The Disney Discussion - Dumbo

Over the course of the year, we'll be spending our Wednesdays with Walt, having a discussion about each of Disney's animated films...

Movie #4 of The Disney Discussion

Dumbo (1941)

Featuring the voice talents of Edward Brophy, Verna Felton, and Sterling Holloway

Directed by Ben Sharpsteen (supervising director)
***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Summary (in 150 words or less):

A cute little elephant is delivered via stork to Mrs. Jumbo who works in a traveling circus.  Upon arrival, the baby elephant is revealed to have gigantic ears which, while loved by his mother, are ridiculed by the other elephants in the circus who nickname the baby Dumbo.  After circus patrons poke fun at Dumbo, Mrs. Jumbo goes on a rampage forcing her to be shackled, locked up, and taken away from her son.  Befriended by a circus mouse named Timothy, Dumbo goes through a series of mini-adventures helping him to become more confident in himself while away from his mother.

Let the Discussion Begin...

Dumbo is the Walt Disney Company's fourth full-length animated feature and it was released on October 23, 1941.  The film proved to be Disney's most financially successful of the 1940s and turned a profit right away, in part due to its short length (at 64 minutes it's one of Disney's shortest animated feature films) which kept its production costs at half of Snow White's and less than a third of Pinocchio's budgets.

Dumbo won the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Motion Picture and was nominated for Best Original Song for "Baby Mine."

An interesting, albeit somewhat unimportant, tidbit of info:  Dumbo (along with Alice in Wonderland) was the first Disney film to be released on VHS in 1981.

The Characters

(The Best...The Worst...The Villains...)

Dumbo is the first film of Disney's to place its focus squarely on animals -- certainly a characteristic that will continue in many of the company's animated movies.  Interestingly enough, though, the writers decided not to have their title character speak at all throughout the film.  To me, this was a somewhat ballsy move, but one that pays off in that the animators were able to prove their expertise by completely conveying everything needed to be said through facial expressions or body movements.  The character of Dumbo is as well-rounded as one could hope and the audience fully gets behind him despite the lack of dialogue.

Given its short length, there aren't a huge amount of other characters thrown our way in Dumbo, but Timothy Mouse is undoubtedly the other key figure in the piece despite not appearing in the film until its already a third over.  As Dumbo's one supporter, Timothy endears himself to the audience by urging our title character to stand up to the naysayers -- he's the kind of friend we all hope to have, really, despite his somewhat manic and seemingly "hopped up on caffeine" type of personality.

 

Millenary at its finest.

Dumbo falters the most in the character department with the Crow Quintet that our title character meets at the very end of the film who, although integral to the plot, appear at the expense of the film's somewhat unfocused storyline.  Thrown in with less than ten minutes to go, the animators attempt (unsuccessfully) to give each crow his own personality, toss in a silly song (which isn't all that humorous), and aid our main character in discovering his gift of flight.  A little more time to develop these guys (and their placement in the film) would've gone a long way.  As years have passed, these guys have faced some criticism for apparent racial stereotyping because of their "cartoonish" portrayal, but I'm not quite sure where the offensiveness would come into play.  (And, honestly, if you're going to talk about racism in this film, there's definitely a more obvious choice which we'll delve into in a little bit.)

Apparently, the female sex of any species will just stand around and gossip about others all day long...

Because of the flick's brevity, villains aren't a key player in Dumbo.  There's no larger-than-life evil force wanting our protagonist to fail.  Still, the film does feature a pack of lady elephants that prove to be less than kind to our title character and, in fact, give Jumbo, Jr., his nickname of "Dumbo" within mere minutes of seeing his large ears.  They're nasty beasts, that's for sure, but classifying them as "villains" would certainly be a stretch.

The Music

This is the very reason I've never allowed myself to get plastered...Apparently I learned at a young age that getting drunk leads to horrific, life-scarring images of men made entirely of bright-colored elephant heads.

