The Nine Disney Animated Masterpieces
Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty
Having taken us into his confidence and established the story as a flashback that will corroborate the efficacy of wishing upon a star, Jiminy Cricket now launches into his narration and pries open that big book. When the end paper...
With these difficulties of design and story finally resolved, full animation on Pinocchio resumed in September of 1938. The film’s marvelous visual intricacy is due in large part to the further inspirational graphic explorations of two veterans of classic European...
Evolution of the puppet’s personality paralleled the development of his visual design. In Collodi’s book, Pinocchio, which translates as “pine eye”, is an obnoxious devious bratty little troublemaker. At Walt’s own urging, the storymen had already re-conceived him as closer...
Author of novels, short stories, plays, even an opera, Carlo Lorenzini (1826-1890) was born in Florence, Italy, but moved to Tuscany in order to attend elementary school there in the little town of Collodi. He assumed the town’s name as...
“What they can’t do these days!” exclaims Jiminy Cricket upon surreptitiously witnessing the Blue Fairy wave her sparkling wand and bring a wooden puppet to life. His direct address from the screen to the film’s viewers, almost unprecedented in animated...
“The greatest film ever made” declared Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) the revered Russian pioneer film-maker, auteur of Battleship Potemkin. None other than the renowned silent filmstar and comedian Charlie Chaplain pronounced Dopey to be “one of the greatest comedians of all...
So far the film’s entire narrative has happened in only a day-and-a-half. In order to bridge the gap of time between this funereal scene and the following springtime three title cards now intervene narrating the story in text over a...
Gradually candlelight dispels the darkness and reveals Snow White lying serenely beautiful – victim of the Sleeping Death – on a bier inside the dwarf’s cottage, her head resting on a pillow, her lower body covered beneath a sheet. The...
It starts with the dwarfs’ arrival at the mine still singing then whistling “Heigh-ho Heigh-ho” as they get down to work – loading the mine cart with their tools and dragging it toward the tunnel. Doc as usual at the...
Another cross-cut back to the old Peddler Woman now advancing through the daylit forest, mumbling to herself still reviewing the niceties of her scheme. She passes beneath a tree in which two vultures perch, watching her. They exchange a knowing...
