FILM CHRONICLE
231
haps, in the face's place, erupt the heads of his two comrades, on hideous
long necks, shrieking fun of him. The film mounts in hysteria. Time and
again he closes in, only to have the face vanish, or the figure explode.
The kiss, or its equivalent, is not forever withheld. Sometimes Donald
does seem to have attained his heart's desire. But these moments are de–
ceptive. At one point, for example, one of the "pretty girls," in response
to his advances, takes him by the hands finally and swings him, amor–
ously, back and forth. He "belongs to her heart," he has his desire, one
would say. But we promptly cut to a shot of this from above. The ecstatic
Donald whirls round and round the girl; he whirls himself into several
Donalds; the whole scene becomes a whirling pattern, in which we can
no longer distinguish girl or Donald. Out of this whirl is born first a
decorative pot, then finally Donald himself again-"Where am I?"
he squawks- standing now in an entirely different locality, among some
obsceqe cacti. As a girl materializes at the horizon, he sets out again in
pursuit. It is all to do over again. Just as with the penguin's quest and
with the gauchito's quest, at the very moment success is at hand, the
moment is emptied utterly of meaning.
If
fireworks did not mercifully
write "fin-the end" to this film, the quest might indeed repeat itself
thus brokenly on and on and on and on.
The Three Caballeros
may be a bad film but it is a good nightmare.
Like all good nightmares its reference is wide. Though it might startle
some stars to be told so, Donald Duck could be likened, in his adven–
tures here,• his confusions and translations, to most of the major charac–
ters now passing across our screens-from a character like the heroine of
Cover Girl,
who climbs the ladder of success only to stop at the top and
look back, questioning what has been gained, to a character like Ernie
Mott in
None But the Lonely Heart,
questing a "free and beautiful and
noble life," questing a world in which he can live in Peace and love in
Peace, but finding no such world-"tramp of the universe."
BARBARA DEMING
