FILMS - STUDIOS' CLOSET- FLAMES

STREAMING services go deep into libraries but withhold the most racist titles. To augment its new streaming service, Disney reached into the far, far recesses of its movie library.

''No one is irresponsible enough to show these films without proper context.''

''Sammy, the Way-Out-Seal'' [1962], a TV movie about two boys and their groovy aquatic pet was available on Day 1.

So were ''The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes'' [1969], a comedy starring an 18-year-old Kurt Russel, and ''The Castaway Cowboy'' [1974], an action drama set on the Hawaiian island Kauai and originally marketed with the tagline ''He tamed the wild cattle...........and the WILD natives of old Hawaii.''

But not every outdated Disney movie made the cut.

It was never a question, for instance, whether Disney Plus subscribers would have access to the 1946 Disney musical ''Song of the South,'' in which a former slave, Uncle Remus recounts, African folk tales.

''Song of the South'' won an Oscar for its centerpiece song ''Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,'' and mixed live-action filmmaking and animation in a way that was groundbreaking. But Disney has not made ''Song of the South'' available in any form - for 33 years - because of its racist imagery. Upon the movies release,the N.A,A,C.P, said ''Song of the South'' gave ''the impression of an idyllic master-slave relationship.''

Robert A. Iger, Disney's chief executive, made a stance on the film cleat at a 2011 shareholder meeting : ''Don't expect to see it again for at least a while - if ever,'' he said.

Every big movie studio has a skeleton of three in its film closet. Warner Bros, would prefer that everyone forget about the racist, Bugs Bunny cartoons, it put out in the 1940s; ''Yankee Doodle Dandy,'' a James Cogney musical from 1942, includes a grandiose blackface number.

''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' was filmed on the same Warner soundstage where WarnerMedia executives gathered last month to unveil the HBO Max streaming service.

But the streaming boom - Disney Plus arrived last Tuesday, to be followed by Peacock from NBCUniversal in April and HBO Max from Warner in May -has put problem films back in the spotlight. The absence of ''Song of the South'' from Disney Plus's content list has prompted discussion among film critics and historians about whether it should be released for educational purposes.

The cinema-focused podcast ''You Must Remember This'' is doing a six-episode examination of the film.

Disney declined to comment.

Hollywood companies want to build video platforms than can compete with Netflix and Amazon, and part of their sales pitch to consumer involves access to ''deep library'' titles.

So people are understandably curious about why certain movies are AWOL. Why does Disney Plus have room for ''Chef Donald'' a short from 1941 starring Donald Duck, but not ''Commando Duck,'' a seven-minute cartoon from 1944.

Look a little closer : ''Commando Duck,'' one of the propaganda cartoons Disney made for the United States military during World War II, finds Donald on a mission to Japan, where he runs into locals who speak with singsong accents and pointedly shoot their enemies in the back. Disney Plus is not an archive.

The World Students Society thanks author Brooks Barnes.