If Westbrook Pegler could write (as he did write in January, 1938) that Walt Disney's "Snow White" was the happiest event since the armistice, we can report confidently this morning that Mr. Disney's "Pinocchio" is the happiest event since the war. His second feature-length cartoon, three years in the making and the occasion of the Center Theatre's return to the cinema's ranks, is a blithe, chuckle-some, witty, fresh and beautifully drawn fantasy which is superior to "Snow White" in every respect but one: its score. And, since its score is merry and pleasant, if not quite so contagiously tuneful as the chorals of the seven little men who really weren't there, we shall not have it stressed to "Pinocchio's" disparagement. It still is the best thing Mr. Disney has done and therefore the best cartoon ever made.
Seeing a Disney work in action always is more fun than analyzing it, for charm is a quality even Barrie could not define and charm is the pulsating, radiant, winning something that shines through this latest Disney creation and makes it so captivating. It isn't at all self-conscious or calculating, like the charm of the matinee idol or honeyed radio voice; it seems almost too spontaneous for us to credit the fact that every bit of it was conceived, weighed, worked out during a three-year gestation period in a cartoon factory. At the risk of being, of all hateful words, sentimental, we would say "Pinocchio" is the work of men of goodwill and good fellowship. From Disney down to his least inker, animator or air-brush wielder, we sense a guild of craftsmen smiling over their drawing boards and paintpots, delighted with the make-believe world they are creating.
The make-believe here, of course, is basically of Collodi's imagining. It was his notion, in a quaint and moral-pointing fairy tale, to tell of a long-nosed boylike puppet, dubbed Pinocchio by Gepetto, the woodcarver, who was brought to life by the Blue Fairy but told he could not be a real little boy until he had acquired truth, courage and unselfishness. To assist him in his quest, she provided him with a conscience in the form of a cricket—Jiminy Cricket to Mr. Disney's fantastic crew—and there were adventures with a cruel puppetmaster, encounters with a wicked Fox and a Cat, a bewitched sojourn on Pleasure Island, where wayward little boys turned into jackasses, and, finally, an exciting descent to the ocean's floor to rescue poor Gépetto from the belly of a whale. All grist, obviously, to the Disney mill.
And he has had an impish, a scampish, a quizzical and disarmingly whimsical time with it from the moment his Jiminy Cricket (who acts as a debonair tourist guide through this wonderland) opens the pages of his fantasy to that, at the very end, when Figaro, the kitten, jumps into the goldfish bowl to plant an ecstatic and suspiciously fishy kiss on the cupid's-bow lips of Cleo, the kittenish goldfish. For all these curious folk and all their curious adventures have been drawn with Mr. Disney's invariably quick eye to amusing characterization and humorous detail, with his usual relish for a sly little joke, with his habitual enjoyment of telling whoppers and making them seem just as natural as a cricket in spats.
His Jiminy Cricket, as you might have guessed, is the Dopey of "Pinocchio," and for just the opposite reasons. He's smart as a cricket and twice as chirpy. It's something to hear him rap with his cane on the teeth of Monstro the Whale and demand admittance into the Blue Grottoed belly where Gepetto, perched on the rail of a swallowed derelict, is manfully fishing for tuna. It's something, too, to see the expression of annoyance drift across his face, glacier-like, when Gepetto's clocks begin to hammer out the seconds he meant to pass in sleep. "Quiet!" he bellows, like an assistant director, and every pendulum freezes in mid-swing. No question about it, Jiminy Cricket has a commanding presence and the droll voice of Cliff Edwards, who can burlesque a tenor with the worst of them.
But it isn't easy to call Jiminy the only favorite. Pinocchio is a fresh little cuss, Cleo the Goldfish is a dream and Figaro the kitten is the kind of kitten only Disney's men could draw, exact to the whistling purr, the wicked side-glance, the bewildered and hurt look when the hand that has been scratching its neck suddenly is withdrawn. You'll like Mr. Disney's cast, from cricket to Monstro, from kitten to Fox, from Gepetto to goldfish.
Technically, and we hate to be technical at a time like this, it answers every one of the objections raised when "Snow White" was shown. The drawing is finer, with none of the line-straying noticeable when Prince Charming and his Cinderella took the screen. The handling of shadows and highlights is surer, and the color-lovely as it was in Disney's first cartoon feature—is immeasurably lovelier here. We note, too, with vast admiration, evidences of true direction—freer use of camera in panning, zoom shot and dollying, so that the vantage point is not fixed but travels to and from and with the subjects in its range. Some uses of it are cute, too—like the camera's hopping toward a scene when little Jiminy is telling us how he hopped over to take a look in Gepetto's window.
