Dumbo is the fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. Based upon a children's book of the same name by Helen Aberson and illustrated by Harold Perl, Dumbo was produced by Walt Disney, and first released on October 22, 1941 by RKO Radio Pictures. The main character is Jumbo Jr., an semi-anthropomorphic elephant who is cruelly nicknamed Dumbo. He is ridiculed for his big ears, but it turns out that he is capable of flying by using them as wings. His only friend is the mouse Timothy, parodying the stereotypical animosity between mice and elephants. Dumbo was a success at the box office and economy for the Disney studio, thanks to it's inexpensive budget after Pinocchio and Fantasia became expensive failures, and is today considered one of its finest films.
Story[]
| Spoiler Warning: The following contains important plot details of the entire film. |
The film takes place in a circus setting, in present-day 1941, and begins with a formation of storks delivering newborn offspring to the various circus animals. Mrs. Jumbo's baby is delivered to her belatedly by a mixed-up stork, but the baby is well received by the other elephants until the size of his ears is revealed. The elephant, named Jumbo Jr. by his mother, is immediately renamed "Dumbo" by the gossipy, giggly female elephants, who regard both mother and son as outcasts. The consequences of this were troubling, as Mrs. Jumbo slammed the shutter on their heads. The two get along fine without them, however, until the pair are shown to the public. The crowd mock Dumbo and pull him from behind his protective mother to continue their taunting. Mrs. Jumbo tries to defend Dumbo, but Dumbo is grabbed by his ankles, and is pulled away from her while she is imprisoned after a violent struggle with the Ringmaster armed with his whip (humiliated by being thrown in a vat full of water after whipping Mrs. Jumbo too much and taking away her son) and several other humans using ropes and chains.
Timothy subliminally convinces the Ringmaster to set up a "pyramid of pachyderms," to the top of which Dumbo will jump (using a springboard). The act goes horribly wrong, the big top falls to the ground, the other elephants are seriously injured, and Dumbo is unceremoniously demoted to being a clown in humiliating and dangerous acts as punishment. Dumbo's clown act involves him falling (forcibly) from a platform in a dramatized fire rescue into a vat of pie filling. The audience reacts well to the act, and the clowns decide to alter the act for the next show so that Dumbo falls from a platform many times higher than the original one and so more dangerous.
After an emotional visit to his mother's holding cell, Dumbo and Timothy try to plot their next step. They settle down for a drink of water outside of the clowns' tent. Unbeknownst to them, the water has been accidentally spiked with moonshine, and the elephant and mouse become inebriated and hallucinatory, seeing pink elephants sing and dance before their eyes.
Dumbo and Timothy awake the next morning — in a tree over 100 feet (30 m) up, awoken by a number of amused black crows. Timothy surmises that Dumbo flew the both of them to the top of the tree while they were drunk, an idea the crows find hilarious. Nevertheless, the crows decide to help Timothy teach Dumbo to fly. By convincing the elephant he can fly with the use of a "magic feather," they succeed in getting Dumbo to fly.
Dumbo shows up at the next clown "fire rescue" performance with his magic feather; however, he loses the feather after leaping from the platform. Timothy admits that Dumbo can fly without the magic feather, and, barely avoiding death from the fall, Dumbo opens his ears and soars through the air, finally striking back at his tormentors as a stunned audience looks on in amazement. Dumbo the Flying Elephant is made the star of the circus and an international celebrity, and he and his mother are reunited and given their own private coach on Casey Jr, the sentient circus train, thanks to Timothy who became the new manager, while the crows wave goodbye and wish good luck in the distance to their little and now famous friend and his mother together again.
