Any time I look over a list like this, it’s never a question of if a classic Disney animated feature will be on the list so much as which one. When I did the original AFI list, there were two: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fantasia. Fantasia was removed when the AFI revised the list later, but Snow White remained. That makes a certain amount of sense. Snow White was the first feature length Disney animated film, and many of the patterns and tropes that Disney features would be known for originated there. However, the Stacker list instead opts to use Pinocchio for its entry with other, more modern Disney fare appearing later on, and I think a case can be made that Pinocchio is actually a better example of classic Disney than Snow White.
See, as much as Disney likes to go with the whole “Disney Princess” thing, and as much as Snow White is the original Disney Princess, there’s something to be said for Pinocchio being the real masterpiece from Disney’s Golden Age.
Consider if you will that the Pinocchio story is perhaps not as well known as the various Disney Princess stories. Many of the Disney Princesses came from the Grimm Fairy Tales, and many of them are known even without a Disney adaptation. Granted, there are even more Grimm tales that aren’t as well known today, but the stories that people know were, I would wager, pretty well-known even before Disney got their corporate hands on ’em. Pinocchio, by contrast, is the work of Italian author Carlo Collodi, and my grandparents had a lot of children’s lit in their house in a collection that included The Adventures of Pinocchio. I tried reading it once and didn’t get very far. I do not recall why, but I suspect it was because Pinocchio, shortly after being brought to life, is advised on what to do by an unnamed cricket, and Pinocchio’s reaction is to smash and kill the cricket on the spot.
Yeah, Jiminy Cricket was killed off within a few pages of his appearance, and he never got the name “Jiminy”.
But getting back to Pinocchio, consider if you will that Disney even today opens all their films with a musical sting from a Pinocchio song, namely “When You Wish Upon a Star”. Jiminy Cricket was a big breakout character, appearing in many places outside of the film, probably moreso than any other character in the film. In point of fact, Jiminy is, unlike the other characters, more or less a completely original character. Pinocchio, Gepetto, and most of the other characters have some roots in Collodi’s novel. Jiminy’s inspiration is a nameless, smashed cricket. I might even argue that Jiminy Cricket is, alongside of Tinkerbell, one of the best known of the Disney supporting characters from the various feature films.
But one memorable character does not, by itself, make Pinocchio the best choice for the Golden Age Disney feature that should make a list like this. I would actually further argue that Pinocchio has more memorable songs than most of its contemporaries. “When You Wish Upon a Star” is the obvious one, but “Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee” and “I’ve Got No Strings” are also pretty solid numbers. Sure, “Give a Little Whistle” is a bit more forgettable as a song, but the last line (“And always let your conscience be your guide”) is by itself pretty famous. It’s also, more than pretty much every other Disney feature of that era, a hell of a lot darker than anything else Disney produced. The only thing that would exceed the nightmare fuel that is Pleasure Island and Monstro is the “Night on Bald Mountain” segment in Fantasia.
Consider, if you will, the Coachman frightens even ne’er-do-wells Honest John and Gideon with just the mention of Pleasure Island. That doesn’t stop the two from tricking Pinocchio from going there, but they’re afraid of that guy.
Furthermore, there’s the donkeys that used to be boys, sold into slave labor if they’re mute and somewhere else if they retain the power of speech. Lampwick is a pretty rotten kid, but he doesn’t deserve what happened to him, and his final transformation, as his hands turn into hooves, and his final words being forlorn calls for his mama, come too late for that fellow. And I’ll bet it scared a lot of kids besides me.
Yeah, that’s some dark stuff. And from what I know of the original novel, it’s a hell of a lot darker than that. I don’t think we should be surprised that Disney sanitizes its stories for audiences, but it is if you consider that this Pinocchio is the sanitized version.
You know, unless you consider the recent live action remake, and having seen it and the original fairly recently, how completely and utterly soulless these recent remakes are. Sure, they put the story elements in there, and they look like the original animated work as much as they could with live actors and CGI effects, but the thing that made the older stories the classics they are just, more often than not, isn’t there. If anything, the new Pinocchio feels awfully safe, where the young puppet-boy is kept from being overly guilty of most of his crimes and instead is mostly just carried along, even ending with Pinocchio still a living puppet instead of a real boy because, my guess is, they can’t make a sequel if he’s flesh and blood.
However, even with the darkness that seems to seep into this film more than most Disney feature films, I think it is still a very Disneyesque sort of film. After all, Pinocchio proves himself brave, truthful, and unselfish and becomes a real boy, but I’m not referring to that. I’m referring to “When You Wish Upon a Star,” a song that promises that when you do so, anything your heart desires will come true. The film further shows Gepetto gets that wish because he’s a good man (let’s ignore some of the things he does to Figaro the kitten that are played off as harmless pranks). What is that if not the sort of the sort of secular wholesomeness that Disney likes to promote? Good people are rewarded, and rewarded with whatever they desire in their heart of hearts, and all it takes is a good wish instead of a prayer. That could be any number of Disney films. The only difference is for Pinocchio, it’s stated plainly while in the others, it is often just implied.
NEXT: So far, the Stacker Challenge has led me to two movies by one of my favorite directors, Akira Kurosawa, that I hadn’t seen before. It looks like the next entry will do the same with another of my favorite directors, namely Stanley Kubrick. Be back soon for 1957’s anti-war film Paths of Glory.
0 Comments