Donald Duck: All in a Nutshell (1949) Director Jack Hannah Starring Clarence Nash, James MacDonald, Dessie Flynn
Donald is a roadside vendor selling nut butter, with a giant novelty walnut as his store. Naturally, this means trouble with Chip 'n' Dale. I was pleasantly surprised by this short, which I had never seen. Usually, the chipmunks chatter more and Donald is more of a pest. Not here. This short is all action, all slapstick. Definitely a highlight of Disney's post-war shorts.
Donald Duck: All in a Nutshell (1949) Director Jack Hannah Starring Clarence Nash, James MacDonald, Dessie Flynn
Donald is a roadside vendor selling nut butter, with a giant novelty walnut as his store. Naturally, this means trouble with Chip 'n' Dale. I was pleasantly surprised by this short, which I had never seen. Usually, the chipmunks chatter more and Donald is more of a pest. Not here. This short is all action, all slapstick. Definitely a highlight of Disney's post-war shorts.
This short actually got adapted into a comic-book story, Business Buddies, which I read in childhood in its original printing. As a wee tad, I was very dubious about the possibility of walnut butter, since as we all know the only real nut butter is peanut butter, only to discover later in life that it's a thing. I did like the walnut-shaped store, though. I still have yet to see the cartoon! Maybe I should mosey on over to Disney+, where I am enjoying my second-and-last-for-now month...yes, they do have it! (They have some classic cartoons on Disney+, but definitely not all of them.)
Donald Duck: All in a Nutshell (1949) Director Jack Hannah Starring Clarence Nash, James MacDonald, Dessie Flynn
Donald is a roadside vendor selling nut butter, with a giant novelty walnut as his store. Naturally, this means trouble with Chip 'n' Dale. I was pleasantly surprised by this short, which I had never seen. Usually, the chipmunks chatter more and Donald is more of a pest. Not here. This short is all action, all slapstick. Definitely a highlight of Disney's post-war shorts.
This short actually got adapted into a comic-book story, Business Buddies, which I read in childhood in its original printing. As a wee tad, I was very dubious about the possibility of walnut butter, since as we all know the only real nut butter is peanut butter, only to discover later in life that it's a thing. I did like the walnut-shaped store, though. I still have yet to see the cartoon! Maybe I should mosey on over to Disney+, where I am enjoying my second-and-last-for-now month...yes, they do have it! (They have some classic cartoons on Disney+, but definitely not all of them.)
It very much depends on your region, too. For instance, the US (and UK?) seem to have a bunch of classic shorts that I can't view: The Golden Touch, On Ice, Elmer Elephant, Sea Scouts. Quite a few that I've never seen, too: Don's Fountain of Youth, Dragon Around...
I love the walnut-shaped store! It's good to see Disney keeping in touch with the times.
I gotta figure out how to find out which classic cartoon shorts *are* available to me on Disney+ so I can watch them while I'm still subscribing! It's hard to find such a list on the net, easier to find a list of cartoon shorts in general, or top 50 cartoon shorts, on Disney+, lists which include classic and recent, Disney and Pixar etc.
I gotta figure out how to find out which classic cartoon shorts *are* available to me on Disney+ so I can watch them while I'm still subscribing! It's hard to find such a list on the net, easier to find a list of cartoon shorts in general, or top 50 cartoon shorts, on Disney+, lists which include classic and recent, Disney and Pixar etc.
In my country, if you go to the search/explore tab, you can scroll down a bunch of collections. One of those is the Disney Through the Decades collection, which has everything stored chronologically (at least, by year). There's a few hiccups (1941 Dumbo being filed as 2019 due to the reboot), but it works like a charm.
I've also been told that if you go to the movies tab, you can select by shorts. You'll have everything from Mater shorts to Disney classics and it's not ordered, but it'll give you everything they have.
Since the content on Disney+ keep changing, websites have a hard time keeping up to date. You'll have better luck browsing for "Disney plus" than "Disney +". You'll find something -- for Anglo countries, at least.
