Quote:
Originally Posted by Formendacil
July 1964 is the entry that I will quote the entry in full here:
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A somewhat fuller entry:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Tolkien
to a Miss J.L. Curry, dated 15 July, 1964.
"[...] I recognize his talent, but it has always seemed to me hopelessly corrupted. Though in most of the 'pictures' proceeding from his studios there are admirable or charming passages, the effect of all of them to me is disgusting. Some have given me nausea [...]"
He also accused Disney of being in his business practices "simply a cheat: willing and even eager to defraud the less experienced by trickery sufficently 'legal' to keep him out of jail"; he adds that his own affairs are in the hands of Allen & Unwin ("a firm with the highest repute"); that he is "not innocent of the profit-motive" himself (although "I should not have given any proposal from Disney any consideration at all. I am not all that poor [...]"
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As to the broader question of 'films' vs other exposure- it seems very clear now that the letter of 1937 could not possibly have been influenced by Snow White, which T didn't see until Lewis took him in 1939. This is not however to say that Tolkien hadn't seen Disney animation at that time, since the 'Silly Symphony' cartoon shorts were routinely played as part of the prologomena to films, on both sides of the Atlantic.
I think this more likely than books (although we can't rule out daily comic strips, I suppose; did The Times or Telegraph even contain 'funny pages' in the 30s?) Tolkien's comment on the Browning's Pied Piper and "cheap and vulgar plastic toys" suggests that comic books/cartoon picture-books were likely Not Welcome chez Tolkien.