1953 - Peter Pan

Okay, so Alice didn’t exactly burn up the box office, and I get that Walt was probably feeling a bit blue, but did he have to lash out at us like this? What we have here for our 14th entry is, make no mistake, a bad movie. It’s a well-animated movie and a fondly-remembered movie, but it’s bad. I went in not expecting badness. I even took steps to ensure that I would be viewing it as objectively as possible, by watching with my friend Justin, who is far less judgmental of movies than I am. Didn’t work for either of us. But since I try to avoid being overly negative, I think the best way to balance this is to talk about a good thing for every bad thing I mention, and then pass judgment. Sound fair? Good. So get yourself some invisible food that only turns real when you throw it at Dante Basco (this can be ordered from most gourmet specialty shops in Los Angeles), and let’s talk about Peter Pan.

GOOD THING - The acting is top-quality again. Katherine Beaumont returns as Wendy and partners quite well with True-Hollywood-Story-to-be Bobby Driscoll as Pan. Really, all the kids are pretty good, for kids. Bit weird that Michael’s the only American sibling, but whatever. The two main adult characters, however, are brilliant. Hans Conreid, following stage tradition, voices Mr. Darling and Captain Hook, and plays the balances of goofiness and menace inherent in both characters, going hilariously over-the-top for Hook. Smee, his left-hand-man, is played by Bill Thompson. He did excellently as the White Rabbit and the Dodo in Alice, and steps up his game here by also playing most of the other pirates as well.

BAD THING - This movie is INCREDIBLY boring. I’ve complained about padding before, but this doesn’t even shoot for that lofty standard. It’s just full of these draggy bits where people talk and talk without actually saying anything. Which would be fine if there were jokes or characters or something, but it’s all just so much blather. This is probably again a quirk of adaptation. The book Peter Pan is a singularly weird novel. The bulk of the text and the humor comes from the narration. The book is told in omniscient third person, but said person is kind of a weirdo. He doesn’t like the story, or the people in it, and vacillates wildly between claiming to control the characters and passing judgment on everything they do. At one point, he can’t decide which of two anecdotes to tell, so he flips a coin (and complains about the outcome).

Couple of inches higher on that cannonball, and he's going to be The Boy Who Has Serious Difficulty Growing Up.

Unlike Alice, Pan is not an inadaptable work; there is a plot there. It’s actually rather like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s a matter of adapting the plot and reworking parts of it so that the mood of the piece is retained without the characteristic narration. Or, like the H2G2 TV adaptation, have a constantly-speaking narrator, but ensure that there is a visually-interesting aspect to said narration. But here, they just keep the events and not the words, not realizing that the events were the least interesting part.

GOOD THING - The design of the characters stands out in several places. Pan, the Lost Boys, the Pirates, and the Indians (OH IT’S COMING) are all rather blah, if not outright ugly, but the Darlings have very expressive and simple designs that work wonderfully. Captain Hook is once again great. His face contorts excellently to the hammy performance of Conreid, and since he’s only got the one hand, the animators really went to town on it. The actual quality of the animation is also great, particularly in the boring boring flying bits.

Careful with that thing!

BAD THING - The songs are terrible. Tedious, repetitive, occasionally containing gibberish in place of proper lyrics, you name it. And the bad ones are the ones stuck in my head even now. There's a couple of fun pirate shanties, (and as you know, the best bit about being a pirate is the shanties.) but as I try to remember the early one, my brain is just going “YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY”. Or the other pirate one from later, when they try to get the kids to join, how does that one go oh not thaaaat “FOLLOWING THE LEADER THE LEADER THE LEADER FOLLOWING THE LEADER”.

GOOD THING - Um… They spelled Tinker Bell’s name correctly? It’s a small thing. But I like that Disney is consistent with the proper spelling, given how often it’s rendered as “Tinkerbell”. Actually, her spiteful and petty personality from the book makes it over unscathed, which was nice, since their marketing goes more “happy sassy fairy” with her. I wonder how she’s portrayed in her direct-to-video film series. Well, that’ll just have to wait for “My Year With Lousy DTV Spinoffs”. But any way, kudos to them for getting the book right there. Though they’re also responsible for people saying “Second star to the right”, as opposed to the book’s more absurd “Second to the right”. So let’s call this one a wash.