Production Supervision Ben Sharpsteen Directors Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi, James Algar Starring Bing Crosby, Basil Rathbone, Eric Blore, Pat O'Malley, Claude Allister, Colin Campbell, Campbell Grant, John Ployardt, The Rhythmaires
We finish the 1940s with one more double-bill package feature. The result, as we shall discover, is a little uneven.
The Wind in the Willows This feature was originally titled Two Fabulous Characters, which is still referenced in the dialogue. And what a character Toad is, indeed. His devil-may-care enthusiasm and exuberance appealed to me as a child, and continue to delight me to this day. The curmudgeonly MacBadger, the stuffy Ratty, and the pure little Mole round out the cast very nicely. This segment made an impression on me at the right age, and as such it'll always have a special place in my heart. The story, about an aristocratic British toad whose faddishness cost him his fortune, is a classic for the ages and has inspired my own fiction from before the beginning. It moves forward (with ever newer vehicles being the objects of Toad's mania), and ends up exactly where it started off (Toad not having learned from his mistakes). The Wind in the Willows is the one segment that I lament for never having made it as a full-length feature. It doesn't push the envelope quite as much some of the other segments, and it has competition on certain fronts with the Terry Gilliam adaptation, but the debt I owe to this particular adaptation is invaluable. Unfortunately, my perception has always been that The Wind in the Willows is the more obscure of the two shorts. Yes, Toad received his own ride at Disneyland and was released on home video all the same, but from reviews to cover art, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is always the one that attracts the most publicity. Perhaps that's because it falls into the Disney tradition of Great American Folklore adaptations, whereas The Wind in the Willows looks more like a quirky European story. And Disney can be a little awkward around anthropomorphic animals that it didn't fully invent. Whatever it may be, The Wind in the Willows is still a rollicking adventure bursting with energy, with a good story about friendship and self-control at its heart. Tally-ho, tally-ho, tally-hooo!
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow I've always been a bit on the fence about this short. Disney storytelling language would have us read Ichabod Crane as a loveable eccentric and Brom Bones as the local bully, but does the narrative really support this? Ichabod is introduced as an oddity, but he settles into the Sleepy Hollow life pretty quickly. His motives are purely self-interested: he lives off the hospitality of others, and drops the plump girl in the green dress the moment he lays eyes on Katrina and her huge tracts of land. When the Headless Horseman shows up, we suddenly change gears. Any misgivings we might have about Ichabod are immediately put aside in the face of this existential threat. We know for a fact that Ichabod is deeply superstitious, but there's nothing about the Headless Horseman that presents as a narrative manifestation of Ichabod's earlier misdeeds, bad omens, or something he ate. Furthermore, much like Ichabod, the Horseman isn't stylized enough to sow doubt in the viewer's mind. The chase sequence is intense, but decidedly not a Disney acid sequence. This is real. Right? Only once the sequence ends are we presented with the option that what we just witnessed didn't quite happen. This is an incredulous step backwards. Is it satisfying to see Brom Bones marry Katrina? No, his motives were no better than Ichabod's. Is it satisfying to see the climax of the story relegated to fiction, a tall tale told by the residents of Sleepy Hollow? No, we were under the impression that it was being presented by a neutral third party, Bing Crosby and Walt Disney. Once again, third-party narration proves an obstacle to the depth of its characters. After Dumbo, Bongo, and Ichabod, it's time for Disney to give voice to its protagonists, so that we may judge them on their own words. The music lies.
So much for Disney's experimental decade. Hollywood is gearing up to face an existential threat: television. And Disney features are about to get big.
Segments (1940-1949) As requested, a list of all the segments in the package features we've been discussing, ranked according to my subjective preference. Parts of the following films are included: Fantasia (8), The Reluctant Dragon (5), Saludos Amigos (5), Victory Through Air Power (1), The Three Caballeros (6), Make Mine Music (9), Song of the South (3), Fun and Fancy Free (2), Melody Time (8), So Dear To My Heart (4), and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (2).
