Dumbo

Dir: Ben Sharpsteen, Bill Roberts, Jack Kinney, John Elliotte, Norm Ferguson, Samuel Armstrong, Wilfred Jackson

1941

****

Dumbo was the fourth Disney animated feature film and for me it is where the fun started. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio and Fantasia all contained fun elements, as did the part live-action, part animated The Reluctant Dragon which came out earlier in 1941, but none of them embraced a fun idea quite as much as Dumbo. Until now it was all serious with elements of comedy fun, with Dumbo it was comedy fun with a few serious moments. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a seminal piece, I adore Pinocchio and it’ll always be my favourite and Fantasia remains Disney’s most underrated work. Dumbo is all heart, but it was in fact made purely to recoup the financial losses of Fantasia. Disney have been open that it was a deliberate pursuit of simplicity and economy for the studio. Obviously all films are made to make money, but to think that poor little Dumbo was created purely for financial reasons makes me a little sad. I’m not sure there was a lot of love and passion in the studio at the time either. During the production, Herbert Sorrell, leader of the Screen Cartoonist's Guild, wanted Disney to sign with his union, rather than the IATSE, with which Disney had already signed. Disney declined, twice, saying he would put it to a vote. On May 29, 1941, shortly after rough animation on Dumbo was complete, much of the Disney studio staff went on strike. The strike lasted five weeks, and ended the "family" atmosphere and camaraderie at the studio. Of course another way of looking at it is that Dumbo saved the studio because despite the advent of The Second World War, Dumbo was still the most financially successful Disney film of the 1940s. After its October release, Dumbo proved to be a financial miracle compared to other Disney films. The rather simple film only cost $950,000 (equivalent to $16,000,000 in today’s money) to produce, half the cost of Snow White, less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio, and certainly less than the expensive Fantasia. Dumbo eventually grossed $1.6 million (equivalent to $27,000,000 today) during its original release. Dumbo and Snow White were the only two pre-1943 Disney features to turn a profit and of course the film made even more money when it was re-released in 1949, 1959, 1972, 1976 and throughout the 1980s. I remember watching Dumbo at the cinema, as well as all the other Disney animations, as if they were new films in the early 1980s. At only 64 minutes long, it is one of Disney’s shortest features. Upon the passing of winter, a flock of storks deliver babies to circus animals within the Winter Quarters of Florida. The first time I was ever aware of the baby delivering stork thing. All the mothers receive their parcels before departure except the elephant Mrs. Jumbo. During travel, a lost stork brings her an elephant who, to the other elephants' surprise, is adorned with extraordinarily large ears. He is made an object of ridicule and given the nickname "Dumbo". Mrs. Jumbo attempts to remain dignified and treats her child with all her maternal love, but when a group of rascals takes to mocking Dumbo, Mrs. Jumbo catches one of them with her trunk and spanks him. The circus ringmaster deems Mrs. Jumbo mad and has her locked in a cage. The lone Dumbo is made a pariah among the rest of the circus troupe. A small mouse named Timothy consoles Dumbo and vows to make him a star. After being secretly encouraged by Timothy, the ringmaster makes Dumbo the top of an elephant pyramid stunt. The performance goes awry as Dumbo trips over his ears and misses his target, causing the other elephants to suffer various injuries, and bring down the big top. Dumbo is made into a clown as a result, to the shame of the other elephants, and plays the main role in an act that involves him falling into a vat of pie filling. Despite his newfound popularity and fame, Dumbo dislikes this job, and is now more miserable than ever. To cheer Dumbo up, Timothy takes him to visit his imprisoned mother. The two are unable to see each other face to face, and can only entwine trunks. On the way back, Dumbo cries and then starts to hiccup, so Timothy takes him for a drink of water from a bucket which, unknown to them, has accidentally had a bottle of champagne spilled into it by the clowns. As a result, Dumbo and Timothy both become drunk and have surreal hallucinations of pink elephants. The next morning, Dumbo and Timothy are awakened by a group of crows who are surprised to find an elephant sitting on the highest branches of a tree. As the initial astonishment passes, Timothy surmises that Dumbo had managed to achieve flight using his large ears as wings. Timothy persuades Dumbo to use this gift with the support of the crows' leader, who gives Dumbo one of his feathers and convinces him that it carries magic properties that will allow him to fly. Back at the circus, Timothy proposes to Dumbo that he transform his clown act into a flying performance. As Dumbo unfolds his ears during the plummet, he loses the feather and panics. Timothy quickly confesses that the feather was never magical, and that he is still able to fly. Dumbo is able to pull out of the dive and flies around the circus, finally striking back at his tormentors as a stunned audience looks on in amazement. After this performance, Dumbo becomes a media sensation, Timothy becomes his manager, and Dumbo and Mrs. Jumbo are given a private car on the circus train. I love it for various reasons. I love that Dumbo and Timothy get drunk together. We’ll never see that again, and while the crows are very questionable in their racial stereotype, there are few things, like cartoons getting drunk, that I do miss from the old days. I also love how Dumbo and Timothy’s relationship breaks down the stereotypical animosity between mice and elephants, I’m not sure the youth of today are aware of this but I remember from a young age that elephants were scared of mice, which is of course a load of nonsense. I thought it was a nice way for kids to note that anyone, no matter who or what they are, can be friends despite what people say. The crows were a based on a terrible racial stereotype but I’ve always thought it worth remembering that they were the few ‘good guys’ of the story and the ones that helped Dumbo become who he did. I’m not defending the old days of racial stereotype but I do think some of the messages in the older films were quite profound and wholesome when you look back at them. I liked the story of Dumbo, more than most of the Disney classics and I still find it amazing that he was the one made with the least passion.