BAD THING - Holy roar, this movie is racist. And not in a “Crows from Dumbo” kind of way, but in a “Let’s all get really uncomfortable remembering what the US was like in 1953” kind of way. The Native Americans portrayed in this movie are - well, there are none. There are Indians, certainly. And yes, they are referred to as ‘Injuns’. The chief is designed so that he barely seems human, and they all grunt out their lines in broken English and “smoke-um peace pipe” and treat women badly. They have a song, of course, called (argh) “What Makes the Red Man Red”, where they answer questions like that one or “Why does he ask you ‘how‘?” See? They used to be white and speak properly! You know, like normal people!

And then there's this.

An oft-stated defense of the movie is that the book also had Indians in it (see Additional Thoughts), but that’s no excuse. There’s a world of difference between what we expect of a rich English guy in 1906 and middle-class American animators in 1953. And the fact that Barrie, who was working off more or less nothing but stereotypes, created a tribe of brave, stoic warriors, while Disney, who could easily get some actual Indians to talk to if they felt like it, gave us idiot savages. Never Land is meant to be a child’s imagination, which is maybe a valid excuse for them having teepees, totem poles, and feathered headdresses all in the same tribe. It’s not an excuse for the characterization. Justin, in addition to being cinematically easygoing, is not a man who is afraid to give offense, and does not take it easily. Even he was baffled by these ‘Injuns’.

SUMMARY THING - Baffling. I think that’s the best word. While the technical stuff is solid, the creativity is just not there in the writing this time. They made two big creative choices. One was to make Captain Hook a fantastic and memorable character, and one was to spend ten minutes of film on making fun of Indians. In the end, the movie amounts to no more than a big ball of nothing with conflicting impulses of something really great and something really horrible fighting to color your perception of the entire thing. When all’s said and done, I just wound up sort of confused and irritable. If you like it, good for you. I won’t try to take that away from you. But I can‘t say I‘m ready to Return to Neverland. Unless My Year With Lousy DTV Spinoffs becomes a real thing. What? Theatrical release? What the hell, guys?

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

* I try to throw some info on production in the intros, but all the production notes I found were boring. Basically, they were all “Walt had an idea for an original plot point, but decided not to use it. Actually, the original scene ideas sounded pretty okay. Wish they’d used them.

* In the book, the Indians are almost exclusively referred to as ‘redskins’, and their tribe is… ugh… “the Piccaninnies”. Yyyyeah. But still, given the time and the cultural setting, it’s easy to look over those (super racist) words, and as I said, the tribe has it a lot more together in the book. These guys were just morons.

* In the book, sometimes Peter is fighting pirates or Indians and feels the fight is unfair, so he changes sides and starts killing Lost Boys. That book can get pretty messed up. I'm talking Pinocchio messed up.

* Captain Hook’s henchmen are also stereotypes, by the way. I thing one is Turkish, there’s definitely an Italian one, and a Scottish one. One is Irish? Maybe? Smee was Irish in the book. Anyway, I don’t get offended about them, because while they’re stereotypes, they’re also differentiated individuals, their ethnicities form a background to their characters rather than being the entire character, and they’re so vaguely portrayed, I can’t figure out who represents which ethnicity.

Hook's crew.

* Another way Peter Pan is like the Hitchhiker’s Guide: Both are best known as books, but originated in other media, specifically the radio show The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the stage play Peter and Wendy.

* The story’s origin as a stage play explains the famous “clap to save Tinker Bell“ scene. On stage, the actress playing Pan would speak to the audience and get them to applaud. This has been adapted in a number of other media, never all that successfully. In the book, it’s weirdly lifted more or less verbatim, with Pan exhorting his readers to clap, and the oddball narrator describing the various reactions. I think Barrie just wanted to get a dig in at the jerks who booed at the live show. A recent film version showed the captive lost boys, the pirates, and the Darling parents  back in England professing their belief. This version basically ignores it, which I think is for the best.

* The best adaptation I’ve seen is the 1950s stage musical. The songs aren’t much better, but the Indian’s number, while vastly stereotyped, stops short of actual racism; and the characters are all rather self-awarely insane, which makes up for the missing narrative voice. Highlights include Wendy’s retelling of Hamlet (“And they all lived happy ever after!”) and Hook’s insistence that his men play music to help him hatch evil plots.

* There’s also the totally boss TV series Peter Pan and the Pirates. Tim Curry is Hook!