You Belong to My Heart and Donald's Surreal Reverie (The Three Caballeros)
Bumble Boogie (Melody Time)
All the Cats Join In (Make Mine Music)
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Fantasia)
Once Upon a Wintertime (Melody Time)
The Pastoral Symphony (Fantasia)
The Martins and the Coys (Make Mine Music)
The Cold-Blooded Penguin (The Three Caballeros)
The Wind in the Willows (The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad)
Pecos Bill (Melody Time)
Baby Weems (The Reluctant Dragon)
Aquarela do Brasil (Saludos Amigos)
Johnny Appleseed (Melody Time)
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (Fantasia)
El Gaucho Goofy (Saludos Amigos)
Meet the Soundtrack (Fantasia)
Baía (The Three Caballeros)
The Nutcracker Suite (Fantasia)
History of Aviation (Victory Through Air Power)
County Fair (So Dear To My Heart)
Las Posadas (The Three Caballeros)
So Dear To My Heart (So Dear To My Heart)
Old MacDonald Duck (The Reluctant Dragon)
Br'er Rabbit’s Laughing Place (Song of the South)
Casey Jr. (The Reluctant Dragon)
Blame It on the Samba (Melody Time)
Bambi (The Reluctant Dragon)
Br'er Rabbit and the Tar 🅱aby (Song of the South)
After You've Gone (Melody Time)
It's Whatcha Do With Whatcha Got (So Dear To My Heart)
Pedro (Saludos Amigos)
Br'er Rabbit Runs Away (Song of the South)
The Flying Gauchito (The Three Caballeros)
The Rite of Spring (Fantasia)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad)
Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet (Make Mine Music)
Night on Bald Mountain and Ave Maria (Fantasia)
The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met (Make Mine Music)
The Reluctant Dragon (The Reluctant Dragon)
Without You (Make Mine Music)
Mexico: Pátzcuaro, Veracruz, and Acapulco (The Three Caballeros)
I gotta figure out how to find out which classic cartoon shorts *are* available to me on Disney+ so I can watch them while I'm still subscribing! It's hard to find such a list on the net, easier to find a list of cartoon shorts in general, or top 50 cartoon shorts, on Disney+, lists which include classic and recent, Disney and Pixar etc.
In my country, if you go to the search/explore tab, you can scroll down a bunch of collections. One of those is the Disney Through the Decades collection, which has everything stored chronologically (at least, by year). There's a few hiccups (1941 Dumbo being filed as 2019 due to the reboot), but it works like a charm.
I've also been told that if you go to the movies tab, you can select by shorts. You'll have everything from Mater shorts to Disney classics and it's not ordered, but it'll give you everything they have.
Since the content on Disney+ keep changing, websites have a hard time keeping up to date. You'll have better luck browsing for "Disney plus" than "Disney +". You'll find something -- for Anglo countries, at least.
Thanks! It wouldn't have occurred to me to look for shorts under the movies tab. But that's clearly the easiest place to look, even though they're not chronologically ordered; there aren't that many of them overall, so it's easy enough to find the ones I'm interested in.
The recent Short Circuit short-shorts are not included in that listing of shorts, by the way. I finally figured out that the Short Circuit shorts *are* available on Disney+ even though they are not listed individually at all; that is, a title search by a certain short's title won't get you anywhere. You have to search for "Short Circuit." It's treated in the same way as a TV program, with the individual shorts as episodes in Season 1. Works fine, once you know how to look!
By the way, Don's Fountain of Youth has a particularly wonderful ending joke, IMO. The reaction of the mama crocodile when she is initially spurned by her children who have imprinted on Donald is funny and priceless and satisfying. Sorry if my saying this is just salt in the wound of your inability to see this short!
Production Supervision Ben Sharpsteen Directors Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi, James Algar Starring Bing Crosby, Basil Rathbone, Eric Blore, Pat O'Malley, Claude Allister, Colin Campbell, Campbell Grant, John Ployardt, The Rhythmaires
We finish the 1940s with one more double-bill package feature. The result, as we shall discover, is a little uneven.
