Cinderella (1950)

Directed by: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske
Starring: Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley

Cinderella is the first of an epic trilogy of animated feature films where a teenager whose abuse and neglect at the hands of her stepmother and sisters forms the basis of her chronic schizophrenia. The girl gets on with her life by doing various chores around their Gilded-Age mansion while talking to and sewing clothes for a bunch of freeloading rodents. When it is decreed that the Prince of the Realm wants to get laid and is throwing a ball to do just that, Cinderella’s dreams of escape are realized and she summons an impish old biddy to transform her and her furry friends into an enchanted entourage in a manic display of ultimate power.

The film focuses on the stepmother and sisters’ attempts to stop her from usurping the Prince’s mind, taking his throne, and leading the Kingdom down its darkest timeline of gloom and doom. It’s a pretty tragic story, actually, and typical of Disney’s early works where they took risks by using some wonderful visuals juxtaposed with heavy themes. It’s a work that holds up well even today, with lavish details and attentions  paid to the set-up and pay-off made in its various acts.  It’s a demonstration so masterful that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was found in academic circles as some kind of golden standard.

I’m disappointed in the over-use of the animals.  But I guess if you really think about it, Cinderella as a story doesn’t have much going for it. It’s a story about how dreams, no matter how lofty they seem, can come true if you just wish hard enough. Girl dreams of guy. Guy dreams of banging 150 girls. Guy throws ostentatious ball. Guy gets girl. Game, set, match; that sort of thing. So a little embellishment is needed to get from point A to point B I guess. Regardless, Cinderella serves as a fine example of the work and the passion that put Disney on the map of greatness. It really is a work of art to be proud of; and it’s so great to see them continue to shamelessly plunder it today.

B+

Cinderella (1950)

Cinderella is the first feature-length motion picture that Disney produced since Bambi that wasn’t a package film. It tells the story of a gorgeous pin-up model who talks to animals and is resigned to doing menial chores around the house at the behest of her vain step-mother and -sisters since the passing of her dad. When the local royal family puts out an invitation for all the women in the country to attend a lavish ball in an effort to marry its lone prince off, Cinderella is prevented from attending. Then something about a fairy godmother and glass slippers and stroke of midnight and pumpkin carriages and wishes and dreams and general superficiality. This particular movie was adapted from a folk tale written by Charles Perrault in 1697 (Wikipedia’s my friend), but the narrative has been around for much longer.

I’m a little disheartened that Disney had to resort to using talking fluffy animals to work out several key plot points. While talking animals are present in virtually every folk tale narrative, it just seems a little too convenient that animals can come to the aid of beautiful people in times of need. The focus was a little too heavily pushed from the animals’ points of view; in fact, this could’ve been called The Adventures of Jaq and GusGus: The Movie. The problem seems to lie in Cinderella’s lack of any real personality. She just sits there on the dirty-ass floor of the chateau and accepts her punishment without ever taking steps to resolve her own problems. Hey, I got a solution to everything for you: Just leave!

Your kids will probably like Cinderella, even though its fundamental lack of girl power and hopeless romance in its theme could be debated when taken in a modern context. The movie holds up fairly well with some solid animation and nicely done modeling, the overall arc is pretty fluid, and the sound and music are both as enchanting as ever. At the very least, it’s not a package film with wildly different emotional tones!

B

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is a collection of adaptations from two stories: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. In the first, a toad by the name of Mr. Toad is easily obsessive with new fads. He sells the prestigious Toad Hall to a bunch of weasels for a stolen motor vehicle. He ends up in jail and his friends The Mole, The Badger, and The Rat have to clear his name and get him out of there. The second story tells of a guy who wanders into the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow and takes the job of the local schoolmaster. Dude loves to eat and he really, really loves the ladies. So when the hottest lady in town shows up, he’s suitably impressed and does whatever he can to win her heart; but the town bully won’t let him win without a fight. Oh yeah, there’s something about a Headless Horseman in there, too.

This is one of Disney’s most average films. Although it follows the two texts relatively closely, the animation is notably dull; this could be due largely to the pastoral settings of both segments. The colors are mostly drab and washed out, possibly a product of the film’s age but I think it’s an un/successful attempt at casting a drab tone. The stories are also very short–roughly 25 minutes each–so there isn’t a whole lot of wiggle room in terms of development. Things happen, which lead to more things, and then things stop happening. Yawn.

I guess Disney wasn’t committed to turning either of these concepts into a full-length motion picture; maybe it was testing the waters or something? Up to this point the company’s last big picture was arguably Bambi, which came out in 1942, with every other film being only a package of cartoons that explored a myriad of concepts and tones in the vein of Fantasia. Perhaps it was tired of those, too; judging from the main movie list on the Wikipedia they went balls deep into full-length motion-picture territory after this one as a sort of return to form. Whatever the case, your kids may still pay attention to it. The first segment’s essentially a kiddie film, after all; the second segment’s probably enough to scare them a tiny bit but make their imaginations run wild for a time–your mileage may vary with that one.