* And in “weird and pointless changes to the book”, there’s the scene where John is pretending to be Captain Hook with a coat hanger and Wendy makes a big deal out of reminding him it was on Hook’s left arm, which turns out to be true. In the book, it was Hook’s right hand that was lost. In a live-action adaptation, I’d say whatever, but this is a cartoon. It’s not like the actor needs his hand free. What’s the point of doing this and drawing attention to it? Why go to the trouble of pointing it out?

See, she's pretty, so she gets to be a lighter color.

* YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY YOU CAN FLY

* Man, for not wanting to talk about the book, that’s pretty much all I did. Good thing the next movie isn’t based on one. It’s sort of based on one. Mostly it’s based on a dog.

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1951 - Alice in Wonderland

So after the bonkers success of Cinderella, it was time for Walt to return to his two favorite pastimes: Fulfilling his lifelong goals and making unprofitable movies. See, Walt had always loved the Alice stories of Lewis Carroll. His early work in Hollywood included a series of silent live action-animation hybrids dubbed “The Alice Comedies”, which took inspiration from the books. In the mid-30s, he had intended to produce a full-length Technicolor version of those, going so far as to do screen tests with Mary Pickford as Alice. So why did they settle on Snow White instead? Why did he spend 12 years developing Alice before it finally saw release? Well, the books are essentially unfilmable. They’re meandering, mostly plotless, unashamedly weird works based on logic puzzles and literary wordplay, and the main character has absolutely no arc or dramatic through line. But ol’ Uncle Walter was convinced he could make it work. Wary? So am I. So eat and drink anything that suggests that you do, and let’s talk about Alice in Wonderland.

Okay, this is the post were I get in trouble with my roommate, who I believe counts this as her absolute favorite movie for ever and ever for all time infinity. First of all, let me say that in regards to the essential unfilmability of the books, you can read this entry on my mostly-disused general purposes blog. (Warning: My language tends to run a mite saucier on the other page.) The upshot is this: Film is different than literature, and  has different needs. A book which consists almost entirely of one unconnected scene after another will not necessarily adapt to film well without a lot of work. And that work is not in evidence here.

Why, they hadn't even finished the sets before they started filming.

I’m not going to do a lot of comparing to the book, because I don’t really like those kinds of reviews. I got that out of my system with Pinocchio. But it’s essential to understanding why this film fails on a narrative level. Carroll put his scenes in a very precise order, and in two separate books, the second of which was very specifically chess-themed. Taking them out of that order and smooshing them together kills the flow. Characters are combined and abandoned, the original, lyrical dialogue is mixed willy-nilly with insipid new dialogue, and the songs… Ohhhhhh the songs.

This movie technically has more songs in it than any other Disney film, but that ‘technically’ comes with a big ol’ asterisk. Plenty of them are only a few lines long, or sung in the background. And those are, of course (I swear I’m not trying to keep harping on this,) the ones that are taken from Lewis Carroll poems. The Cheshire Cat sings the first verse of “Jabberwocky” over and over with no context or conclusion. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum sing the first two verses of the eight-verse “Father William” in the background as Alice walks away. Of the Carroll-inspired numbers, only “The Walrus and the Carpenter makes it through relatively unscathed, and even then it’s broken up with poor delivery, lousy pacing, and added non-poetic dialogue, just as “Casey at the Bat” was. The non-Carroll-based songs, on the other hand, are not even worth mentioning.

Good gravy, these two are annoying. And they get three songs.

I’m not saying there’s nothing good in it. The animation is nice and clean, even if it lacks the scope of Cinderella. The designs are imaginative and alive, and depart wildly from the books, which is a change I actually like. The Tenniel illustrations are inextricably connected to the book, but any attempt to simply recreate them would be doomed to fail. As it is, the animated characters are some of the most vivid and entertaining the company has done. The voice acting is also top-notch. Young Katherine Beaumont does very well with the thin material she’s given as Alice, and celebrity guest Ed Wynn’s Mad Hatter voice is justifiably iconic. And in case you weren’t sure this was a Disney film, Sterling Holloway is back, this time as the Cheshire Cat. He’s fantastic as always, weird and funny while still being a little spooky.