Medvirkende[]
- Tim - Jesper Klein
- Dumbos mor - Lily Broberg
- Cirkusdirektør - Poul Bundgaard
- Stork - Claus Ryskjær
- Fortæller - Palle Huld
Elefanter
- Kirsten Rolffes
- Lykke Nielsen
- Vera Gebuhr
- Kirsten Hansen-Møller
- Susanne Bruun-Koppel
Krager
- Flemming Enevold
- Jess Ingerslev
- Jørgen Pedersen
- Ulf Pilgaard
- Claus Ryskjær
Klovne
- Jess Ingerslev
- Per Pallesen
- Ulf Pilgaard
- Claus Ryskjær
History[]
Production[]
The film was designed as an economical feature, to help generate income for the Disney studio after the financial failures of two Pinocchio and Fantasia in 1940. Storymen Dick Huemer and Joe Grant were the primary figures in developing the plot, based upon a children's book written by Helen Aberson and illustrated by Harold Pearl, which was their only involvement with the cartoon industry. Their book was made of only 8 drawings and just a few lines of text. When it was published in 1939, the edition was so small and obscure that nobody knows how Disney got his hands on it. He gave it to his lead animators and told them to see what they could get out of it.
When the film went into production in early 1941, supervising director Ben Sharpsteen was given orders to keep the film simple and inexpensive. As a result, Dumbo lacks the lavish detail of the previous three Disney animated features (Fantasia, Pinocchio, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs): character designs are simpler, background paintings are less detailed, and a number of held cels (or frames) were used in the character animation. However, the simplicity freed the animators from being overly concerned with detail, and allowed them to focus on the most important element of character animation: acting. The famous artist Bill Tytla's animation of Dumbo is today considered one of the greatest accomplishments in American traditional animation. The critical reactions were positive, as many critics of the day felt that Dumbo was a return to roots for Disney after growing increasingly "arty" with its predecessors.
On May 29, 1941, during the production on Dumbo, much of the Disney studio staff went on strike. The strike lasted five weeks, and ended the "family" atmosphere and camaraderie at the studio.
This was released on the same month, day and year that film and television actor Mel Winkler was born.
None of the voice actors for Dumbo received screen credit, but Timothy Mouse, who befriended Dumbo even in his darkest days and was instrumental in helping him find greatness within himself, was voiced by Edward Brophy, a character actor known for portraying gangsters who has no other known animation voice credits. The pompous matriarch of the elephants was voiced by Verna Felton, who also played the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, and Flora of the Three Good Fairies in Sleeping Beauty. Other voice actors include the perennial Sterling Holloway as Mr. Stork, and Cliff Edwards as Jim or Dandy Crow, the leader of the crows.
To save costs, watercolor paint was used to render the backgrounds. Dumbo and Snow White are the only two classic Disney features to use the technique, which was regularly employed for the various Disney cartoon shorts. The other Disney features used oil paint and gouache. 1999's Tarzan, a simple, emotional story with influences from Dumbo, also made use of watercolor backgrounds.
Release: Reactions and criticisms[]
Dumbo was completed and delivered to Disney's distributor, RKO Radio Pictures, in fall 1942. RKO balked at the fact that the film only ran 64 minutes, and demanded that Walt Disney either (a) expand it to at least 70 minutes, (b) edit it to short subject length, or (c) allow RKO to release it as a b-movie. Disney refused all three options, and RKO reluctantly issued Dumbo, unaltered, as an a-film.
After its October 23 release, Dumbo proved to be a moderate financial success. The simple film only cost $813,000 to produce, half the cost of Snow White and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio. Dumbo eventually grossed $1.3 million during its original release; it and Snow White were the only two pre-1943 Disney features to turn a profit (Barrier, 318). It was intended for Dumbo to be on the cover of the December 1942 issue of Time, but it was dropped when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, resulting in the United States entering World War II and reducing the box office draw of the film.
Dumbo won the 1941 Academy Award for Original Music Score, awarded to musical directors Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace. Churchill and lyricist Ned Washington were also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song for "Baby Mine", the song that plays during Dumbo's visit to his mother's cell. The film also won Best Animation Design at the 1947 Cannes Film Festival.
