A smash hit upon its commercial release in October of 1941, Dumbo
remained Walt Disney’s stated favorite film of all his animated brood,
up until his death. A surprise? Perhaps. But looking back on the
streamlined movie and its simple messages about friendship, courage and
the persistence of effort, it’s easy to see why.
Clocking in at only 65 minutes, Dumbo
might seem an elongated short by some of today’s standards. But
director Ben Sharpsteen and the rest of the filmmakers do a remarkable
job of getting to the hearts of their characters in stirring,
minimalist strokes, and the story itself elicits panged sympathy from
anyone (which is to say everyone) who ever faced taunting as an
adolescent. The story, of course, centers on the titular baby elephant,
the floppy-eared son of single mom circus elephant Mrs. Jumbo. Dumbo is
an enthusiastic tyke, but he’s ridiculed by both humans and his own
brethren alike for his physical dissimilarities. With the support of
his unlikely best friend, however, Timothy Q. Mouse, Dumbo soon learns
that his ears make him unique and special, allowing him to soar to fame
as the world’s only flying elephant.
Sweet, completely straightforward and unpretentious, Dumbo bears traces of German expressionism in its use of shadow and pose, including one shot that serves as direct homage to Nosferatu,
hardly a typical Disney influence. The movie’s hallucinatory pink
elephants sequence serves as a counterbalance to the otherwise bright
washes of color that dominate its backgrounds. Dumbo, meanwhile,
remains a very sympathetic character, his silent suffering a marked
juxtaposition to the excitable derision heaped upon him. It’s no wonder
the movie connects on an almost subliminal emotional level.
This so-called “Big Top Edition” of the movie, housed in a regular
Amray case in a raised, foil-embossed cardboard slipcase, is presented
in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with Dolby digital 5.1 surround
sound and French and Spanish language tracks as well. The picture looks
great, and animation historian John Canemaker provides a feature-length
audio commentary that charts the film from its earliest days of
storyboarding in January of 1940 and shines a spotlight on Joe Grant,
Milt Neal, Les Clark and other bit player animators who helped craft
some of Disney’s most memorable work. Canemaker overreaches a bit in
his snippy analysis of the movie’s slapstick clown characters in its
putative climax, but for every occasional eye-rolling faux-profundity
there are six or seven interesting insights and contextual details,
including the assertion that at least one of Dumbo’s bits of dialogue (“Lots of people with big ears are famous”) is a direct reference to Clark Gable.
The bulk of the rest of the movie’s extras, including an art
gallery, a clutch of sing-along songs, interactive children’s games and
two animated shorts (the eight-and-a-half-minute “Elmer Elephant” and
the nine-minute “Flying Mouse”), are imported from the film’s previous,
60th anniversary DVD release, which trims some content here. No matter,
though. Dumbo soars as a film, and this release does too. A (Movie) B+ (Disc)