I’m not saying this is a bad film; It’s not. There’s plenty of good times to be had. And I’m not trying to say that it should have been more like the book. It couldn’t have been. Trying to adapt this book is a fruitless endeavor. There’s a book called “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman” that has often been called unfilmable. The only way a movie ever got made was a fake documentary about people trying and failing to make a movie of it. Maybe that’s what Alice needs. I don’t know. All I know is this left me cold. I didn’t dislike it as such, I just kept getting bored.

In unrelated news, I would love a pair of striped footy pajamas. Make it happen, internet!

So if you like the movie, great. I completely understand. But for me, story is king, and the story just isn’t here. I’ve complemented Disney before, and I will again, for their ability to wring a feature length story out of not a lot of plot. But it seems like too much plot gives them the opposite problem.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

* Mary Pickford was 40 when she did those screen tests, by the way.

* Also on my general blog: Here’s where I discuss “alternative” versions of Alice, and here‘s where I led into it by talking about the Tim Burton version. I never did finish the series, because the Burton version turned out to be a sequel rather than an adaptation, as we had been led at the time to believe, and thus didn't really fit the form. Review:  It was okay?

Oh yeah, and Alice abuses a lot of birds in this movie. That was a little weird.

* This was sort of a disappointing way to come back from hiatus, eh? Well, there's just not that much to say about this one. It's okay, but I wasn't wowed. I bear it no animosity, nor do I wish to sing its praises. Stick around, though. The next one, I bear a huge roarload of animosity, and the one after that is eminently praiseworthy.

* There is one non-Carroll derived song worth mentioning, and that is the title song, carrying on the bold tradition of being played over the opening credits and being horrible. The reason this is worth mentioning is that it is both the last of these title songs, and by far the worst. So... good for them?

* This film did eventually make its money back on rerelease, as have so many of the films we've discussed here. This particular release was a long time coming, due to the disappointing performance of the initial run, and didn't make it back to theaters until 1974. Now, I'm not going to imply it had anything to do with any 70s recreational habit of ingesting certain substances and going to the movies, but look at this actual official poster and tell me what you think the Disney marketing people thought.

Screenplay by Jack Nicholson.

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1950 - Cinderella

1950 - Cinderella

WE MADE IT! After the rough slog of anthology films, we’re finally back to full-length stories, and boy did they bring it. This period of films, which I’m referring to as The Restoration, put an end to the slashed budgets, scaled back animation, and occasional blatant racism of the anthologies and replaced it with extravagant financing, expertly rendered backgrounds and characters, and… okay, occasional blatant racism. I’m looking your way, Peter Pan. But we’ll get to him. Cinderella was a remarkable return to form for the company. They dumped nearly all the money they made off the anthologies into it, and it really shows. The profits from this went on to finance one of their most classic periods, and now we finally get to see it. Relieved? So am I. So get some petit-fours and champagne, and let’s talk about Cinderella.

I have to say, I’ve felt a bit bad about the past few reviews, in which I took movies I quite liked, breezed over the good stuff, and focused on the negative. This isn’t because I’m a negative person, it’s just that “Bumble Boogie” doesn’t have much to write about it, whereas “Pecos Bill” is deserving of three paragraphs of scorn and more. So it’s so nice for me to have one where the bad can be glanced over, because the good is so much more interesting. Guess I should get the bad out of the way first.

Okay, there is quite a lot of padding in this movie. I mean a lot. We all know the fairy tale, and there’s not a lot there, so they fill it out with slapstick bits with Cindy’s little mouse friends and stuff like that. It’s actually a full 20 minutes into the movie before anyone besides Cindy is even awake. Also, this is going to sound weird, but I hate the Fairy Godmother. She’s only in that one scene, she's not foreshadowed remotely, and she’s never mentioned again. The film would have been so much more satisfying if Cindy had made her own way to the ball. That probably sounds weird since it’s so famous as a fairy tale and all, and it would require some plot changes for the leaving at midnight thing (perhaps she runs off for fear of being discovered?),  but it really is unsatisfying to have this stuff just handed to her when she’s demonstrated a surprising amount of agency so far.

Not that I'd necessarily list fashion design among her talents, but she's trying, and that's important.

I should explain. A lot of feminist criticism of this story focuses on how Cinders is more or less an extreme doormat who lets herself get crapped on, goes to a ball because of fairy magic, and then gets married to a man she barely knows. In this version, even though all that has to happen, they make it work so much better. It’s small changes, like making her sarcastic when the others aren’t around, or having her politely speak up and get shot down rather than meekly accepting it. It makes her a good deal more interesting, and shows that she’ll take opportunities when they present themselves, even if she doesn’t go looking for them. And she’s not after the prince, she just wants to go out, and doesn’t even realize the man she spent the night dancing with was the guy throwing the party.

