15. Lady and the Tramp (1955)

When I was a kid, Lady and the Tramp was the only one of the “classic” Disney movies I never saw; in fact, other than a few of the package films like Make Mine Music or Melody Time, it was the only Disney movie I never saw. I used to have a babysitter who would look after me at the same time as her grandchildren, who she’d pamper and spoil, while I got pretty much ignored, making her oddly similar to a character from this movie, incidentally. I remember one thing very vividly – she would always put on Lady and the Tramp for her grandkids to watch, but I was never allowed to watch with them and I had to sit in the corner with my back turned to the TV and look at the wall. Perhaps it was this experience, which looking back on it now sounds like something out of a Roald Dahl book, that turned me against Lady and the Tramp, because for years I intentionally dismissed and ignored it and deliberately avoided ever watching it; it was only very recently that I finally saw it for the very first time. I came to Lady and the Tramp with no childhood memories and few preconceived notions – I only ever knew about the spaghetti scene and those creepy Siamese cats – and viewed it with completely new eyes. Is that really so important? Probably not. Would I have liked it more as a kid? Probably not. Either way, for about ninenteen years of waiting, Lady and the Tramp delivered about as best as it could – it’s pretty okay.

Artistically, the film is thankfully a bit of a step up from the last few films, but not by all that much; though it’s not as colourful or imaginative as Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland, the animation quality and attention to detail is generally improved. The character designs are mostly pretty standard, the human characters look very similar to those from Peter Pan and Cinderella, they are mostly wooden and bland looking, but fortunately, they are not the focus of the movie. While the animal characters are hardly fantastically designed either, they at least have some level of personality and creativity and all stand out from one another; Lady is probably the best designed of them all, her wide, round eyes and open mouth relate her sense of naive curiosity and sweet innocence very effectively. She has a very cute and cuddly design that means you just want to reach in the screen and pet her, which I imagine is probably what the animators were going for, so well done there, I guess. The animation on the dogs is pretty good too, Disney demonstrate once again that they seem to have a better handle on animating animals than they do humans, at least in these earlier years, though some of the more cartoony humans such as Tony and Joe, who work at the Italian restaurant, are well suited to their animation style as well. The animators studied a lot of different dog breeds in order to get their particular quirks and nuances down right and it definitely comes across – the dogs all move like real dogs, they have a lot of nice little touches, particularly in the way that they walk, which they got just right; it’s not quite as good as the animal animation in Bambi, but it’s more complex animation than we’ve seen in a while. The backgrounds are great, they don’t exactly stand out, but I suppose they aren’t really supposed to, they are more like paintings that have carefully been constructed for the characters to walk around in. The shots of the suburban street that Lady lives on, particularly the opening shots, which take place on Christmas night, are very beautiful and perfectly capture a sense of early 20^th century American suburbia, the attention to detail is very impressive and it really helps create a strong setting for the film. Another great shot is of Lady standing on the landing, looking up the stairs to the baby’s room, as light shines in through the large window; the use of angles and lighting is fantastic; on the whole, the general art design of this movie is very nice.

Looking like Kubrick or something

The story is sweet and simple, if not very engaging, the plot is very basic and lacking in much drama – there is no real villain, except the rat, who seems to have a weird fixation with killing the baby (Really, what does the rat get out of it, is he just that evil?) and to an extent, Aunt Sarah; Lady is an upper-class dog who is afraid that her owners’ new baby will take attention away from her, but soon grows protective of the child, she then meets the lower-class Tramp and they fall in love. That’s really all there is to it, this is simply another light hearted comedy, though rather than Alice in Wonderland which is more over the top and zany or Peter Pan, which tries to add in action and adventure as well, Lady in the Tramp remains grounded and never goes too wild or farcical. Though to some degree, this is a good thing, as it means there are no awkward shifts in tone and the movie doesn’t have to split its running time between comedy and action, it also means that the film never really takes off or goes anywhere that interesting, it’s just consistently pleasant. The humour isn’t exactly laugh out loud funny either, it’s just cute, as is most of the film, but it never becomes too cute or anything, it’s just kind of nice all the way through; one of the funnier parts of the film is the fact that all the dogs think that Lady’s owners are called Jim Dear and Darling, because that’s what they always call one another. That’s what the humour is like, it’s hardly comedy gold, it’s just cute little stuff that’ll make you smile; this might not be much, but I don’t think the film was really going for much more, so I suppose in that regard it does its job pretty well.