The Wind in the Willows This feature was originally titled Two Fabulous Characters, which is still referenced in the dialogue. And what a character Toad is, indeed. His devil-may-care enthusiasm and exuberance appealed to me as a child, and continue to delight me to this day. The curmudgeonly MacBadger, the stuffy Ratty, and the pure little Mole round out the cast very nicely. This segment made an impression on me at the right age, and as such it'll always have a special place in my heart. The story, about an aristocratic British toad whose faddishness cost him his fortune, is a classic for the ages and has inspired my own fiction from before the beginning. It moves forward (with ever newer vehicles being the objects of Toad's mania), and ends up exactly where it started off (Toad not having learned from his mistakes). The Wind in the Willows is the one segment that I lament for never having made it as a full-length feature. It doesn't push the envelope quite as much some of the other segments, and it has competition on certain fronts with the Terry Gilliam adaptation, but the debt I owe to this particular adaptation is invaluable. Unfortunately, my perception has always been that The Wind in the Willows is the more obscure of the two shorts. Yes, Toad received his own ride at Disneyland and was released on home video all the same, but from reviews to cover art, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is always the one that attracts the most publicity. Perhaps that's because it falls into the Disney tradition of Great American Folklore adaptations, whereas The Wind in the Willows looks more like a quirky European story. And Disney can be a little awkward around anthropomorphic animals that it didn't fully invent. Whatever it may be, The Wind in the Willows is still a rollicking adventure bursting with energy, with a good story about friendship and self-control at its heart. Tally-ho, tally-ho, tally-hooo!
Interestingly, I have the same experience with this double bill feature as I had with Fun and Fancy Free; I first saw the second segment more times because I watched it in two versions, one as a separate short and another in the original feature. As it turns out, Sleepy Hollow wound up stronger in my memory than Wind in the Willows, which I may have watched once or twice.
I admit that when I first watched, I couldn't help but feel sorry for poor Angus MacBadger, who has to handle Toad's costas and bills and keep his estate from falling apart, a burden Mr. Toad never seems to take seriously. But come to think of that, MacBadger's only suffering is that his friend is dooming his own patrimony, and this being a Disney story, no one is seriously hurt by Mr. Toad's mania, and the only permanent damage he causes is to himself.
The way I talk, it sounds like I have a dislike for Toad, em? Maybe not as much as when I first watched it and stood for Angus MacBadger; but I admit that when he's framed and arrested, I couldn't not feel sorry for him. Maybe he deserved some comeuppance for his recklessness, but in my young idealistic face, everyone deserved justice, so of course, I took his side when it was time to get back his property. Maybe I should give Wind (and Mr. Toad) a second chance someday.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
I've always been a bit on the fence about this short. Disney storytelling language would have us read Ichabod Crane as a loveable eccentric and Brom Bones as the local bully, but does the narrative really support this? Ichabod is introduced as an oddity, but he settles into the Sleepy Hollow life pretty quickly. His motives are purely self-interested: he lives off the hospitality of others, and drops the plump girl in the green dress the moment he lays eyes on Katrina and her huge tracts of land.
When the Headless Horseman shows up, we suddenly change gears. Any misgivings we might have about Ichabod are immediately put aside in the face of this existential threat. We know for a fact that Ichabod is deeply superstitious, but there's nothing about the Headless Horseman that presents as a narrative manifestation of Ichabod's earlier misdeeds, bad omens, or something he ate. Furthermore, much like Ichabod, the Horseman isn't stylized enough to sow doubt in the viewer's mind. The chase sequence is intense, but decidedly not a Disney acid sequence. This is real. Right?
Now this a favorite of mine; I'm a sucker for horror stories, and this one is a full plate. I said before that Disney is great at setting dark, scary sequences and then paying off with lighter and joyful moments that feel stronger thanks to the former. In most Disney stories, the dark, scary is a setup for the light, hopeful payoff. Here I saw as the other way around: the lighter and comedic segments before the Headless Horseman is even mentioned are a setup for his appearance and chase sequence. The sequence where Brom tells the tale, the spooky man who says "and some don't even wear their skins", Ichabod becoming increasingly nervous at the party, and increasingly paranoid as he comes back home, having a funny hope spot, only to meet the Horseman himself, which was the real payoff for me as a horror fan. The chase sequence is one of the most impactant moments of my Disney memory; I suspect Tim Burton's Sleeepy Hollow is one of my favorite horror movies thanks to this short.