The prince, by the way, barely features.  He’s really only in the scene at the ball. The bulk of the royal stuff is actually done by the king, with his assistant, the Grand Duke. This is great, because it solves another one of the typical problems with the story, i.e. the slipper thing. When the prince grandly (and offscreen) declares that he will marry the girl who fit’s the slipper, it is clear that he’s speaking metaphorically, but the king, whose plot thread is that he’s desperate to marry off his son so he can get some grandchildren, gets fed up with his son’s bullroar.


King: He said that, did he? (kisses the slipper) HAHA! We've got him! 
Grand Duke: But, Sire, this slipper may fit any number of girls. 
King: That's his problem! He's given his word, we'll hold him to it.  

Seriously, though, these guys are awesome.

See? A minor fix, and we’ve got comedy, character development, and the closing of a plot hole. The Duke himself is a great hapless-underling type comic sidekick. He’s used to poke fun at some of the sillier conventions of the fairy tale, e.g. love at first sight, and there’s a lot of monocle comedy with him, which I love. These two really elevate the story from its starting point, and the stuff with them, unlike some other things, lengthens the film without padding it.

The villain is also terrific. Lady Tremaine (Yes, she has a name, though it’s only mentioned once in a blink and you miss it way, provided you blink your ears,) could have just been a retread of The Queen from Snow White; a wicked stepmother who’s simply cruel for cruelty’s sake. And again, to a certain extent she is, since the story demands it. She isn’t just a rampaging monster. She prefers her own children, but doesn’t seem blind to their flaws, and just as she’s shown breaking down Cindy, she’s also shown trying to improve them. The girls are also fleshed out, having slightly differentiated personalities. They’re both mean to Cindy, but Anastasia is more rude and kind of dumb, while Drizella is spiteful and petty. Look, it’s amazing that they even got names, let alone that I can remember them two weeks later.

This kid knows what's up.

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the production. It’s amazing. The sets (backgrounds, whatever,) are massive in scope and incredibly detailed. Everything seems huge, from Cinderella’s sprawling country house to the royal palace. Oddly, the smallest place seems to be the outdoors, which makes sense, because it’s where she loses her magical ‘zaz. The character designs and animation are great as well. There’s a lot of really nice touches, like how they decided to make the stepsisters just a bit odd looking, rather than hideous trolls.

This was a LOT better than I was expecting. I figured it would be enjoyable, but still annoying from my fairy tale-disliking perspective. I assumed it would be too generic, too stereotypical, lazily plotted, but they addressed every issue I would have had, and did it with top-notch technical work. I’m more than ever certain that I made the right decision calling this the Restoration. If they can keep this up, we’re in for a long run of very good movies, and nothing can possibly throw this off track.

That’s called foreshadowing, folks.

Her bedroom's at the top. Because that's where you want your servant. In the most inconvenient place to call them..

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

* As an example of the good character touches I mentioned: When Lady Tremaine is reading the announcement of the prince’s ball, and gets to the part where it says all  eligible woman must attend, Anastasia bursts out “And I’m SO eligible!”

* There’s also a bit where Cinders loses a shoe going up the stairs at the beginning. See? It’s these little bits that make the coming shoe loss seem less stupid. I still don’t know why she loses her shoes so often, though. Maybe because she has no toes.

*Speaking of Cinderella’s appearance, the marketing folks at Disney Princesses seem to think she is blonde and wears a blue dress. Turns out she’s a redhead with a silvery-white dress. Focus, guys.

*One of Cinderella’s mouse friends is named “Octavius, or Gus for short.” I have to assume that this is a reference to the Roman emperor Octavius, whose royal name was Caesar Augustus. Damn, movie. Good one.

That no toes thing wasn't a joke, by the way. See?

* This is the only movie I’ve ever seen with a POV shot through a monocle. Why doesn’t that happen more often!?

* Um… this note just says “Ringwraiths”. I don’t remember why I wrote that.

* Hey! End credits! And apparently June Foray was in it? I didn’t know she did anything for Disney, but when you’re as prolific as she, it’s inevitable, I guess. I just always saw her more as a WB/Hanna-Barbera gal.

