The Living Desert (1953) on Netflix
NR19531h 9mDocumentary
Stones and sand hide a world in the deserts of the American Southwest, where rocks move, mud pots spit and flowers bloom. Creatures of all sizes go about their daily lives.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.3/101,991 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
The deserts of the Southwestern United States look barren at first glance, yet life fills them. Rocks shift and mud pots spit, flowers bloom, and animals of many kinds battle to survive. It was the first feature-length entry in the True-Life Adventures series of nature documentaries, whose earlier installments were short subjects, and it was shot in Tucson, Arizona. The project began with ten minutes of footage by N. Paul Kenworthy, who was working on his doctorate at the University of California at Los Angeles and had recorded a tarantula fighting a wasp; that material led to funding for a full-length production about diverse desert species. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, then soon to open, received most of the animals seen on screen.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Living Desert (1953)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Winning the Best Documentary Feature Oscar for The Living Desert helped Disney make history as the individual with the most Oscar wins in a single year: at the 26th Academy Awards he also won for the animated short Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, the short documentary The Alaskan Eskimo and the two-reel short Bear Country.
- In Japan, The Living Desert became the highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing Gone With the Wind, with a gross of over $800,000.
- The Living Desert grew out of 10 minutes of footage shot by N. Paul Kenworthy, a doctoral student at the University of California at Los Angeles; his film of a tarantula battling a wasp intrigued Disney, who funded a feature-length production about diverse desert species.
- The Living Desert was the first feature-length film in Disney's True-Life Adventures series; earlier entries, including the Oscar-winning Seal Island, were short subjects.
- Most of the wildlife shown in The Living Desert was donated to what would soon become the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
- In 2000, The Living Desert was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
- Because RKO Radio Pictures had little enthusiasm for his documentary releases, Disney severed his long-frayed relationship with the studio before making The Living Desert and created his own distributor, Buena Vista Distribution, which he named after the street where his office was located.