But that's enough about technique. Its refinement was inevitable, for Mr. Disney is a notorious perfectionist; we've no doubt he is dissatisfied still and will have even greater marvels for us in his "Fantasia," the next of his promised features. What really matters, and all that matters, this morning is that "Pinocchio" is here at last, is every bit as fine as we had prayed it would be—if not finer—and that it is as gay and clever and delightful a fantasy as any well-behaved youngster or jaded oldster could hope to see.
PINOCCHIO, a feature-length cartoon adapted from Collodi's fantasy; screen play by Ted Sears, Webb Smith, Joseph Sabo, Otto Englander, William Cottrell, Erdman Penner and Aurelius Battaglia; supervising directors Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske; sequence directors Bill Roberts, Jack Kinney, Norman Ferguson Wilfred Jackson and T. Hee; animation directors Fred Moore, Milton Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, Franklin Thomas, Vladimir Tytla, Arthur Babbitt and Woolie Reitherman; character designs by Joe Grant, Albert Hurter, Campbell Grant, John P. Miller, Martin Provensen and John Walbridge; music and lyrics by Leigh Harline, Ned Washington and Paul J. Smith; art director, Charles Philippi; a Walt Disney production; released by RKO Radio Pictures. At the Center Theatre.
With the following characters:
Gepetto, the wood carver
Pinocchio
Jiminy Cricket
Figaro, the kitten
Cleo, the goldfish
J. Worthington Foulfellow, the fox
Gideon, the punch-drunk cat
Stromboli, the puppetmaster
The Blue Fairy
Lampwick, the bad boy
Monstro, the whale
The Coachman
If you don't know what all the shooting's about at the Paramount this week, we'll tell you; it's the United States Army under old General Ralph Morgan alternately chasing and being chased by an Injun varmint called Geronimo. And in spite of all the chasing, neither the redskins nor the white folks manage to run down a plot suitable for sustaining interest over the requisite feature-length period.
To do them justice both sides beat manfully about a number of promising plot bushes, but the only semblance of actual plot uncovered by this furious activity are bits of baggage and old blank cartridges left over from Cecil De Mille's "The Plainsman" and John Ford's "Stagecoach," which passed this way with considerably more dash and distinction than "Geronimo" seems able to muster.
All this is not intended as a reflection on Geronimo himself, who is a remarkably genuine redskin with a vocabulary of one grunt and a histrionic repertoire of two expressions: grim, and very grim. Whether or not Geronimo's role is even a "speaking role" within the narrow limits laid down by the Screen Actors' Guild contract is something which would have to be determined by the delicate legal machinery of that organization. Our own vote would be in the negative—not because we wish to deprive Chief Thunder Cloud of the additional union wage, but simply because we doubt that there is even an Indian language in which so much hard service is demanded of a single monosyllable.
Other members of the cast, however, more than make up for the Chief's deficiency of dialogue. Preston Foster, as the heroic and self-effacing Captain Starrett, talks a blue streak whenever he can get any member of the post, officer or private, to relax discipline long enough to listen to him. Andy Devine, the ill-groomed scout, whose quinsy persists, not only talks continually in barracks, but waxes as philosophical, as if he had been written by William Saroyan. Gene Lockhart, as the frontier rat who supplies repeating rifles to the redskins, not only talks, but guiltily sweats when they've finally cornered him. And there is quite a lengthy cast, including several unpioneer-looking women in the background whose principal difficulty seems to be that they can't get a word in edgewise. On the whole you may be grateful for the taciturnity of good old Geronimo before the picture's over.
At the Paramount
GERONIMO, screen play by Paul H. Sloane; directed by Mr. Sloane; a Paramount production.
Captain Starrett . . . . . Preston Foster
Alice Hamilton . . . . . Ellen Drew
Sneezer . . . . . Andy Devine
Lieutenant Steele . . . . . William Henry
General Steele . . . . . Ralph Morgan
Gillespie . . . . . Gene Lockhart
Mrs. Steele . . . . . Marjorie Gateson
Daisy Devine . . . . . Kitty Kelly
Interpreter . . . . . Monte Blue
Colonel White . . . . . Pierre Watkin
Frederick Allison . . . . . Addison Richards
Geronimo . . . . . Chief Thunder Cloud
President Grant . . . . . Joseph Crehan
Cherrycow . . . . . Hank Bell
McNell . . . . . William Haade
Pedro . . . . . Joe Dominguez
Columbus Delano . . . . . Stanley Andrews
Hamilton Fish . . .
