Dumbo (1941)
Grade: 95
"Dumbo" is perhaps the second best full-length animated motion picture, behind only "Snow White". The movie is flawless, from the charming animation, to the vocal characterizations, to its moral of not judging a person (or an elephant) by its appearance.
We begin whimsically with a stork delivering babies. The stork is voiced by Sterling Holloway, later of "Winnie The Pooh" fame. He has a heavy load this time: an elephant. Meanwhile, poor Mrs. Jumbo of a travelling circus is waiting anxiously for her new arrival, trunk longingly in the air.
One of my favorite characters in the movie is the train, which manages to talk as it whistles and chugs along. The animation of the train beginning its journey is marvelous.
The stork makes his delivery, not departing without reading a poem. All the elephant ladies gather to see the baby elephant. They are charmed, until it is revealed that the baby has enormous ears. Mrs. Jumbo and Jr are ostracized and the baby is jeeringly named Dumbo.
Dumbo is mercilessly tormented by adolescent kids. Jumbo grabs one of them with her trunk and spanks him. This leads to quite a ruckus. Jumbo manages to dump the circus announcer into a tub of water, but she ends up imprisoned in chains in a dark, lonely train car.
Luckily, Timothy J. Mouse, the best friend a cartoon elephant ever had, enters the story. He has the idea for an act: a pyramid of elephants, with Dumbo jumping on top. Unfortunately, Dumbo trips on his ears, tumbles into the pyramid, tearing down the big top. The audience flees in a mob.
With his big ears, Dumbo makes a great circus clown. In a fine sequence, clowns try to put out a burning building, getting nowhere, while poor Dumbo is at the top story. He must jump to be saved: but the net is a custard pie. The crowd laughs, but Dumbo is humiliated in this role, and is snubbed by the other elephants.
Dumbo and Timothy unknowingly drink spiked water. In typical cartoon fashion, they are immediately plastered. Dumbo blows bubbles from his trunk. One turns into a pink elephant, and there is a terrific "dream sequence" of pink elephants marching and dancing. This ends with Dumbo and Timothy in a high tree branch, sleeping it off.
A flock of black crows spots the elephant sleeping the tree. These crows are derogatory sterotypes of blacks, complete with jive talking, cigars, and funny hats. One crow has a deep bass voice. Still, the crows are not that offensive. They are funny, and in the end they help Dumbo and Timothy out of the tree and into the air. At any rate, they come off better than the film's "white" characters, who torment Dumbo and imprison his mother.
Dumbo believes he needs the "magic feather" to fly. At the next circus performance, the clowns have raised the height of the building to the roof of the big top, and Dumbo is again forced to jump. Timothy and the magic feather are with him, and the mouse urges him to open his ears to fly. Dumbo drops the magic feather: will he fly or crash? He flies, divebombs all his stunned enemies, (the clowns, the ringmaster and the other elephants) and there is a triumphant finale of the circus leaving town with Dumbo flying and his happy mother freed.
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