When I was a kid, I was firmly on Ichabod's side, believing he genuinely loved Katrina, and being the weaker of the dispute with Brom. But giving a second look, it's clear that Ichabod is a sneaky opportunist, always looking for something of his advantage. And I agree that the narrator makes things more difficult, because when Ichabod thinks about Katrina's father's lands and riches he'd inheret with the marriage, it's the narrator talking, which makes it hard to tell how much of the narration is Ichabod's own malicious thoughts or the narrator's being a bad influence on him. It doesn't help that in the Portuguese audio, they have different voices, while in the original they's both voiced by Bing Crosby.
Only once the sequence ends are we presented with the option that what we just witnessed didn't quite happen. This is an incredulous step backwards.
Is it satisfying to see Brom Bones marry Katrina? No, his motives were no better than Ichabod's. Is it satisfying to see the climax of the story relegated to fiction, a tall tale told by the residents of Sleepy Hollow? No, we were under the impression that it was being presented by a neutral third party, Bing Crosby and Walt Disney.
Once again, third-party narration proves an obstacle to the depth of its characters. After Dumbo, Bongo, and Ichabod, it's time for Disney to give voice to its protagonists, so that we may judge them on their own words. The music lies.
I always thought of that as a tailor-made saving throw for impressionable children who could be distraught by the downer ending. By the end of the film, parents would be like "don't worry, kid, see? Ichabod is alright, he escaped". At the same time, cynical viewers could buy the pessimist ending and believe Ichabod was truly taken away by the Horseman and that the rumors that he was alive and married were just that, rumors. In fact, I would go as far as to say the two options aren't necesarily contradictory in a third option: the Horseman sequence might be true, but Ichabod might have escaped, ran from Sleepy Hollow and restarted his life somewhere else; I bet a lot of parents reassured this happier endind (which isn't that happy, actually; in his shoes I'd be traumatized for life!).
Now, there's one thing that makes this third option possible in my opinion, and is also a big doubt of mine with the final sequence: it's said that the horseman can't cross the bridge, and once you cross it, his powers cease; or at least that's how the version in Portuguese narrates. Then how could the Horseman use his flamming pumpkin of doom to collect Ichabod? I'll compare it to a sequence from Burton's Sleepy Hollow movie, where the Horseman is after a specific victim, who's hidden inside a magically protected place where he can't get in, which is shown when he tries to reach it with his axe, and it desintegrates. Refusing to give up, the horseman improvises a harpoon with pieces of wood and ropes (makes sense in the context) so he can pull his target out and collect their head.
In that sequence, it was made clear that he couldn't break in with his weapons, because they were extensions of himself, but he could do so with the harpoon because it was made of mundane material. But isn't the pumpkin also part of the Horseman's powers in the Disney version?
I dunno, maybe I minterpreted it as being "anyone who crosses the bridge becomes immune to the Headless Horseman" when it was actually "the Horseman can't cross the bridge but he can still harm you if you do". Maybe it's because I watched a ton of horror movies where the writers didn't bother to explain their creatures' powers and their limitations, often giving them arbitraty extensions and weak spots. I lost count of how many supernatural beings in mobies can literally teleport people in one scene, but in another they can't get past a locked door, and the pumpkin fels close to something like that when I remember it.
I admit that when I first watched, I couldn't help but feel sorry for poor Angus MacBadger, who has to handle Toad's costas and bills and keep his estate from falling apart, a burden Mr. Toad never seems to take seriously. But come to think of that, MacBadger's only suffering is that his friend is dooming his own patrimony, and this being a Disney story, no one is seriously hurt by Mr. Toad's mania, and the only permanent damage he causes is to himself.
The way I talk, it sounds like I have a dislike for Toad, em? Maybe not as much as when I first watched it and stood for Angus MacBadger; but I admit that when he's framed and arrested, I couldn't not feel sorry for him. Maybe he deserved some comeuppance for his recklessness, but in my young idealistic face, everyone deserved justice, so of course, I took his side when it was time to get back his property. Maybe I should give Wind (and Mr. Toad) a second chance someday.
