In honor of the 70th anniversary of the park, the documentary Disneyland Handcrafted by Leslie Iwerks captures the emotions and imagery of the creation of the world’s first true theme park.
Iwerks is a name you probably know for a number of reasons as a Disney fan. Number one, her lineage is that of entertainment royalty. Leslie’s grandfather was Ub Iwerks and she’s the daughter of Don Iwerks, both of whom are bona fide Disney Legends. You may also just know Leslie’s name from the incredible documentaries she’s been worked on, including The Imagineering Story.
Apparently, in digging through the Disney archives creating The Imagineering Story streaming series, they also found a lot of pre-opening Disneyland footage from the 1950s. Some executives at Disney decided that what remained on the cutting room floor was probably a whole other documentary. Thankfully, they believed in this project and funded it.
In the lead-up to this film, we were promised never-before-seen footage. Now, I don’t know that you and I, some of the biggest Disney fans on this planet, qualify as the “public”. There is a level of Disney fan that has gobbled up every piece of media related to the Disney theme parks that is available to us on this earth. With that, there are several pieces of pre-opening or early Disneyland media that you have undoubtedly seen before if you are at this level. Whether you watched the Sunday night shows with Walt (the Disneyland TV show), the pre-opening report or the Disneyland USA film, you will have seen a fair amount of the footage in this film.
When you get to this level of fandom, it is very hard for Disney to still release footage you have never seen before, or at least a decent amount of it. I am delighted to tell you there are several clips and extended cuts of footage in this documentary that you and I have never seen before.
The style of “Disneyland Handcrafted” feels quite unique in the Disney space in that it is a collection of once-silent clips turned into a feature-length film. Now, don’t be worried if you weren’t hoping to watch a silent film, as the Iwerks & Co team had some talented artisans lay sound effects and such over the candid shots of the park’s creation. Over the top of that, you’ll hear fantastic sound clips from those who were “in the room where it happened” with Walt Disney, weaving the tale of the construction.
Leslie and her team built a strong and tension-filled narrative through all these interviews, allowing viewers to feel the pressure of the time-crunch to open the park by July 1955.
So much of the charm and intrigue of the film for me was watching construction crews perpetrate what would now be OSHA violations. You’ll see crew members riding on equipment they’re not supposed to, flipping said vehicles over, or not having any sort of fall protection while standing on a 50 to 75-foot-tall building. Being the 1950s, most people shown throughout the movie are smoking cigarettes. It is pretty funny in 2026 to watch people actively building the Happiest Place on Earth with a lit cig in their mouths, especially considering you can’t even smoke in the open theme park today.
The highlight for me is the new footage of Disneyland’s disastrous opening day. If you are reading this, you’ve heard the horror stories of everything that went wrong on July 17, 1955: ladies’ heels sank into the pavement, the Autopia cars had no rail and were all crashed, several thousand more guests showed up with counterfeit tickets, etc. It’s an incredible story, and we’ve seen some footage, but I have never seen footage that captures that moment so vividly. You can see the misery on the guests’ faces, the garbage piled in the street due to a strike, the overcrowded pathways, and even entire areas of landscaping that simply did not get done.
It is a life highlight to see what Disneyland had to bounce back from to succeed, making what Disney accomplished feel even more herculean than it already did. This imagery will stick with me the rest of my life, and likely every time I step into the first Disney theme park.
Despite my familiarity with most of the footage, I loved this documentary. I love that it exists, capturing what it took to make Walt’s dream a reality for future generations to enjoy. I’m so thankful that Walt Disney and his company had the foresight (or at least needed to film so much for the Disneyland TV show) to have the construction of Disneyland so well documented. Thanks to Leslie and her team, we have it put together in a digestible format for Disney fans of all types and ages.
Disneyland Handcrafted is streaming on YouTube and Disney+ January 22nd.
