The Disney Version
{{Short description|Book by Richard Schickel}}
{{Infobox book|
| name = The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney
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| translator =
| image = File:The_Disney_Version.png
| caption =
| author = Richard Schickel
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| country = United States
| language = English
| series =
| genre = Biography
| publisher = Simon & Schuster
| release_date = 1968
| english_release_date =
| media_type = Print (hardcover, paperback)
| pages =
| isbn =
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The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney is a 1968 book by Richard Schickel. It is a biography of Walt Disney.[https://books.google.com/books?id=9RSKDwAAQBAJ Google Books] It was one of the first polemical books about Disney that takes a harshly critical view of much of his work.[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1197575.The_Disney_Version Goodreads]
Reception
Stephen J. Whitfield of Brandeis University wrote that the book was "one of the best studies ever done on American popular culture ... unfailingly, consistently intelligent, and eminently readable" while Pauline Kael described it as "a revealing part of American cultural history".{{cite book|title=The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney: Richard Schickel: 9781566631587: Amazon.com: Books|isbn=1566631580}}
Criticism
Other critics perceived a hypocrisy and a dubious reliability mainly due to the fact that the book was written and released after Walt Disney's death. In his 1982 book The Hollywood Musical, critic and author Ethan Mordden wrote that the book "is favored by the cognoscenti", but "Schickel's resentment of Disney's wealth and power" stood out "like a soapbox nut's exhortation - horror of horrors, the genius turned out to be a capitalist".[https://archive.org/details/hollywoodmusical00mord/page/240/mode/2up?q=soapbox The Hollywood musical: Mordden, Ethan, 1947 - Internet Archive (pg.283)] Disney historian Didier Ghez called it "a strange psychological analysis of Walt and his works".[https://didierghez.com/_private/walt.htm DidierGehz.com]