The crow characters in the film are in fact young caricatures; the leader crow Jim or Dandy (was renamed "Dandy" in the 1950s in attempt to avoid controversy due to the origins of the original name, "Jim Crow", despite its confirmed satirical intent and no name is mentioned in the film)[1][2] was voiced by Cliff Edwards, better known for his role as Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio. The other crows were all voiced by actors and singers members of the Hall Johnson Choir, James Baskett as "Fats Crow", Nick Stewart as "Specks Crow", Hall Johnson as "Deacon Crow", and Jim Carmichael as "Dopey Crow". Ward Kimball, the chief animator of the crows, used famous African-American dancers Freddie and Eugene Jackson as live-action reference for the characters. The personalities and mannerisms of the crows—specifically their fast-paced, back and forth dialogue—were inspired by the backchat found on the band records of Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong.[3] Years or decades after the release of the film, Dumbo has been publicly criticized by some for the presence of the black crows, regularly seen as having some sort of "racist intents".[4] Refutations to the accusations of racism state that the crows are the only truly happy and sad child characters in the film outside of Dumbo, his mother and Timothy, but also empathetic, smart, intelligent, generous, tough, lively, free spirited characters who bow down to no one. They each start to shed a tear, then they apologize for picking on the elephant and Timothy and their idea of a "flying elephant", seeing them as marginalized and ostracized outcasts just like the crows themselves, and they are in fact the ones who give the duo the "magic feather" and help teach Dumbo to fly.[5][6]
Re-release schedule, home video & beyond[]
Despite the advent of World War II, Dumbo was still the most financially successful Disney film of the 1940s, thanks to a 1949 re-release. It was also re-released theatrically in 1959, 1972, and 1976.
The 1991 Walt Disney Classics VHS release of Dumbo.
This film was one of the first of Disney's animated films to be broadcast, albeit severely edited, on television, as part of Disney's anthology series. The film then received another distinction of note in 1978, when it was the first of Disney's canon of animated films to be released on home video and has been kept in general release ever since, also having the honor of being the first video release in the Walt Disney Classics video series in 1984; ten years later it started the Disney Masterpiece Collection with three other releases in that series (Snow White, Mary Poppins, and Alice in Wonderland). In 2001, a special 60th Anniversary edition was released. Dumbo also made a cameo appearance in the 2002 video game Kingdom Hearts as a summonable character to assist in battle.
Dumbo theatrical release history[]
Worldwide release dates[]
- Spain: September 25, 1943 (Madrid)
- Spain: December 14, 1944 (Barcelona)
- France: October 25, 1947
- Norway: December 26, 1947
- West Germany: April 8, 1952
- Japan: March 13, 1954
Dumbo home video release history[]
- June 1981 (VHS, Laserdisc and Beta)
- July 1984 (VHS and Beta)
- 1991 (VHS and Laserdisc)
- October 28, 1994 (VHS and Laserdisc)
- October 23, 2001 (VHS and DVD)
- June 6, 2005 (DVD)
- September 20, 2011 (DVD and Blu Ray)
Titles in different languages[]
- Arabic: دومبو
- Bosnian: Dumbo
- Bulgarian: Дъмбо
- Chinese: 小飛象 (means Little Flying Elephant)
- Croatian: Slonić Dumbo
- Danish: Dumbo, den Flyvende Elefant
- Dutch: Dombo
- Finnish: Dumbo - Lentävä Elefantti
- French: Dumbo, l'Éléphant Volant
- German: Dumbo, der Fliegende Elefant
- Greek: Ντάμπο το ελεφαντάκι
- Hebrew: דמבו הפיל המעופף
- Icelandic: Dúmbó: Fíllinn Fljúgandi
- Italian: Dumbo, L'Elefante Volante
- Japanese: ダンボ (Danbo)
- Korean: 덤보 (Dumbo)
- Norwegian: Dumbo, den Flyvende Elefanten
- Persian: دامبو
- Polish: Dumbo
- Portuguese: Dumbo, o Elefante Volante
- Russian: Дамбо
- Serbian: Дамбо, Dambo
- Spanish: Dumbo, el Elefantito Volador
- Swedish: Dumbo (re-released as Dumbo - den flygande elefanten)
- Thailand: ดัมโบ้ช้างน้อยมหัศจรรย์ (Dumbo Miniature Wonders)
- Ukrainian: простак
(NOTE: Most of the above titles were later renamed simply Dumbo.)
