So Dear to My Heart

So Dear to My Heart
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Harold D. Schuster Hamilton Luske
Screenplay by	John Tucker Battle
Adaptation by	Maurice Rapf Ted Sears
Based on	Midnight and Jeremiah by Sterling North
Produced by	Walt Disney Perce Pearce
Starring	Burl Ives Beulah Bondi Harry Carey Luana Patten Bobby Driscoll
Cinematography	Winton C. Hoch
Edited by	Lloyd L. Richardson
Music by	Paul Smith
Production company	Walt Disney Productions
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release dates	November 29, 1948 (Chicago) January 19, 1949 (Indianapolis)[1]
Running time	82 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.5 million[2]
Box office	$3.7 million (U.S. rental) + $575,000 (foreign rental)[3][4]

So Dear to My Heart is a 1948 American live-action/animated comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Its world premiere was in Chicago, Illinois, on November 29, 1948. Like 1946's Song of the South, the film combines animation and live action. It is based on the 1943 Sterling North book Midnight and Jeremiah. The book was revised by North to parallel the film's storyline amendments and then re-issued under the same title as the film.

The film was a personal favorite of Walt Disney, since it re-created on film one of the most memorable times of his life, growing up on a small farm in the American Midwest at the turn of the twentieth century. Walt said: "So Dear was especially close to me. Why, that's the life my brother and I grew up with as kids out in Missouri". Walt had intended that this would be the first all live-action Disney feature film, but his distributor, RKO, convinced him that when audiences saw the word "Disney", they expected animation. Thus they split the difference.^[5]

So Dear to My Heart was the final film appearance of Harry Carey.