Review of Dumbo (1941) by Jacob M — 06 Oct 2013

"All we have to do is build an act. Make you a star. A headliner. DUMBO THE GREAT!!! Um... the great what?".

Walt Disney was an incredible innovator, and had already proved his excellent skills in animation with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Pinocchio. He intended to have the same success with Fantasia, which I feel to be Walt's greatest achievement in animation, but in 1940, people didn't get it, and Fantasia ended up doing poorly at the box-office. Because of this, the Disney studio lost tons of money and were getting towards the point of financial ruin. But Walt wasn't giving up easily. For his next project, Walt decided to use cheaper animation techniques and create a simple story that can appeal to everybody, in this case, a story about a baby elephant with big ears. When Dumbo was first released in 1941, it was not only a box-office smash, but it saved the Disney studio from financial disaster, and became one of the most famous films of the Disney library.

Dumbo tells the story about a baby elephant named Jumbo Jr. who gets picked on by the circus elephants just because of his big ears, hence the name Dumbo. When his mom defends his son after being picked on by a kid, she gets taken away and ends up locked in a cage for being "mad." Dumbo then teams up with a mouse named Timothy in order to find success in the big top, which eventually leads to using his ears for wings and fly (yeah it's a spoiler, but everyone has seen this, so it's no surprise, unless you've lived under a rock for so long and have never heard of Dumbo before).

Dumbo is known for being one of the shortest films in the Disney library, at only 63 minutes long. Generally, if a film was short like Dumbo, then the film would be rushed and not that good. But Disney pulled the impossible. At just an hour long, Dumbo's story is so powerful that is is one of Walt's finest films. The fact that Dumbo loses his mother early on is something one cannot bear, even for an elephant. Also, the fact that Dumbo is rejected by everyone but a mouse is something almost everyone can relate to, which is why Dumbo is a character everyone can root for, even if he has no dialogue at all.

As I mentioned earlier, Disney went the cheap route on their animation. But, even though the animation is not as realistic as Snow White or Fantasia, the watercolors are still pretty impressive, with some portions looking like Walt's Silly Symphonies from the 1930's. One sequence, the Pink Elephant scene, which happens after Dumbo and the mouse get accidentally drunk and hallucinate crazy pink elephants is so bizarre and creepy that is ranks as one of Disney's most original scenes ever made, even if it has literally nothing to do with the picture. As a kid, the scene was so crazy, scary weird that it was hard to look at the screen. Now, I think of it as the best thing to come out of this film and am still questioning what drugs the animators took to create this visually insane sequence.

Dumbo does have some excellent characters along the way. Besides Dumbo, we have the already mentioned Timothy Mouse, who helps Dumbo find success. Timothy is voiced by Edward Brophy, who was known for playing gangsters at the time, and as a mouse, he succeeds at being funny and dedicating to being Dumbo's friend. Dumbo's mom, Jumbo, despite having only one line, is an excellent mother figure, who'll do anything to protect her son from danger. The other bully elephants, despite their mean attitude, are actually very funny, particularly the leader, voiced by Verna Felton, who would later voice The Fairy Godmother in Cinderella and The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. Sterling Holloway, who later voices Winnie the Pooh, makes a small vocal appearance voicing the stork who delivers Dumbo at the beginning. And then, there are the crows, who help Dumbo achieve his flying fame at the end. The crows have suffered numerous loads of controversy over the years, mostly just because they're voiced by black people. The ones who criticize this accuse Disney of being racist to African Americans who were voicing crows that were also black and using African American slang as "brother". If you know me, if I find something that I feel is racist, then I would attack it for being racist. But for these crows, I honestly find no racial problem at all with the crows. Just because they were voiced by blacks does not mean it's racist. I actually found the crows to be funny, helpful, and entertaining. I felt this way when watching it as a kid, and I still feel the same way when watching it today.

The score is provided by Frank Churchill, who also scored Snow White and Bambi, and Churchill provides emotions and beautiful music to carry out the film. The songs in Dumbo are pretty memorable as well. There's "Look Out for Mr. Stork", a very catchy song about the delivering storks at the beginning of the film. There's "Casey Jr.", an even catchier song about the circus train. There's "The Roustabouts", a memorable song about the workers of the circus tent construction. There's "Baby Mine", a powerful and emotional song about Dumbo and his mother. There's "Pink Elephants on Parade", and like the sequence itself, it's creepy awesome. And last, there's "When I See an Elephant Fly", sung by the crows, which is very catchy and funny song, especially the crow dancing.

Dumbo is an incredible piece of Disney history and I agree 100% of the review of New York Times posted on the Dumbo DVD cover, "A film you will never forget." As with the famous saying that an elephant never forgets, Dumbo will always stand the test of time, along with the best Disney classics, and the films positive moral message and heart causes me to give Dumbo my highest score. If you're that one person who has never watched Dumbo before, you don't know what you're missing.