US 64m Dir: Ben Sharpsteen (Supervising Director)
Dumbo is one of the few Disney classics that I never saw as a child which is a shame as I would have loved it- it focuses almost entirely on animals and it has a train for good measure!
It's a sweet story- Dumbo is born (or rather delivered by stork) with over-sized ears, so much so that he trips over them and can't perform in the circus he lives in unless as a clown. He's bullied by a bunch of Karen elephants and his Mum is locked away as "mad" when she tries to protect her son from the abuse. In the end Dumbo discovers his ears give him the ability to fly and he finds a place in the circus.
There are some really lovely ideas here. The storks delivering animal babies across the circus is fun and I especially liked the way that the circus engine, Casey Jr, is personified- it's not a true talking train like Thomas the tank engine but words are put to the sounds it makes like the strained chugging of going up a hill.
There's an element of controversy with the group of crows which are clearly depictions of black people. The lead crow was originally named Jim Crow, after the racist minstrel characters and the Jim Crow racial segregation laws. I initially found them a little uncomfortable but with further thought and reading some views online I started to change my mind. The crows are clearly animated depictions of black people but they are not in any way derogatory ones. The crows are the happiest characters in the whole film and are free-spirited and lively. They are the ones who teach Dumbo to fly and sing the best song of the film. I can totally see why some people find them problematic and it was probably right they were excluded from the remake but I didn't find them quite so disturbing as some.
The music in the film isn't Disney's best with most of the songs essentially serving as narration for the film's story. The crow's song is great but the most memorable is 'Pink Elephants on Parade', which plays over a trippy sequence when Dumbo and Timothy Q Mouse have accidentally ended up drunk. It's surely one of Disney's most out-there sequences in its entire back catalogue but somehow it works.
A really lovely story which Disney kept pleasingly simple.
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