Disney snubbed Churchill’s plea for comic relief.

Winston Churchill’s wartime government secretly urged Walt

Disney to make an anti-Nazi cartoon based on the legend of St

George and the Dragon.

Documents discovered by The Telegraph disclose that ministers

desperately wanted a popular film to be made with a strong

pro-British message which would appeal to a large audience in

an isolationist America.

The papers, dated 1940, show that Noël Coward, the playwright

and actor, and officials from the Ministry of Information went to

America to try to persuade Disney to help with Britain’s

propaganda campaign. Their requests, however, were ignored

by Disney who was determined to keep America out of the war

and was anxious to protect the international market for his films.

There is also speculation that he may have snubbed Britain

because he was unhappy with the way his films had been

received by the London critics. He is known to have been

particularly hurt by a suggestion by some censors that Snow

White and the Seven Dwarfs was too dark a film for children and

should not be shown in cinemas.

This lack of respect for his efforts was in contrast to the critical

acclaim his films received elsewhere, particularly in Germany

where even Hitler was a fan.