.... Horrible for kids!!! I still cry and I'm 33!
ReplyDeleteThe Disney movie that makes me cry the most is Dumbo. I haven't seen it since becoming a mother. I'd probably lose it if I saw it again. My husband cried the first 3 times he saw Finding Nemo.
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