It says a lot that The Walt Disney Family Museum hosted an exhibition entitled Bruno Bozzetto: Animation Maestro! in 2013, which included artwork and a screening of Allegro non troppo. This says a lot, because the Italian animator and director is known for his parodies, and his 1976 feature is a not-so-subtle send-up of Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940). The Museum’s exhibition is just one example of the respect Allegro non troppo has earned through the years.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this month, Allegro non troppo has been embraced by many Disney fans and artists as not just a parody, but also an homage to Walt’s innovative blending of animation and music.
The film opens in black-and-white live action with an emcee, known as “The Presenter” (Maurizio Micheli), who welcomes the audience and lets us know we are about to see animated images set to classical music. He then receives a phone call from someone in California, who tells him the film had already been made once before. The Presenter dismisses this, and later notes that the caller was someone named “Prisney,” or “Grisney.”
During the humorous live-action prelude, he also introduces the audience to the Conductor (Nestor Garay), an orchestra made up of little old ladies, and the Animator (Maurizio Nichetti), who emerges from a dungeon, where he has been chained up.
We segue into the animated segments, starting with Claude Debussy’s “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune,” where an aging Satyr attempts to look younger, while pursuing a young nymph. A poke at Fantasia’s “The Pastoral Symphony,” however, Allegro non troppo includes much more adult themes and images.
Then comes “Slavonic Dance No. 7, Op 46,” by Antonin Dvořák, where a man living in a cave attempts to build himself a better home, while the other cave dwellers continue to copy him, to his frustration, as he attempts to take matters into his own hands. However, the other residents get their revenge in a funny, “slam to black” conclusion, in this comical statement about conformity.
This is followed by Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro,” which is the backdrop for an odd, yet almost hypnotic tale of how soda left behind in a soda bottle comes to life, morphing into different monsters and alien life forms, in what appears to be a take-off of Fantasia’s “Rite of Spring.”
Up next is “Valse triste,” by Jean Sibelius, which tells a heartbreaking tale of a stray cat in an abandoned building who remembers the people who once lived there and longs for that familial connection.
Antonio Vivaldi’s “Concerto in C Minor,” follows this, with the trials and tribulations of a bee who attempts to extract pollen from a flower, while a couple has a romantic picnic right above.
Then, there’s Igor Stravinsky’s “The Firebird” (which, ironically, was also used in Disney’s Fantasia 2000), and tells a different tale of Adam and Eve. Starting in stop-motion and segueing to 2D animation, the Snake offers Adam and Eve the apple, but when they refuse, the Snake eats it. After, the reptile is accosted by demons and a flurry of temptations shown through surrealistic images.
In between each of the musical animated segments is a return to the live-action Presenter, Conductor, and orchestra in some very funny segments and a conclusion, where the Animator turns himself and the theater’s cleaning woman (Maurialuisa Giovannini) into an animated prince and princess.
After this, The Presenter phones an animated character, a strange, hulking creature, to look for a fitting finale. The creature searches through a number of miniature theaters, at different animated performances, set to a variety of such music as Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2,” which ends the film with a series of disastrous images and the finale of the world exploding.
The Presenter then discusses his next project, a story about a woman and seven little men, which, oddly, he will title Sleeping Beauty. As the animated creature watches this unfold, the words “Happy End” fall on him, and the Snake from the Adam and Eve section peers out of the “D.”
Bozzetto had created the popular animated character Mr. Rossi (who makes a cameo in Allegro non troppo) and his short Tapum! The History of Arms was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1958. He’s known for films with an edge, featuring more adult sensibilities and combining satire with animation. Bozzetti parodied Westerns with West and Soda in 1965 and superheroes with 1968’s VIP my Brother Superman. Allegro non troppo (which translates to “fast, but not too fast,” in Italian) is his most well-known film.
The animated sequences in the film are beautifully crafted, each with its own distinct style and tone. Of note is the personality the animators convey, in a comical way with the frustrated cave dweller in the “Slavic Dance,” and in an emotional way through the cat in “Valse triste.”
“Bolero” also features stunning, almost mesmerizing, animation that seems to be in perpetual motion throughout the segment.
Released in Italy on March 12, 1976, Allegro non troppo would debut in United States theatres the following year, leaving some critics scratching their head, such as Janet Maslin, who wrote in The New York Times: “His [Bozzetto’s] movie is full of clashing colors and incongruous styles, with characters inspired by anything from Keane paintings to herbal shampoo commercials. The best that can be said for such a mélange is that it is genuinely exhausting.”