MacBadger is an interesting character, moreso than Ratty or Mole, but that might be because I have a soft spot for irascible characters with a heart of gold underneath. Remember, he's not an accountant by trade, but a friend who helps out with Toad's books. That's true community there, I love that. There's a seeming edge to MacBadger, but it's little more than a front. I'd have liked have seen the waterside community that Rathbone talks about fleshed out more.
Toad Hall has an interesting place in the story. And by interesting I mean that I can't quite figure it out. The narrator describes it as a place that "gave the community an air of respectability", which is of course in direct contrast to the sleazy weasels and their behavior. At the same time, Toad and his manor are a reminder of the local aristocracy, of people who don't need to play by the working class' game. Portraying Toad Hall as a living monument has a very contemporary ring to it, and I can't imagine this being on the writers' minds in 1949 or in 1908. Then again, Brits sure love their manors...
Toad is such a fun character. He has such a childish enthusiasm in everything that he does, I find it impossible to relate to that on some level. He throws himself from one misadventure into the next, blissfully unaware of the dangers he's in. The villain of the piece, Mr. Winky, brings the whole house of cards crumbling down because of one lie. The rest, really, is all Toad's doing. He's his own foil. And I utterly adore that in a protagonist: a character who is their own worst enemy.
Now this a favorite of mine; I'm a sucker for horror stories, and this one is a full plate. I said before that Disney is great at setting dark, scary sequences and then paying off with lighter and joyful moments that feel stronger thanks to the former. In most Disney stories, the dark, scary is a setup for the light, hopeful payoff. Here I saw as the other way around: the lighter and comedic segments before the Headless Horseman is even mentioned are a setup for his appearance and chase sequence. The sequence where Brom tells the tale, the spooky man who says "and some don't even wear their skins", Ichabod becoming increasingly nervous at the party, and increasingly paranoid as he comes back home, having a funny hope spot, only to meet the Horseman himself, which was the real payoff for me as a horror fan. The chase sequence is one of the most impactant moments of my Disney memory; I suspect Tim Burton's Sleeepy Hollow is one of my favorite horror movies thanks to this short.
That's an interesting comment. I am resolutely not a horror fan: I'll tolerate when it appears in other movies, but I'll never watch a movie that's simply horror for horror's sake. Even something like a Hitchcock movie: I'm too much of a Toadian to find any value in it, or even to take it seriously. (On another fascinating/frustrating note, my dad has the same with musicals. Which is why I'm scheduling these movies in my alone time.)
When I was a kid, I was firmly on Ichabod's side, believing he genuinely loved Katrina, and being the weaker of the dispute with Brom. But giving a second look, it's clear that Ichabod is a sneaky opportunist, always looking for something of his advantage. And I agree that the narrator makes things more difficult, because when Ichabod thinks about Katrina's father's lands and riches he'd inheret with the marriage, it's the narrator talking, which makes it hard to tell how much of the narration is Ichabod's own malicious thoughts or the narrator's being a bad influence on him. It doesn't help that in the Portuguese audio, they have different voices, while in the original they's both voiced by Bing Crosby.
I've just been watching a YouTube video by Sideways, who you should all go check out, and he repeatedly makes the point that musicals where the main characters sing are better than musicals where the singing is done non-diegetically by an outside performer (his go-to being Phil Collins in Tarzan). And I think that's something you can extend to narration in general. When Bing Crosby performs all the characters, as well as the music, you add an artificial barrier. In The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Disney has clearly not advanced enough to decouple the music/narration with the visuals, so Crosby's songs are pretty much gospel as far as I'm concerned.
Post by TheMidgetMoose on Sept 1, 2020 23:06:02 GMT
I truly would have liked to have seen both segments of Ichabod and Mr. Toad as feature-length films. I believe that the Disney of then would have done a fine job adapting both into feature films, with The Wind in the Willows in particular really having a lot of untapped potential. The acknowledgement of that lost potential makes it a bit hard for me to watch the film as it is. Don't get me wrong. I certainly enjoy both segments as they are, but little things like the voice work sometimes not matching the animation in Wind in the Willows and the heavy reliance on narration and minimal dialogue between the actual characters in Sleepy Hollow cause my mind to drift to thoughts of what could have been if this film had been two films instead, both made with a much bigger budget.