If Westbrook Pegler could write (as he did write in January, 1938) that Walt Disney's "Snow White" was the happiest event since the armistice, we can report confidently this morning that Mr. Disney's "Pinocchio" is the happiest event since the war. His second feature-length cartoon, three years in the making and the occasion of the Center Theatre's return to the cinema's ranks, is a blithe, chuckle-some, witty, fresh and beautifully drawn fantasy which is superior to "Snow White" in every respect but one: its score. And, since its score is merry and pleasant, if not quite so contagiously tuneful as the chorals of the seven little men who really weren't there, we shall not have it stressed to "Pinocchio's" disparagement. It still is the best thing Mr. Disney has done and therefore the best cartoon ever made.
Seeing a Disney work in action always is more fun than analyzing it, for charm is a quality even Barrie could not define and charm is the pulsating, radiant, winning something that shines through this latest Disney creation and makes it so captivating. It isn't at all self-conscious or calculating, like the charm of the matinee idol or honeyed radio voice; it seems almost too spontaneous for us to credit the fact that every bit of it was conceived, weighed, worked out during a three-year gestation period in a cartoon factory. At the risk of being, of all hateful words, sentimental, we would say "Pinocchio" is the work of men of goodwill and good fellowship. From Disney down to his least inker, animator or air-brush wielder, we sense a guild of craftsmen smiling over their drawing boards and paintpots, delighted with the make-believe world they are creating.
The make-believe here, of course, is basically of Collodi's imagining. It was his notion, in a quaint and moral-pointing fairy tale, to tell of a long-nosed boylike puppet, dubbed Pinocchio by Gepetto, the woodcarver, who was brought to life by the Blue Fairy but told he could not be a real little boy until he had acquired truth, courage and unselfishness. To assist him in his quest, she provided him with a conscience in the form of a cricket—Jiminy Cricket to Mr. Disney's fantastic crew—and there were adventures with a cruel puppetmaster, encounters with a wicked Fox and a Cat, a bewitched sojourn on Pleasure Island, where wayward little boys turned into jackasses, and, finally, an exciting descent to the ocean's floor to rescue poor Gépetto from the belly of a whale. All grist, obviously, to the Disney mill.
And he has had an impish, a scampish, a quizzical and disarmingly whimsical time with it from the moment his Jiminy Cricket (who acts as a debonair tourist guide through this wonderland) opens the pages of his fantasy to that, at the very end, when Figaro, the kitten, jumps into the goldfish bowl to plant an ecstatic and suspiciously fishy kiss on the cupid's-bow lips of Cleo, the kittenish goldfish. For all these curious folk and all their curious adventures have been drawn with Mr. Disney's invariably quick eye to amusing characterization and humorous detail, with his usual relish for a sly little joke, with his habitual enjoyment of telling whoppers and making them seem just as natural as a cricket in spats.
His Jiminy Cricket, as you might have guessed, is the Dopey of "Pinocchio," and for just the opposite reasons. He's smart as a cricket and twice as chirpy. It's something to hear him rap with his cane on the teeth of Monstro the Whale and demand admittance into the Blue Grottoed belly where Gepetto, perched on the rail of a swallowed derelict, is manfully fishing for tuna. It's something, too, to see the expression of annoyance drift across his face, glacier-like, when Gepetto's clocks begin to hammer out the seconds he meant to pass in sleep. "Quiet!" he bellows, like an assistant director, and every pendulum freezes in mid-swing. No question about it, Jiminy Cricket has a commanding presence and the droll voice of Cliff Edwards, who can burlesque a tenor with the worst of them.
But it isn't easy to call Jiminy the only favorite. Pinocchio is a fresh little cuss, Cleo the Goldfish is a dream and Figaro the kitten is the kind of kitten only Disney's men could draw, exact to the whistling purr, the wicked side-glance, the bewildered and hurt look when the hand that has been scratching its neck suddenly is withdrawn. You'll like Mr. Disney's cast, from cricket to Monstro, from kitten to Fox, from Gepetto to goldfish.
Technically, and we hate to be technical at a time like this, it answers every one of the objections raised when "Snow White" was shown. The drawing is finer, with none of the line-straying noticeable when Prince Charming and his Cinderella took the screen. The handling of shadows and highlights is surer, and the color-lovely as it was in Disney's first cartoon feature—is immeasurably lovelier here. We note, too, with vast admiration, evidences of true direction—freer use of camera in panning, zoom shot and dollying, so that the vantage point is not fixed but travels to and from and with the subjects in its range. Some uses of it are cute, too—like the camera's hopping toward a scene when little Jiminy is telling us how he hopped over to take a look in Gepetto's window.