Cast[]
- Mel Blanc as Dumbo
- Edward Brophy as Timothy Q. Mouse
- Verna Felton as the Elephant Matriarch and Mrs. Jumbo
- Cliff Edwards as Jim/Dandy Crow
- Herman Bing as the Ringmaster (Italian with an Italian accent)
- Margaret Wright as Casey Junior
- Sterling Holloway as Mr. Stork
- Hall Johnson Choir as the Crows
- Noreen Gammill as Catty
- Dorothy Scott as Giddy
- Sarah Selby as Prissy
- Malcolm Hutton as Smitty
- John McLeish as the Narrator
- Billy Bletcher and Eddie Holden as Clowns
- Jimmy MacDonald as Lion
- Pinto Colvig as Gorilla
- Billy Sheets as Joe
Directing animators[]
- Vladimir Tytla (Dumbo, Mrs. Jumbo, Lady Elephants)
- Fred Moore (The Boys, Timothy Q. Mouse)
- Ward Kimball (The Crows)
- John Lounsbury (Lady Elephants)
- Art Babbitt (The Stork)
- Wolfgang Reitherman (Timothy Mouse)
Dumbo's Circus[]
- Main article: Dumbo's Circus
Dumbo's Circus was a live-action/puppet television series for preschool audiences that aired on The Disney Channel in the 1980s. Unlike in the film, Dumbo spoke on the show. Each character would perform a special act, which ranged from dancing and singing to telling knock knock jokes.
Direct-to-video sequel[]
Noted as then being in production around the time the 60th Anniversary DVD Edition of Dumbo was released, was the sequel, Dumbo II. This was apparently Disney's attempt at further cornering a market with recognizable animated film properties such as Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch and so many other films they were producing sequels for.
Dumbo and his circus friends are navigated a large city after being left behind by their traveling circus. Dumbo II sought to explain what happened to Dumbo's father, Mr. Jumbo. Dumbo's circus friends included the chaotic twin bears Claude and Lolly, the curious zebra Dot, the older, independent hippo Godfry, and the adventurous ostrich Penny. The animals were metaphors for the different stages of childhood.
The sequel has seemingly been scrapped though as Disney has made no news announcements regarding it and the only proof of its early existence seems to be documented on the Dumbo DVD release.
See also[]
- Disney animators' strike
- List of animated feature films
References[]
- ↑ https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/26684
- ↑ https://www.laughingplace.com/w/news/2019/04/30/floyd-norman-defends-dumbo-crow-scene-amid-rumors-potential-censorship/
- ↑ https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/26684
- ↑ Woodward, Emily. Review for Dumbo. PopMatters. Retrieved from http://popmatters.com/film/reviews/d/dumbo.shtml on September 8, 2006.
- ↑ Amazon.com video review for Dumbo. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033563/amazon on September 8, 2006
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/19970728034459/http://www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/rojc/wainer.html
- Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503759-6.
- Maltin, Leonard (1980, updated 1987). Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-452-25993-2.
External links[]
- Dumbo at the Internet Movie Database
- Dumbo at the Big Cartoon DataBase
- Dumbo: 60th Anniversary Edition DVD Review with Pictures
- Don Markstein's Toonopedia
it:Dumbo he:דמבו הפיל המעופף nl:Dumbo pt:Dumbo simple:Dumbo fi:Dumbo sv:Dumbo zh:小飞象