It’s no secret that Walt Disney liked innovation in his films, and on this day in 1956 the latest True-Life Adventure, Secrets of Life, was released with new photographic techniques that captured rarely seen aspects of nature. The film showcases survival and reproduction, from bees pollinating flowers to the use of time-lapse photography to focus on flowers in bloom. Secrets of ocean dwellers, insects, and plants are all revealed in this documentary, with stunning footage of a volcano erupting as the finale. Still remarkable by today’s standards, one reporter in 1956 wrote about the film that the folks at Disney “are happily discovering that genuine living things behave in much more miraculous fashion than was ever dreamed for the creatures of their cartoons.”