But that's enough about technique. Its refinement was inevitable, for Mr. Disney is a notorious perfectionist; we've no doubt he is dissatisfied still and will have even greater marvels for us in his "Fantasia," the next of his promised features. What really matters, and all that matters, this morning is that "Pinocchio" is here at last, is every bit as fine as we had prayed it would be—if not finer—and that it is as gay and clever and delightful a fantasy as any well-behaved youngster or jaded oldster could hope to see.
PINOCCHIO, a feature-length cartoon adapted from Collodi's fantasy; screen play by Ted Sears, Webb Smith, Joseph Sabo, Otto Englander, William Cottrell, Erdman Penner and Aurelius Battaglia; supervising directors Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske; sequence directors Bill Roberts, Jack Kinney, Norman Ferguson Wilfred Jackson and T. Hee; animation directors Fred Moore, Milton Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, Franklin Thomas, Vladimir Tytla, Arthur Babbitt and Woolie Reitherman; character designs by Joe Grant, Albert Hurter, Campbell Grant, John P. Miller, Martin Provensen and John Walbridge; music and lyrics by Leigh Harline, Ned Washington and Paul J. Smith; art director, Charles Philippi; a Walt Disney production; released by RKO Radio Pictures. At the Center Theatre.
With the following characters:
Gepetto, the wood carver
Pinocchio
Jiminy Cricket
Figaro, the kitten
Cleo, the goldfish
J. Worthington Foulfellow, the fox
Gideon, the punch-drunk cat
Stromboli, the puppetmaster
The Blue Fairy
Lampwick, the bad boy
Monstro, the whale
The Coachman
If you don't know what all the shooting's about at the Paramount this week, we'll tell you; it's the United States Army under old General Ralph Morgan alternately chasing and being chased by an Injun varmint called Geronimo. And in spite of all the chasing, neither the redskins nor the white folks manage to run down a plot suitable for sustaining interest over the requisite feature-length period.
To do them justice both sides beat manfully about a number of promising plot bushes, but the only semblance of actual plot uncovered by this furious activity are bits of baggage and old blank cartridges left over from Cecil De Mille's "The Plainsman" and John Ford's "Stagecoach," which passed this way with considerably more dash and distinction than "Geronimo" seems able to muster.
All this is not intended as a reflection on Geronimo himself, who is a remarkably genuine redskin with a vocabulary of one grunt and a histrionic repertoire of two expressions: grim, and very grim. Whether or not Geronimo's role is even a "speaking role" within the narrow limits laid down by the Screen Actors' Guild contract is something which would have to be determined by the delicate legal machinery of that organization. Our own vote would be in the negative—not because we wish to deprive Chief Thunder Cloud of the additional union wage, but simply because we doubt that there is even an Indian language in which so much hard service is demanded of a single monosyllable.
Other members of the cast, however, more than make up for the Chief's deficiency of dialogue. Preston Foster, as the heroic and self-effacing Captain Starrett, talks a blue streak whenever he can get any member of the post, officer or private, to relax discipline long enough to listen to him. Andy Devine, the ill-groomed scout, whose quinsy persists, not only talks continually in barracks, but waxes as philosophical, as if he had been written by William Saroyan. Gene Lockhart, as the frontier rat who supplies repeating rifles to the redskins, not only talks, but guiltily sweats when they've finally cornered him. And there is quite a lengthy cast, including several unpioneer-looking women in the background whose principal difficulty seems to be that they can't get a word in edgewise. On the whole you may be grateful for the taciturnity of good old Geronimo before the picture's over.
At the Paramount
GERONIMO, screen play by Paul H. Sloane; directed by Mr. Sloane; a Paramount production.
Captain Starrett . . . . . Preston Foster
Alice Hamilton . . . . . Ellen Drew
Sneezer . . . . . Andy Devine
Lieutenant Steele . . . . . William Henry
General Steele . . . . . Ralph Morgan
Gillespie . . . . . Gene Lockhart
Mrs. Steele . . . . . Marjorie Gateson
Daisy Devine . . . . . Kitty Kelly
Interpreter . . . . . Monte Blue
Colonel White . . . . . Pierre Watkin
Frederick Allison . . . . . Addison Richards
Geronimo . . . . . Chief Thunder Cloud
President Grant . . . . . Joseph Crehan
Cherrycow . . . . . Hank Bell
McNell . . . . . William Haade
Pedro . . . . . Joe Dominguez
Columbus Delano . . . . . Stanley Andrews
Hamilton Fish . . .
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