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I'M BACK, BABY!

Well, after a dead month, it’s time to get back on task. I apologize to my loyal fans (Yes, all six of you,) for my time away. It was due to a variety of factors, including:

* Inventory at the bookstore.
* The Emerald City Comic-Con. (awesome)
* Overwork at my five or so jobs that I actually get paid for.
* A load of personal bullroar.
* These Wings episodes aren’t going to watch themselves.
* A growing sense of ennui and dissatisfaction with my life brought on by uncertainty about my future.
* Oh, wait, no. I was just pissed off after watching Peter Pan.
* Downloaded Space Quest 6 from GOG. Yes that’s a valid excuse.
* Seriously, Peter Pan was so bad.
* And that’s coming from someone who watches Wings.

Also I kept waking up with bird poo in my hair.

Anyway, I’m back now, and I’ll be posting the Cinderella review on Wednesday. In the meantime, here’s ten-word reviews of the next few movies to come after that to tide you over.

Alice in Wonderland

- Making an attempt to adapt the unadaptable with predictable results.

Lady and the Tramp

- Walt makes a movie about his friend’s dog. Huh. Okay.

Peter Pan

- Boring boring boring boring boring boring racist boring boring boring.

See you folks on Wednesday.

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Three Wartime Cartoons

So I've been mentioning periodically that during the war, Disney put out US propaganda for the government. A few people have asked just what I mean by propaganda. Is it just generally patriotic cartoons? Beating up Hitler? Subliminal messages? So I decided to take a look at three of these wartime toons and see if they fill me with patriotic fervor. Given my hatred of propaganda, jingoism, and unwarranted exceptionalist attitudes, probably not. Links to the shorts are provided.


THREE WARTIME CARTOONS

I miss crazy driving costumes. Let's get those back.

VICTORY VEHICLES - In this cartoon, Goofy shows us various ways people are trying out new vehicles to get around the gas and rubber shortages. The first half is just a lot of wacky machines, and the second half passionately advocates for the more common everyday use of the pogo stick. It’s funny enough, but the “here’s some crazy cars/here’s some jokes about pogo sticks” setup makes the short feel draggy at just 7 minutes. There’s also a weird thing where the characters aren’t Goofy per se, but a variety of different people, all of whom are portrayed by Goofy. He gets only one line, and all the others are voiced by the narrator. Though since this was produced when Disney and Pinto Colvig were feuding (as he had gone to work for the hated Fleischers), and the new voice actor gave him a ludicrous old cowboy voice, that’s just as well.

Ha ha! Those Nazis would actually ration coffee! Can you imagine?

DER FUEHRER’S FACE - Donald Duck dreams he lives in Nazi Germany, where he learns how horrible it is to live in a land of strict rationing and constant propaganda. This is not what you would call a very self-aware cartoon. At the end, Donald wakes up in his American flag pajamas and kisses the statue of Liberty while shouting “I sure am glad to be a citizen of the United States of America! So it’s not a subtle cartoon, either. The title comes from a Spike Jones song that is used in the opening of the short, but it’s hard to take the lyrics’ mockery of the Nazi’s “Master Race” policies seriously, as they are sing by a yellow-skinned, bucktoothed Japanese guy, a swarthy, thick-lipped Italian guy, and just for fun, a swishy gay guy. (Or as I call them, Steleotype, Stereotype-a, and Thtereotype.) The cartoon closes with just a lingering shot of Hitler‘s face, which feels uncomfortably like Two Minutes’ Hate. Except 1984 wouldn’t be written for another four years. Wait, that makes it even worse.

FUN FACT - When the “funny” Japanese guy shows up, recall that when this cartoon was made, the government had George Takei and Pat Morita in internment camps. And they grew up to be cultural icons at least on par with Donald Duck.

Man, Shining Time Station got weird since I stopped watching.

EDUCATION FOR DEATH - Well, here we get some real old-time propaganda. Rather than using an established character like the others, it follows a young German boy named Hans through his life in Nazi Germany. From his parents proving their ethnic background so they are allowed to conceive through his education with Nazi propaganda to his conscription into the German army. There’s some more blatant hypocrisy here. A large chunk of the short is given to how horrible it is that Nazis use old fairy tales as propaganda, e.g. taking Sleeping Beauty and calling the witch Democracy, the princess Germany, and the prince Hitler. Okay, got it? Using old fairy tales to manipulate people with governmental propaganda is bad. Kind of hard to make that point, though, when you portray Germany as a “hilarious” fat woman who’s always eating, and Hitler as a drooling lunatic who LITERALLY grows devil horns at one point.