Much like Fantasia itself, these distinct qualities are what have endeared Allegro non troppo to audiences in the fifty years since its debut. In his book, The Animated Movie Guide, our own Jerry Beck called the film Bozzetto’s “crowning achievement,” stating: “Allegro non troppo is brimming with zany sight gags, exciting visuals, and comic originality. The animation art direction is superb, and the comic timing to the musical beats or to service a joke is masterful.”
GKids is re-releasing the feature in theaters this year. The big screen is certainly the best place to appreciate it. Here’s the brand new 2026 trailer…
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
Vivaldi’s concerto is in C major, not C minor. The segment begins with the passing of the four seasons, condensed into about 30 seconds of animation. Vivaldi’s most famous concerti are the four for violin known collectively as “The Four Seasons”, which take the better part of an hour to play.
I didn’t see “Allegro non troppo” when it first came out in 1976, which was probably for the best. I turned fifteen that year, and since I couldn’t drive, and there weren’t any cinemas within walking or cycling distance of my house, my parents would have had to take me to see it — and we all would have been embarrassed to sit together watching a movie with that much nudity in it. It would have been Ingmar Bergman’s “The Magic Flute” all over again.
Instead, I first saw it in an arthouse cinema when I was in college, at a time when I was in a better frame of mind to appreciate it. The version of the film that I saw lacked the live-action material and just showed the animated segments as a suite. I enjoyed it very much, though the bit where the kissing couple’s lips get torn off grossed me out then and still does today. I remember thinking that the serpent in the Garden of Eden looked like the snake in the B.C. comic strip. I kept expecting Eve to clobber it with a club.
By this time, unfortunately, I had developed a strong dislike of Ravel’s “Bolero”, which had achieved unwonted popularity after Blake Edwards used it to accompany a sex scene with Bo Derek in the so-called comedy “10”. Every orchestra in the world played that silly piece to death in the ensuing years, and you couldn’t turn on any classical radio station without hearing it. A friend who worked in a record store at the time told me that many customers needed his help to find Ravel’s “Bolero” — because they didn’t know who composed it.
I’m glad that “Allegro non troppo” is getting a theatrical re-release in its fiftieth anniversary year. I don’t know if it will be shown in my area, but if it is I’ll be sure to see it.
‘A friend who worked in a record store at the time told me that many customers needed his help to find Ravel’s “Bolero” — because they didn’t know who composed it.’
That brings to mind an old joke from Reader’s Digest, about a guest at an incredibly swanky soiree approaching the conductor of the orchestra playing for the gathering to request Handel’s “Largo”. Flustered, the conductor mentioned that the orchestra had just finished playing it. “Oh, I wish I had known”, sighed the guest, “it’s my favorite piece.” (And I also have to wonder if the years have softened your opinion on “Bolero” any; I can’t say it’s a particular favorite of mine, but I like having it on in the background while working on a task.)
I don’t think I’ll ever warm up to “Bolero”, but I’m thankful that orchestras no longer play it to death the way they did in the early ’80s. I haven’t had to play it myself in about twenty years and couldn’t be happier. Even Ravel himself didn’t think much of the piece and was bemused that it became so popular. He considered it an experiment in orchestration, nothing more, and famously described it as “fifteen minutes of orchestra without music.” All that said, however, I enjoy Bozzetto’s imaginative and thoughtful setting of it in “Allegro non troppo”; the visual element really makes it work.
I heard a story that a woman went to a record store to buy a new album for her son. “He loves classical music, but I don’t know anything about it. Do you have any suggestions?” The clerk offered a record of Brahms’ Third Symphony. “Oh no, he already has Beethoven’s.”
I’ve been a fan of Bruno Bozzetto’s ever since I saw his What a Cartoon! short “Help?”, which was the best short on the program IMO.
I’ve seen Allegro non Troppo on YouTube years ago but would love to see the full thing on the big screen. Unfortunately I don’t think if it’s in theaters near me.
Allegro Non Troppo is an inarguable classic; while Bozzetto does throw a few (mostly flippant) jabs at Disney, for the most part the film avoids being merely a parody or spoof of Fantasia and instead is an auteur’s take on the idea of melding animation with classical music, ranging from the slapstick of Vivaldi’s “Concerto in C Major” to the impressionistic sensuality of Debussy’s “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune”. While the marvelously-inventive march of evolution portrayed to Ravel’s “Bolero” is the showstopper of the feature, my personal favorite sections are the melancholy of Sibelius’s “Valse triste” and the biting satire of Stravinsky’s “Firebird”. I dearly hope that GKIDS’s re-release of the film plays close(ish) to me, so I can finally experience it as it’s meant to be seen.
I’d love to see this in a theater. Are we thinking that GKIDs will show it uncensored? That’d be my preference.