Anyhow, I would personally say that one of the most appealing aspects of both segments (The Wind in the Willows in particular) is their characters. As you pointed out in your review, the cast of characters starring in The Wind in the Willows really is wonderful. Each character is so different and unique yet bound by friendship to one another. The characters in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow are arguably a little bit more intriguing for their untapped depth, even if they are, at least to me, a little bit less entertaining onscreen than their Willows counterparts. Is Brom Bones just a rambunctious but relatively harmless jerk, or is he the short's sinister villain? Was Ichabod undeserving of his haunting, or was he an overly greedy and manipulative man not fit for Katrina anyway? Speaking of Katrina, who does she really prefer between Brom and Ichabod? Was she, as I have seen others speculate, just showing affection towards Ichabod to make Brom jealous? Is she a bit manipulative, too, or is she the short's only innocent, well-meaning character? Of course, we aren't really given the answers to all these questions. I wonder if a longer runtime would have allowed for more exploration of these characters.
No matter what I say or do, know that Jesus loves you.
Production Supervision Ben Sharpsteen Directors Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi Starring Ilene Woods, Verna Felton, Eleanor Audley, Rhoda Williams, Lucille Bliss, James MacDonald, June Foray, Luis van Rooten, William Phipps, Mike Douglas Academy Award for Best Sound - NOM Academy Award for Best Original Score - NOM Academy Award for Best Original Song - NOM
The story of Disney's Cinderella is usually told as one of a triumphant return to form. It was a great financial success and proved once and for all that feature-length animated stories were a financially viable medium. But for whatever reason, I find it harder to look at this film in isolation than in previous entries. Cinderella is perhaps the first time Disney doesn't create a feature-length animated story, but instead creates a type of feature-length animated story. A genre. And that genre is the princess movie.
Out of the three fairy tales produced during Walt's lifetime, Snow White is the first one, Sleeping Beauty is the lavish one, and for me, Cinderella is the other one. While there are some great visuals in Cinderella, such as the transformation scene and the castle, the overall plot is a little lacking. Some story elements seem to be copy-pasted from Snow White with little regard to their role in the story. It is as if to say, 'this is a Snow White-kind of film' in order to entice audiences.
For instance, there are the animals. In Snow White, the forest animals exist in order to carry the story from the Huntsman to the Dwarf cottage. They symbolize Snow White's purity and how in tune she is with nature, as opposed to the Evil Queen's alchemical experiments. In Cinderella, we also have small animals. And they talk. And they play a large role in this otherwise anthropocentric plot. There's this whole scene where they try to sneak food past Lucifer the cat, only for Gus to hide under one of the stepsister's teacups. It's like a little Chip 'n' Dale short inserted into a narrative that it has only a tangential connection to. Remember, we're supposed to be setting up Cinderella's relationship with her stepfamily. But not once is it explained why they call her Cinderella. (It's because of the cinders from the fireplace that she takes care of.)
Also returning from Snow White is the complete lack of character in the female lead and her love interest. That the audience can do without has been known since time immemorial, but I think it's a shame to let one of the most psychologically arresting fairy tales go to waste like this. In fact, our old friend Maurice Rapf suggested something along the same lines when he got relegated to this project. And his suggestions were then roundly ignored. He wanted Cinderella to throw a fit against her stepfamily, which is debatable since the original character is supposed to be all graceful, but it's better than nothing. That's something even critics at the time remarked upon. See, I think there's a lot of potential in this story. We have a girl in an abusive domestic situation who manages to rise above it all and capture the eye of the prince. Surely that's an all-American message? Don't let misfortune in circumstance get the better of you, one day you'll recognized for what you're worth. Rags to riches.
