1937

The Old Mill won the Academy Award for Best Short Subjects: Cartoons. I’d never seen it before that I can recall.

As we discussed earlier, the word “genius” gets bandied about a lot, especially in Hollywood. Walt Disney is the only one from there I can think of. Personally, I’d rather watch a Warner Brothers Daffy Duck short than any Disney offering, but that signifies nothing. I’d rather eat at Johnnie Rocket’s than have an Escoffier dinner right now, too. An opinion is not always an analysis.

Disney captured great themes, and was a visionary in a multitude of ways. He was always in my mind a Californian, a representation of the very essence of America at its leading edge. But that man understood Europe better than the people that inhabited it .