Ohhhh, dammit, Disney! You’re putting me in the position of defending the Nazi party! I hate them, but you know what? I hate them for their ACTUAL eugenics policies, not your claim that they’ll kill the kleinen kinder Klaus just because he gets the flu. I hate them because of their genocidal campaigns, which are reduced in the film to the burning of philosophy books and the ransacking of a Christian church. (Shown using visuals based on Rosenberg’s weird pseudomystical Reich Church ideas, which when divorced from their context, seem to imply that the Nazis meant to destroy Christianity. That’s some A+ fearmongering.)

See folks? Barely even human!

But the ultimate achievement is the ending. Klaus is shown growing into an adult and joining the army. He is then shown with blinkers and a muzzle as the announcer tells us that he is completely devoted to the party, seeing and hearing nothing but what they permit. The cartoon literally turns him into a faceless being identical to every other, completely dehumanizing him and all the other soldiers. AND IT’S NOT EVEN POSSIBLE. The Nazis only held power for 11 years! There is not a single German soldier who was born under their rule; they were all old enough to remember a pre-Nazi time. And while the Nazi cultural takeover was legendarily effective, it did not turn their citizens into faceless marching robots. The entire point of this cartoon was to make them seem less human so we wouldn’t feel bad killing them. AND THAT IS JUST WHAT THE NAZIS DID. Ohhhhh dangit I am so angry right now.

NEXT WEEK: Cinderella! Won’t that be nice.

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1949 - The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR TOAD

Well, here we are at the end of the anthology age, and if sure has been a - wait for it - wild ride! Ah, comedy. I’ve actually enjoyed these more than I thought I would, though if you’ve been reading, you’ll know that’s still not much. Like the others, this is one with a complex history of development. The Mr. Toad segment was originally meant to be a full-length feature, to follow Bambi, but after 33 minutes were animated, wartime budget problems forced them to scrap the project. When they hit on the anthology idea, they decided to repurpose it as a short, paired with Mickey and the Beanstalk under the horrible title “Two Fabulous Characters”. The second segment likewise started as a feature, this time intended to be their return to feature animation. But again, after animating about half of it, they realized the story was too thin, so they just linked what they had and called it a short. This was in the before scripts, you see. Anxious to get to the good movies? So am I. So fry up some bubble and squeak, and let’s talk about The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

Or The Adventures of Mr. Toad and Ichabod, apparently. In this story, insane fad addict (faddict?) Mr. Toad gets into the new craze of motorcars, and trades his home for one. When the person he traded to turns out to have scammed him and framed him for the theft of said car, he goes to prison, but breaks out and gets his home back. Despite the jail breaking, property damage, train hijacking, and assault on police officers, he’s let off scot free because he wasn’t guilty of the first thing. I can’t complain too much about that. In fact, it’s worse in the book, where he actually does steal the car, rather than attempting to buy it from the actual thief, a bartender and ethnic stereotype named Winky. In the book, Toad learns his lesson and becomes humble and contrite, but in the movie, he’s learned not a damn thing, which I like, because why should he? He just got away with everything.

No, I don't know what ethnicity, but this guy is definitely some kind of stereotype.

My sarcasm aside, I really liked this one. The decision to make it a short was the right one. After they took out the filler chapters (see ‘additional thoughts’) there’s not really a huge amount of story there. The length here gets the story out without padding it. They also beefed up the personalities of Toad and his friends, Rat, Badger, and Mole. My only regret about the length is that they didn’t get more development, because they’re all really likeable. Toad’s horse, Cyril, is a particular standout. No Goofy/Pluto nonsense here. He may be pulling a cart, but he’s as intelligent as the rest of them. He’s just an employee, and on his day off, he even walks on hind legs like everyone else. But he’s an eccentric, sarcastic delight, and the only one of Toad’s friends who encourages his manias.

