Jeff Kurtti was kind enough to forward the following email from cinema historian Russell Merritt about this week's post about Walt and Eisenstein.

[I know of no surviving correspondence between SME and Disney. But for the link between Eisenstein, Prokofiev, and Disney, you might find my illustrated article Recharging Nevsky: Tracking the Eisenstein-Prokofiev War Horse, Film Quarterly 48 (Winter 1994-5), 34-45 of interest. It is a study of how Eisenstein and Prokofiev studied Snow White and the recording techniques for Fantasia when creating Alexander Nevsky.

I provide a commentary for the Criterion DVD of Nevsky/ Ivan the Terrible based on that article. Eisenstein writes up his experience at Hyperion in essays collected in Eisenstein on Disney. This also includes two photos of Eisenstein with Disney, the one with the two men arm in arm looking at a lawn image of Mickey Mouse; the other of Disney, SME, and Eisenstein's collaborators Alexandrov and Tisse with Mickey.

Eisenstein-Prokofiev correspondence survives at the Eisenstein Archive in Moscow in which they discuss Disney. I don't know whether Prokofiev saw any production work from the "Ride of the Valkyries" sequence. But he was at the studio when parts of Fantasia were being recorded and mixed. One word of caution: the similarities Nancy finds between Nevsky and "The Ride..." are more likely based on a common source in the Wagner music drama, which Eisenstein directed.

Hope this helps.

Russell Merritt]