When one thinks of Dumbo, I'm not sure the film's music comes to mind.  It's not that it's particularly bad, it's just that with the exception of maybe two songs, most of it is mediocre and middle-of-the-road. While many would single out "Baby Mine" as a particularly lovely and nicely fitting lullaby (a statement with which I wouldn't argue), the best song in the film to me is "Pink Elephants on Parade."  While it may not be the most ingenious song ever written (or maybe, in fact, it is the most ingenious song ever written solely for its sheer absurdity), "Pink Elephants on Parade" is a fantastic piece of animation.  Pre-1960s LSD-induced hallucinations, the Disney animators crafted the trippiest thing I think we'll see in these Disney Discussions.  Images of florescent and pastel colored elephants shape shift into one another effortlessly, humorously, and ultimately oddly, creating a visual masterpiece that would make Salvador Dali proud.  This isn't to say it isn't disconcerting or strange or even slightly out of place in a film that heretofore has been incredibly straightforward and "by the book," but it's fascinating.

"Grab that rope, you hairy ape." Yep...quite disconcerting lyrics in this one...

Two other songs -- "When I See an Elephant Fly" and "Casey Junior" -- are certainly ones I remembered despite having not seen the movie in over a decade, but both are throwaways that don't add much to the plot.  Still, they're fine...particularly when compared to "Song of the Roustabouts," a song which I'm sure you forget entirely as I never even remembered its existence.  Here we have faceless black men setting up the traveling circus as it settles into its new town, singing lyrics like "We work all day / We work all night / We never learned to read and write."  Nowadays, there's an uncomfortableness derived from words like that, but that's not even the reason this song lands here (as one needs to be able to recognize the pre-Civil Rights Movement-era time and setting from whence this film was made).  Quite simply, the lyrics are too basic and its dirge-like tone just juxtaposes a bit too oddly with the rest of the film.  Plus, it's likely the only song that you won't come away from the film humming.

My Favorite Scene

Hey, kids!  See how adorably cute drunks are?

Drunk Dumbo is too cute to not be my favorite.  Add in Timothy Mouse getting inebriated as well and you've got a scene that you'd likely never see in an animated movie today (or at least not one rated 'G' or 'PG').  Plus this all leads into "Pink Elephants on Parade" which is a visual (drug-induced) masterpiece of animation.

The film's finale with Dumbo flying and getting his comeuppance on the clowns and elephants who ridiculed him in the past is also surprisingly moving and entirely successful.

Random Thoughts

• Dumbo's real name is "Jumbo, Jr."
• While I was well aware that the other elephants spoke, I was surprised when Dumbo's mother, Mrs. Jumbo, actually uttered any words.  For some reason, I thought the mother and son communicated all without any vocals.  Granted, she only says "Jumbo, Jr.," when asked what her new son's name is, but it's more than I thought was spoken.
• The "Pink Elephants on Parade" scene doesn't scare me anymore like it did when I was five years old...that's progress on my part, I guess.
• Dumbo doesn't fly (the very thing the movie's most known for) until 59 minutes into the 63-minute film.

Final Analysis

(Does It Belong in the Revered Disney Pantheon and How Does It Stack Up to Past Films?)

Dumbo is a good film, though not one of Disney's best mainly because its short 63-minute run time doesn't permit a whole lot of time to create depth for its characters.  While there's certainly some emotional undercurrent related to the title character's separation from his mother, the film abandons this pivotal relationship for nearly its whole second half.  As much as I love the "Pink Elephants on Parade" sequence, the second half really needed to be focused on Dumbo getting back into his mother's care and the "Pink Elephants" and crow sequences just take the viewer away from what they really want to see onscreen.

The low budget allotted to the film isn't ever evident in the animation (although it's certainly less intricate than Pinocchio as an example), but the lack of funds does make itself known in the story and brevity of the film.  Still, while this isn't quite the classic I remembered it being, Dumbo is a decent addition to the Disney Pantheon.

The RyMickey Rating: B-

Join us next Wednesday for Bambi, the fifth film in The Disney Discussion.