World War 2 was a bad time for Disney animation. They had labor troubles (the underpaid artists were on strike), the closing of European movie theaters had deprived Disney of needed revenue, much of the studio's talent had been drafted, and the US government was demanding that much of their continued production go towards morale boosting propaganda. As a result, production on full length features was halted for nearly a decade. Bambi was released in 1942, but after that
Disney's theatrical releases during the rest of the 40s were all package films; glorified shorts cobbled together to theatrical length just to keep the studio running.
Ichabod/Toad wasn't one of those, but it's only a short step above. It was released in 1949, and must have been the project the studio worked on as they got back to full strength after the war.
Cinderella came out in 1950 and
Alice in Wonderland in 1951, for the sake of comparison.
Toad/Ichabod is only about an hour long, and it's two stories of equivalent length; an adaptation of
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and a short but representative bit from
The Wind in the Willows, with the English gentleman Mr. Toad losing his manor to the weasels, then fighting to reclaim it. Each segment is narrated by a famous actor (Basil Rathbone and Bing Crosby) and since they're only 30 minutes long, they get right to the point. There's very little characterization or plot development; these shorts leap right into things and run with it, with the narrator providing most of the exposition.
Neither of them is any good, but neither is horrible. Scores, averaged between the two:
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, 1949
Script/Story: 4
Characters/Performances: 8
Concept: 6
Action: 7
Eye Candy: 7
Fun Factor: 6
Replayability: 4
Overall: 5
Each segment is fairly entertaining, but limited by the length and format. Since they're so short, they don't really have a plot; just a series of quick, very action-heavy events. The animation is pretty good, both of the characters and the backgrounds, and they're both visually pleasing and occasionally exciting to view. They're just insubstantial and forgettable, since neither really has a plot.
Ichabod Crane's segment is much the worse of the two, since it not only lacks a plot, but cheats the viewer of the payoff. The story is simple; Ichabod is a new school teacher in a rural area, who is trying to court the gorgeous daughter of Van Tassel, the richest local merchant. His competition for the girl is the town stud, a blustering bully who looks exactly like the bad guy in
Beauty and the Beast. Same big chest, black hair, Bluto-shaped body, cocky BMoC mannerisms, etc. He's not just similar, he's identical. Take this guy out and put him into B&B and there'd be no change. It was eerie to watch, since I saw
Beauty and the Beast before this one, even though it was released 42 years later.
At any rate, there are some minor antics with the tall, goofy, and freakishly skinny Ichabod getting the better of the hulking brute Brom Bones. Things come to a head with a big party at the Van Tassel estate, when Ichabod out dances and out maneuvers Brom, but when it comes time for story telling, Brom gives a virtuoso performances of the Legend of Sleepy Holly, starring the Headless Horseman.
Ichabod is very superstitious, and is scared shitless by the tale. When he eventually heads home (alone, despite there having been about 50 people at the party) his imagination starts to work, and he hears footsteps behind him, starts at every shadow, etc. Eventually the Headless Horseman bursts into sight, pursuing Ichabod madly and slashing at him with a sword. Much comic action ensues, with Ichabod finally escaping over the bridge that's said to be the boundary of the Horseman's range. The Horseman stops there, his horse rearing, and hurls his head, a flaming jack-o'-lantern, after Ichabod. It hits the "camera" and the screen fades to black.
Then the story jumps to an afterward, with Brom marrying Katerina, and Ichabod never seen again. Except in the epilogue, when he's shown with a plump little wife and about 15 kids. Which is fine, but who was the Headless Horsemen? I assumed it was Brom in disguise, and that he'd reveal himself once Ichabod was scared away. No such reveal is shown, so we're left to wonder if it was all in Ichabod's imagination, or if there really was a murderous ghostly figure haunting the woods, one who only attacked Ichabod, despite there being dozens of other party goers in the woods that night.
I don't mind ambivalent endings, but this one felt like a rip off, since the story built up to Brom playing some dastardly trick on Ichabod. And maybe he did, but it's not made clear one way or the other, nor do we know if anything actually happened, or if we got the ultimate "it was all just a dream" cop out.
The other story was slightly better, but only just. I probably read some amount of
The Wind in the Willows as a child, but I had no real memory of it, and nothing in this short made me want to seek it out at this point. The introduction to the segment has much narration about how Mr. Toad is the greatest character in all English fiction, and his rich world of invention and animal antics is unsurpassed, etc. And then the cartoon starts and Toad is a hyperactive asshole noble, whose inherited wealth shields him from the consequences of his reckless actions. Eventually he signs away his manor for a stolen car, gets caught in the car, and is sent to jail when he can't prove that he "bought" it fair and square from a pack of thieving weasels.
Naturally, Toad breaks out, returns to his friends, and they help him sneak back into his manor, which has been overrun by the thieving weasels. Madcap antics ensue, as the numerically superior, murderous weasels try to kill Toad and company, who are there to steal back the deed he'd signed over, since that will prove his story, which the court rightly laughed at in the first place.
Spoiler time! They recover the deed. Yes I was shocked too. With it back and the weasels conveniently disappeared, everything appears to be happily ever after, until the epilogue when Toad now has an aeroplane and is bombing around the countryside in reckless madcap fashion, just as he formerly did with a wagon and then with the hot ride.
I'm not sure who this miniature double feature of a film was targeted at. It's not really a childrens movie, not in the way some of the other very immature Disney animations are. The adapted literary properties are fairly mature works, but the adaptations are so superficial and action-heavy that anyone who loved the original stories would be bored and disappointed by the cartoon. I suppose the films could serve as something of an introduction to the novels for children, but even that's iffy, since the films are enjoyable to young children who couldn't read the stories, and teens or mature kids who would like the books would be bored by the infantile, one-note films.
Oh well, Disney had to do something during the War, I guess.
Labels: disney, movie review