Another returning element is the dream (or the I Want song for those coming from a musical theatre background). Cinderella's dreams are addressed in the opening number, and then pretty much dropped. In fact, there was sequence sketched out in which Cinderella wishes there were more of her to do all of her chores, but apparently that was too much dreaming for Disney. I guess 1950 was right in that "women, get back to the kitchen" era of American history, and they didn't want any housewives in the audience getting ideas. There's another comparison with Snow White to be made, but it's worth pointing out that Snow White liked to do housework, whereas Cinderella is doing forced labor.
As for Prince Charming, he hasn't gained much personality since Snow White. He's just here as the prize, with an added element of her being "the one" as he loudly and publicly yawns in front of the other bachelorettes vying for his attention. In an age where divorce is accepted and mixed families are common, this element has dated very oddly. Hearing his father say how the Prince has never shown any interest in girls, we could be excused for thinking something else is going on. But far be it from me to speculate.
I do like the interaction between the boisterous King and the Grand Duke. They bring levity to a story that portrays a lot of naked cruelty that is ultimately not satisfactorily resolved.
I agree with everything you say about Cinderella. Also: child-me *much* preferred the dress the animals made for C over the glitzy dress the fairy godmother gives her for the ball. It was visually far more appealing to me, plus it had emotional resonance due to its connection with C's deceased mother. The ball gown was soulless. I would have been much happier if the fairy godmother had magically reconstituted the dress the stepsisters destroyed.
Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella has a *much* better I Want song. Despite that stupid ending where she forgets her gun.
See, I think there's a lot of potential in this story. We have a girl in an abusive domestic situation who manages to rise above it all and capture the eye of the prince. Surely that's an all-American message? Don't let misfortune in circumstance get the better of you, one day you'll recognized for what you're worth. Rags to riches.
That's, I believe, very much what Walt Disney himself saw in the story. Personally I think there is a slightly less generic moral to be gleaned out of the Disney Cinderella, which has the added advantages of 1) not making the mice seem like they belong in a completely different story, and 2) depicting Cinderella as ultimately a little more proactive in earning her happy ending than she appears to be on paper.
Namely, I think what you can read into the movie is something about kindess to others being rewarded. Contrary to the step-family who are nothing but selfish and spiteful, Cinderella's strength lies not necessarily in innate qualities like grace or even an abstract "good nature" (although she has those too), but in the fact that despite her own diminished circumstances, she still takes time out of every day to help those even worse off than she is — the mice, the dog, etc. Hence the mice and birds making the first dress for her is the just and logical reward of the virtues she has demonstrated. Hence, also, why the Fairy Godmother's magical methods of bringing Cinderella to the ball involve transforming animals (as well as a pumpkin, a product of the garden which Cinderella presumably tends to herself as well, though the movie doesn't make it explicit) into whatever she needs, rather than plucking the coach, staff and so on out of thin air. The Godmother amplifies the natural way of the world as envisioned by the movie, which is that Cinderella's helpfulness will be repaid in the fullness of time, rather than overwrite it.
Consequently, while Cinderella blowing up at the stepfamily might have been cathartic, I think it would have run the risk of cutting against that interesting throughline. Cinderella's strength is that she does not let herself become embittered by what she suffers, but, as you say, “rises above it all” — certainly the most inspiring thing about the movie is the fact that although she never rebels against them openly, Cinderella clearly has no illusions about what kind of a person Lady Tremaine is, or how paltry and despicable Anastasia & Drizella really are. Even through all the abuse, she keeps her worldview straight and does not for one moment consider whether Tremaine might be right, whether it might really be her fault, whether she really might be worth nothing. As many an abuse survivor will tell you, that's courageous enough all on its own.
…On another note entirely, while we're talking about Cinderella, I always thought there were some simply fascinating things going on with anthropomorphism in that film. Gus-Gus's introduction seems to gesture at the idea that sentience is "catching" — that "normal" mice are basically animalistic but all it takes is contact with Cinderella's educated, clothes-wearing, bipedal mice for Gus-Gus to start to turn into one of them. I don't think that was the authorial intent but one could do worse than theorize that Cinderella's ability to "uplift" animals through sheer interaction with them is a tiny hint of magic that she gets from having a Fairy Godmother — perhaps it was even the Gift her Fairy Godmother gave her at her christening, if we apply Sleeping Beauty rules.