BCDB: Cartoon Reviews: Dumbo

This is a good movie in a lot of ways, but the plot is too simplistic to sustain it for its full length. I got bored with Dumbo's drunken stupor and fast-forwarded through the last half. Lots of people claim that is a wonderful segment. It just felt like padding to me.

Today, many people may just assume that Dumbo is just a children’s movie. Well, it is…but isn’t at the same time. Dumbo was made near the end of the Depression, when people still needed help taking their minds off of economical troubles. The movie has an uplifting message that effects anybody who watches is. It is uplifting and moving.

Dumbo may be the first movie that made me love Walt Disney and other Disney studio movies. First, it was mostly because I love elephants. I liked the characters and the songs. But now, as I am now older, and an animation student, I can see how this movie has influenced me. Dumbo has two segments that may have influenced me the most as a student. The first is the ode to Salvador Dali: The Pink Elephants segment. This piece is so random, and so out there… you just have to love it. The colors, the song, the way they get from one part to the next, it is all just fantastic. But if I had to choose my favorite scene, it would be the Baby Mine scene. This is my most favorite scene I have ever seen in any animated feature. Everybody wants a hug, but when you watch Dumbo being cradled by his mother’s trunk, you have to have a heart of stone not to cry. I have been watching this movie for almost 24 years now… and I still cry at this scene. That is animation at its essence: to touch the heart of the viewer.

I love this movie because it doesn’t try to be something it isn’t. Some people may raise their noses at the simplicity of it all, but I don’t. I am in the other camp. The simplicity of everything about this film is wonderful. You identify more with simple things, because you can see yourself in that character. The character and background designs are simple. Even the story is simple. But it’s the simple story that everybody can identify with. How many times have you felt like a freak? How many times have you felt like you didn’t belong? That you just wanted to find a way to be accepted? That is Dumbo in a nutshell. Being a self-proclaimed weirdo, you can see why I love this film.

This one gives you everything from comedy (the clowns figures as the get out of costume in silhouette through the circus tent) to true, unforced, "REAL" pathos (anyone who doesn't tear up or at least sniffle a little at Mrs. Jumbo rocking her baby to sleep through the barred windows of her "Mad Elephant" cage, just may not have a heart in their chest). On top of that we get the wonderful, and in my opinion Fleischer inspired "Pink Elephants on Parade" peice and wonderful songs like "Baby Mine", "Casey Jr." and "When I See An Elephant Fly". Characters that are charming and likeable without it all being pre-planned and forced on you. One to watch over and over.

I WAS NOT BORN IN 1941 BUT I LIKE THE MOVIE DUMBO BECAUSE IT TEACHES ABOUT FREINDSHIP IN SMALL PLACES. I REMEMBER WATCHING THIS FILM WITH MY FATHER BEFORE HIS PASSING. IT MAKES ME CRY BECAUSE I NEEDED FREINDS AT ONE POINT OTHER THAN MEMORIES. I ALWAYS LIKED THIS MOVIES AND WILL ALWAYS LOVE THIS FILM. IT IS THE GREATEST OF ALL TIMES. DUMBO WILL ALWAYS BE ONE OF MY FAVORITES. ELIZABETH
BRONX,NEW YORK