Dumbo

Dumbo is one of Disney's earliest films, and is also pretty straight forward as well. This film really helped to save the company in the early 1940's given how the European market was closed due to the war, as well as a labour strike within the company itself. These factors had stalled Bambi and the cartoon shorts just weren't bringing in the needed money, so Disney turned to producing a quick feature film in the form of Dumbo which is also one of the shortest in the canon at only 64 minutes.

One of Dumbo's biggest perks is that it has universal themes that are still very applicable to today's audiences just as much as it applied to the movie-goers of the 1940's. Being an underdog story, it shows how to overcome adversity and the obstacles that come your way, themes which were quite relevant with the world war coming to a boil, and the depression not long forgotten. The short runtime may be a hamper in most other films, yet it feels just right for Dumbo given how simple the story itself is. The Pink Elephants sequence does drag on a bit, but is at least trippy enough to still entertain in its own crazy way. With that aside, the story manages to convey the emotional bond between Dumbo and his mother really well without them ever saying a word to each other, save for the chorus sung Baby of Mine.

The animation here isn't quite as outstanding as the other four films from Disney's first five. Backgrounds are pretty simplistic and are detailed enough to show where we are, and even the characters are designed just well enough so that their expressive faces can help get emotions across during the scenes. This doesn't fully hamper the film, but Dumbo's circumstances were also quite different from the other films for when they were made. One interesting thing to note is that the bright colours of the circus are balanced every so often by much darker scenes at night, which is supposedly due to audiences still being new to colour films and this was to help from having the colours being overbearing.

Easily our strongest character in the film is Dumbo himself, who never says a single word yet manages to get across so many emotions. One thing that I always seem to have forgotten is that during this film Dumbo is only a few days old at best and still very new to the world and because of this his character grows quite a bit during the short run time. One of the saddest things about this film is that the majority of the characters generally abuse and mock Dumbo because of his large ears. While his mother does love him, she is all too quickly taken away and all he has left is his new friendship with Timothy Mouse. One thing that stood out to me was a very subtle touch where when they walk around together, Dumbo holds Timothy's tail with his trunk the same way a young child would hold hands with someone while walking.  It's the little things like this that really stand out to me and add to the characters relationships with each other.


Ok. Ok. I know what you're waiting for before I end this review. Yes the crows in here are racist stereotypes, and yes it is frowned upon today and quite inappropriate. With this being said, Dumbo was made in the 1940's before mindsets began to change for the better, and while it doesn't excuse racism it's important to keep in mind the time period in which films were made. The last thing I wish to point out about the crows is that despite their racism, they also help Dumbo by providing the 'magic feather' to boost Dumbo's confidence and in the end gets him to overcome his obstacles with that extra bit.


4/5