That does bring up one thing that’s a little weird. The animals I’ve mentioned, and the weasels who work for Winky, are the only animals. Everyone else is a human, and the world is made to their scale. Which does lead one to wonder why they have a little toad sized ball-and-chain. I don’t know. It doesn’t bear much thinking about. This is a fun little cartoon with some great character animation and solid gags. Oh, and it’s narrated by Basil Rathbone, who is awesome.

He does not, however, get any clothing other than the hat.

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW

Well, after Basil Rathbone, it would be hard for an American actor to live up, and since they go with Bing Crosby, they aren’t even trying. But I’ll get to that. The story is okay. There’s not a lot of plot here, so it’s well-suited to the short form. I’ve seen three full-length movies purporting to be based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and they’ve all been some degree of lousy. Considering the first ¾ of the book is basically “A superstitious guy comes to be a teacher,” expanded by Washington Irving with a great deal of sesquipedalian and loquacious verbiage that still remained flowtastical and entertainimatudinous. In long form, this requires either obscene padding, or, as in the Tim Burton version, just making up a whole new plot. Here, they are able to do it with some good sight gags and constant narration by Mumbles McGee.

Um... Mint?

I guess I’m in the minority on this, but I really hate Bing Crosby, smarmy crooner that he is. And he’s exactly the wrong choice to narrate this piece. This is a highly literary piece of classic Americana and it needs someone a little more professorial. Maybe Sterling Holloway again or something. And in addition to the narration, Bing plays both main characters, with absolutely no alteration in his voice, which doesn’t really suit either of them. Which is too bad, because the characters are quite well-done. Ichabod’s bizarre lanky body makes for very humorous animation, and they get a lot of humor from portraying him as a vain, cowardly, greedy opportunist. His romantic opponent, Brom, is a brawny, good-natured type, but also a blustering bully when he doesn‘t get his way. So the fact that they both sound like the same marble-mouthed Northwesterner tends to take away from it.

But once again, the issues I had with it are nothing in the grand scheme of things. The animation is again excellent, especially in the final sequence, where Ichabod is chased by the Headless Horseman. The short length works great for the pacing and plot, and unlike the Mr. Toad segment, the characters are fleshed out marvelously. And none of them are at all likeable, which was kind of a bold move. This is a cartoon about two jerks vying for the attention of a third jerk, and the jerkiest of them gets chased away by a ghost. A cliché? Perhaps.

Get your head out of there. You don't know where that head's been.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

* The official Disney terminology for the anthology films is “package films”, but I don’t say that, because I’m a contrarian jerk, I guess.

* Each of the anthology films begins with a song over the opening that works the title into its lyrics. This time, it consists entirely of singers going “Ichabod and Mr. Toad!” over and over and over and over again. Erggggh.

* An object lesson in why Bing Crosby was wrong for this short: Follow this link to hear Bing nap his way through the feature song. Now follow this link to hear it performed by Thurl Ravenscroft, who is actually awesome. There, you see?

* In his opening narration, Rathbone lists some of the other fabulous characters of British literature, mentioning Oliver Twist, Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood, and King Arthur, all of whom were eventually the subjects of their own Disney features. COICIDENCE? Probably, since most of those were made after Walt died, and Basil also mentions Becky Sharp. I don’t see Disney making a Vanity Fair movie any time soon. But it would probably be awesome.

Why is this the image chosen for the first edition cover?  Read on and learn the deeply weird truth.

* It’s not often remembered that the Mr. Toad stuff comprises only about half of The Wind in the Willows, with a series of short stories about Ratty and Mole making up the rest. One such story is called “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” and is about the god Pan kidnapping and terrorizing Mole’s son, then erasing everyone’s memory. There’s a Pink Floyd album named after it.

* Badger has hands down the worst Scottish accent imaginable. I have to mention it, even though no mere text can do it injustice. Those of you that know me, just ask me to do it for you sometime. Everyone else… I don’t know, watch the movie. I already recommended it, didn’t I?

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So....

I seem to have trodden on my netbook, on which I do my writing. It's actually not a big deal, since it was an old hunk of slowness, and I've been meaning to move things over anyway. Buuuut I haven't had a chance yet, so the "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad" review will be up next Wednesday evening, followed by a special blog on Friday, then "Cinderella" the following Wednesday(ish) and "Alice in Wonderland" the Saturday after. So don't look on this as a delay, look on it as a way to get the good stuff closer together.

EDIT: I meant, of course, Friday and Sunday. Give me a break, it's inventory week at the store.

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