Opened: February 6, 1943

Directed by: Norman Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske & Bill Roberts

Starring: Lee Blair, Mary Blair, Pinto Colvig, Walt Disney, Norman Ferguson, Frank Graham, Clarence Nash, José Oliveira, Fred Shields, Frank Thomas & Stuart Buchanan

Part animated feature, part documentary, Saludos Amigos was the first of six package films Disney released in the 1940s.

Lake Titicaca finds Donald Duck (Clarence Nash) getting on with a llama. Pedro features a small plane transporting mail from Argentina to Chile. Goofy (Pinto Colvig) learns the ways of a horseman in El Gaucho Goofy. Donald meets José Carioca (José Oliveira) in Aquarela do Brasil.

The film is better in its documentary portion when it shows the Disney animation team experiencing the Southern American countries. Parts of the area unseen to Americans in the first half of the 1900s allowed for a better understanding of their culture.

Other than Pedro, which is a cute sequence that’ll have you rooting for the plane, the animation sequences don’t have enough content to make an impact.

Final say: Should’ve stuck to documentary form. ★★☆☆☆