There’s no ignoring this elephant in the room

h saved Disney Animation Studios (it would go on to need saving again, cyclically, in the future) after the unprofitable indulgences of “Fantasia”, “Dumbo” – released in 1941 mere weeks before the United States would find itself dragged into the Second World War – is a charming if slight fable of exceptionalism, a cutesy spin on the American Dream and a last gasp of American pre-war innocence.

When the stork brings Mrs Jumbo her longed-for baby, she doesn’t mind his comically over-sized ears, despite the other elephants naming him ‘Dumbo’. But the other elephants aren’t the only ones who bully the young elephant and when Mrs Jumbo comes to his defence against the taunting and teasing of a group of mean-spirited circus patrons, she is locked away. With his mother gone, the only friend Dumbo has is Timothy Q Mouse, but together, the two friends are about to discover something amazing.

Smarting from the losses of “Fantasia”, Disney deliberately took a more cheap and cheerful animation approach to “Dumbo”. Aside from the appealing main character designs, anything non-animal is, for Disney at least, crudely animated and often seem like an afterthought. There’s a consistency in the basic animation of the background, and especially human, characters as they’re pretty crude caricatures themselves but with a running time of just over an hour, there’s little time to lament their lack of depth.

Of course the oft-quoted elephant in the room of “Dumbo” are the characters of the crows and while a superficial reading of it might dismiss them as racist stereotypes, it’s important to note that not only are they one of the few characters to treat Dumbo with kindness and understanding but they are also shown to be defiantly free-spirited and independent.

The clowns of Dumbo’s circus (thinly veiled satires of some of Disney’s own unionising animators), on the other hand, are shown to be greedy, callous and – given the effect their ‘champagne’ has on poor Dumbo and Timothy – drugged to the gills.

Despite it’s short run-time, “Dumbo” still packs in a few musical numbers and is rightly famous for three stand-out songs: “Baby Of Mine”, “If I See An Elephant Fly” and, of course, “Pink Elephants On Parade”. The trippy, occasionally sinister, psychedelic pachyderm palooza not only served to entrench the popular early 20th century expression of ‘seeing pink elephants’ but remains an important animation touchstone to this day, most recently referenced by the multi-Ralph monster in “Ralph Breaks The Internet”.

Simple and ruthlessly endearing, it’s got an undeniable back-to-basics charm that overcomes its shortcomings (and short runtime) and secures it a deserved place amongst Disney’s finest classics.

dumbo 1941 review
Score 7/10
logo

Related posts

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) Review

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) Review

What is Christmas without a generous helping of cheese? It’s been a long wait for Wallace and Gromit’s return—16 years, to be precise—but Vengeance Most Fowl feels like they never left, even if they’ve traded in their small-scale domestic chaos for something with a bit more peck and...

San Andreas (2015) Review

San Andreas (2015) Review

Forget sequels. Throw away your ideas for reboots, reimaginings or reinterpretations. The movie business has found a new source of ideas: extrapolating entire movies from a single plot point of another film, like growing cultures in a petri dish. “San Andreas” is the story of what would...

The Regeneration Game (1966-2010)

The Regeneration Game (1966-2010)

I’ve been a fan of “Doctor Who” since I can remember, and certainly way, way back before it was cool to like Doctor Who. I followed it from its Saturday teatime slot, through experimental Monday Tuesday scheduling and suicidal Wednesday showdowns with soap operas to cancellation. Through the...

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (2021) Review

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (2021) Review

If you're expecting G.I. Joe's cinematic ambitions to crap out again, don't bet on Snake Eyes Proving that revenge is apparently a dish best served reheated, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins helps itself to a buffet of familiar flavours from The Wolverine, Harry Potter And The Chamber Of...

Atomic Shark (2016) Review

Atomic Shark (2016) Review

Atomic Shark is a real bomb There’s no denying the ambition of "Atomic Shark", a frankly barmy entry in the sharksploitation oeuvre, opening as it does with an ominous montage of underwater scenes intercut with Cold War newsreel footage and Robert Oppenheimer quotes. Yes, it's a...

Doctor Who: The Woman Who Fell To Earth Review

Doctor Who: The Woman Who Fell To Earth Review

Ambition? Yes. Confidence? Not yet. Promise? Absolutely. Doctor Who has always been a progressive, social justice kind of show - hell the Doctor fought Nazi analogues in only the second ever adventure - but incoming Showrunner Chris Chibnall has decided - in his remarks and...

Playing With Fire (2019) Review

Playing With Fire (2019) Review

Playing With Fire produces plenty of smoke but never catches alight Although "Playing With Fire" suffers from the same problem which blighted the 2016 “Ghostbusters” – every supporting cast member is competing to one-up each other in a game of schtick – once things settle down a...

Psycho Shark (2009) Review

Psycho Shark (2009) Review

Fins are easy when you're big in Japan Subtitles? Oh cool – "this "Psycho Shark" is a Japanese monster shark movie. We’ve seen what they make of giant atomic dinosaur lizards, so I can’t wait to see what they make of a giant killer shark. Except we’ll just have to – wait, that is ...

1 Comment
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments