Cooktopi
The acting in this movie is really good.
Frances Chung
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Geraldine
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Anssi Vartiainen
After Saludos Amigos, another short film collection was commissioned, because Disney had forgotten to say anything about Mexico. That's pretty much the reason for this film's existence, but it rises above that.For one, the segments are all much stronger than in Saludos Amigos. It's still mainly just an ad campaign for South America, but I like that they have a framing story where Donald is celebrating his birthday and gets a present from his South American friends. José is also back, and we get another new great character, Panchito Pistoles, a Mexican rooster. And yes, the name is kind of awful, but the character itself is a lot of fun.The first two segments, The Cold-Blooded Penguin and The Flying Gauchito, are both very good. The comedy is mostly silent and/or physical, the characters are sympathetic and the animation is very nice. There's also a piece about Aracuan Bird, one of the worst earworms in existence. You have been warned.The few following segments, Baía, Mexico: Pátzcuaro, Veracruz and Acapulco and You Belong To My Heart are merely more gallivanting around like in Saludos Amigos. They're fun to watch in their own way, the music is very nice, but they drag on for a bit too long and nothing much happens in them.Though at least we get the piñata scene and Las Posadas, which are some of my favourite short segments Disney has ever done. Great mood, great atmosphere, flawless animation and all around enjoyment.And then we have Donald's Surreal Reverie, which is probably the reason you should see this film. Think Pink Elephants on Parade, but much, much longer and ever crazier. I swear the animators were under some sort of influence, they had to be. It's a mind trip unlike anything Disney has ever produced. And yeah, it's a truckload of fun to watch, not gonna lie.The Three Caballeros is still not what I would call a good film. It is better than Saludos Amigos, if only because it's so weird that you cannot help but be intrigued by it. Definitely worth a watch, though, especially if you want to say you've seen them all.
Bittersweet218
I find it hard to believe that this was a World War II propaganda film. It doesn't really seem to fit that mold. Propaganda of the time was pretty heavy-handed, and most of it isn't all that entertaining today except as an artifact of the period. This movie is a joy to watch in its own right, and if there's an anti-fascist message embedded within, it's awfully subtle. My understanding was that this was Disney's attempt to open up Central and South America as a market for their films, since the war had pretty much eliminated the European market. Whatever its pedigree, though, this is one of the few Disney videos that I don't mind watching endlessly with the kids, especially the parts that involve the titular Caballeros. The movie is somewhat disjointed and episodic, but what holds it all together is good music. My least favorite episode is the story of the flying donkey, which gets old quickly, particularly since (and this is my one complaint) they chose to have a North American announcer attempt a Mexican accent. Why they could not have simply found an actual Mexican actor is beyond me - Los Angeles being in Mexico's backyard, after all. But Disney seemed to enjoy mixing and matching nationalities even into the 1960s, hiring, for example, US actors to play English characters in Mary Poppins, Treasure Island, and 101 Dalmatians; or Hayley Mills, who was a British actress who always seemed to be playing an American. In fact, the latter is something seen commonly nowadays, when it seems half the working actors in Hollywood are British subjects putting on American dialects (Hugh Laurie, Damian Lewis, Christian Bale).
ian-1211
Yippie-ey-ya! This has got to be one of Disney most best ever short story movies! Not only is it educational but it is also fun and dazzling with colours. The fiesta starts when Donald gets three presents from his friends in Brazil. One of them contains short stories from South America like "The Flying Donkey" and "Pablo the Cold Bloodest Pengiun", the second pops out his good friend from the 1943 film "Saludos Amigos", Jose Carioca, as I said, one of Walt's best 1940's characters shows him around South America in the storybook then the bizarreness begins when Panchito the rooster comes out of the third present with guns a blazing! It all turns into a Topsy-turvy South American Mania!! Yowee! Along the way, it was the first film in history to use cartoon characters mixing in a normal world environment as Donald fall for a real life Mexican actress. That must have been big new sign of technology back in those days. In remember as old photo in England from July, 1945 when people were sadly queueing up for rationing and the Three Caballeros was up on a billboard behind them being advertised. That must of brought them joy during the most hardest of time. I strongly recommend this movie and if you don't like it, then you're a bean-head! 10/10
Gavno
Most everything about this neat little movie has been said by previous posters, except this.The motivation for making it was, of all things, the US State Department! The US was deeply involved in fighting World War Two. At this point in time the average American knew almost NOTHING about South America, and the Nazi government was busy making business and political connections there, especially in Paraguay... there, transplanted Germans were a well established colony. They were aiding Hitler's war effort with the operation of industrial concerns, as well as providing espionage support.South America promised to become a new battlefront if German successes and infiltration continued. The region produced vital strategic raw materials, key among them rubber.Our strongest ally in the region was Brazil. The US Navy had a number of installations there, both sea and air. The Brazilian Navy worked closely with US forces in hunting U-boats in the Atlantic narrows; a number of US Navy vessels were transferred to them. American air bases (the largest of which was at Recife) provides home base for American aircraft, both fixed wing and lighter than air blimps, to provide air support coverage to trans Atlantic convoy operations.The State department felt it would be a good idea to familiarize Americans with the land, people, and way of life of South America, and called on Disney to produce THE THREE CABALLEROS. The movie was, first and foremost, a TEACHING TOOL for both military forces and the general public during a global war.BTW... I love the crazy little bird too! HE'S the best part of the film!There are two other Disney films made for the Government that I'd LOVE to find copies of.One is VICTORY THROUGH AIR POWER, another WW2 product.The other is one that I saw back in Basic Training in the 1970s. Believe it or not, the Walt Disney studios produced a military training film on the prevention of VENEREAL DISEASE!!! The unfortunate Lady dispensing said commodity bore a VERY striking resemblance to Snow White! Because of that film I can never view SNOW WHITE in quite the same way ever again!