C

Melody Time (1948)

 

Melody Time is a collection of animated shorts set to popular music and folklore of the old days. It’s pretty much a watered down version of Fantasia, with a lot more emphasis on love and light-heartedness (much like Fun and Fancy Free before it).  Let’s do a quick rundown of the animated shorts of this feature:

• A romance piece set during the winter where a boyfriend and girlfriend go ice skating.
• A very awesome sequence of a bumblebee battling a frenzy of music, led by an awesome jazz number.
• A retelling of the Johnny Appleseed story.
• A story about Little Toot, a tiny tugboat that wants to be like his dad but can’t stay out of trouble.
• A very short but decent sequence set to a poem about Trees, the animation goes through each season.
• A sort-of reunion of The Three Caballeros in a short called Blame It On the Samba.  Donald Duck and that other green one are introduced to samba music, we are introduced to an incredibly talented organ player.
• A set piece about Pecos Bill.  I read on the Wikipedia that all the segments featuring him smoking were removed.  No mention about a quick bit where Indians were called Redskins and how the Painted Desert got its name though.  Smoking’s gross, kids, but racism still A-OK!

This movie isn’t terrible but it’s not all that thrilling, either.  It will probably put your kids to sleep.  I’m actually starting to get tired of package films by this point, myself.  I think the last 4 Disney films I’ve watched on this little journey of mine were just packaged shorts that I’m convinced were later split up and aired on the Disney Channel at 2 in the morning to not interfere with all that Kidz Bop revenue.  I want to see a fully-fledged feature, dammit! Where’s the treachery?  Where’s the evil?  Where’s the tension and suspense?  I don’t think I can take another love story or adventure without much of a conflict!  Somebody help me!!

C+

Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

Fun and Fancy Free is not so much a movie as it is a sort of exhibition, the sort made by Disney’s B-Team.  It’s a feature-length cartoon divided into two distinct parts: one where a circus bear escapes captivity to pursue his roots in the natural wilderness and another where Mickey Mouse & friends go on an adventure based on the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale.  There is also an intermission where the studio again tries to intersperse a live action element where the creep factor is turned up to 11.

There isn’t a whole lot of praise that can be dumped on this film.  It feels a lot more efficient than previous Disney endeavors of the time–the animation is hokey and the two stories are fairly simplistic.  I think Disney has wholeheartedly embraced the cartoons-are-for-kids motif at this point: the first teaches us how cuddly bears fall in love in addition to dealing with jealous alpha males, while the second is a David & Goliath type of story (as was Beanstalk) that shows us we can overcome just about anything larger than ourselves with wit, gumption, and bravado.

However there is a positive thing I can say about this movie: that “Disney Magic” is out in full force.  I’m talking about that angelic and whimsical chorus of ladies singing whimsically through a tin can as our heroes deal with their problems.  The whole first half is nothing but a musical in this vein and it is very pleasant.  It actually reminds me of my childhood due to having seen many of these older Disney films when I was just a little guy.  Whimsical notes are carried by whimsical visuals, and it is almost hypnotic in its execution.

I think your kids will like this movie, but in today’s world they might also get bored.  These types of cartoons just aren’t as engaging as they were in the past.  The bigger problem I see with this one is the live action segment–there’s this sequence where this guy is entertaining his daughter or something at a birthday party.  It’s just him, her, and three ventriloquist dummies that all talk out of turn.  The creep factor rises when it’s revealed that these dummies don’t require the ventriloquist to be attached in order to talk and behave.  The little girl enjoys this, but I really think that whole set is haunted.

C+

Song of the South (1946)

Song of the South is a live-animation movie that tells the story of some stupid kid from Georgia who is sent with his mom to live on the family plantation.  The parents decided to separate so I guess she got the house and custody.  Anyway, the newly anointed dead-beat dad sets off for Atlanta and the stupid kid is left to deal with his situation.

Luckily, there are a bunch of black people who work as day-laborers and house-keepers throughout the plantation.  The brat meets an old black guy named Uncle Remus, a story-teller who seems to know about what’s going on.  He tells the kid some stories about fluffy little animals to help him learn how to cope with conflict and danger with brains and not brawn.  Things go awry, though, when the kid adapts some of these lessons to his real world–some of these lessons apparently aren’t for the lawful.

Perplexing tar-baby racism aside, in my uneducated opinion this movie is mostly harmless.  It seems to evoke pictures of the old timey South when slavery was still around and no one had electricity–not in a bad way, mind you; it’s presented more in a mythical, ignorant-of-the-facts way that you could depend on with movies from the 40’s.

The thing that bothered me about Song of the South was actually that it was just plain boring.  The adults were fine performers, but the stupid kids just couldn’t act.  I paused it a few times to clean my house… my brain was too far checked out.  I guess it’s worthy to check out if you want to be a Disney historian.  Just be sure to take some No-Doz first.

C-