The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind

There are quite a lot of characters in Lady and the Tramp, though they mostly only get a couple of scenes each, they aren’t really characters so much as character designs, vehicles to show off how differently Disney can animate each different type of animal, most prominently, different breeds of dog. It’s a nice idea, but it gets old pretty fast, in one scene Lady is taken to the pound pretty much solely so we can see a bunch of different dog breeds say about two lines each, many of which are given stereotypes to match their origin, such as a Chihuahua who speaks in an over the top Mexican accent and sleeps a lot. Yeah. Similarly, there’s a scene where Lady and Tramp go to a zoo and meet a bunch of different animals, including a beaver who seems to be the origin for Gopher from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, then of course there’s the famous scene with the Siamese cats, there’s just a lot of scenes where Lady meets different animals for Disney to animate, you get the idea. The human characters aren’t given much time either, Jim Dear and Darling are just nice and that’s about it, though admittedly, they are supposed to be distant figures, removed from Lady and the other animals, so this works pretty well. Probably the most lively of any of the characters is Aunt Sarah, whose extreme personality is kind of jarringly at odds with the rest of the film’s down to earth and relaxed nature; she’s really annoying, but she’s supposed to be, so I guess she works pretty well, for what she is.

The most prominent of the side characters are Jock and Trusty, Lady’s neighbours and sidekicks who are also pretty generic clichés – Jock is a Scottish Terrier who speaks in a strong Scottish accent and has a bit of a temper and Trusty is a slow talking, dim-witted bloodhound who rambles on a lot; there’s nothing especially annoying about them, but they’re a bit of a bore. Lady herself is alright, once again she’s another nice but boring and relatively passive protagonist, but it works better here because she’s a pampered pet so it fits that she’s kind of naive about the world; still, the archetype is wearing a little thin. Lady does have a degree of charm to her though, helped by her aforementioned cute and cuddly design and her voice, provided Barbara Luddy, which is enjoyably breathy and husky and helps add a lot to her character. Tramp is probably the best of the characters, he’s a classically loveable scoundrel, a bit of a trickster and a joker, but he’s got a good heart; it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but it’s done well enough that he comes off as likeable and fun rather than generic or annoying. The romance between the two isn’t exactly well developed or powerful, but it’s at least given more time to grow than previous ones, such as Cinderella and Prince Charming or Snow White and her nameless Prince, who both share about two scenes and seem to fall in love over a few minutes. Lady and Tramp at least spend a decent amount of time together, get to know each other and we see the sowing of the seeds of their relationship, before it blossoms; it’s not a fantastic love story and, surprisingly, it’s not even really the focus of the film, but it’s sweet enough and it's refreshing to see Disney do a love story that is a little more downplayed.

Lady and the Tramp and the Spaghetti and the Meatballs

There aren’t that many songs and they’re a little disappointing, though they are more like actual musical numbers than those in Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland, they are still pretty short and don’t really take centre stage, they’re more like short breathers the movie takes before getting back to the “action”. “Bella Notte” is rather nice and its use in the movie’s most famous scene, where Lady and Tramp have dinner, is good; it’s a sweet song, though not an inventive one. Disney also continues its tradition of progressively more racially insensitive songs with “We Are Siamese”, featuring Siamese cats that act like Asian caricatures, with big buck teeth, broken English and accents close to Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s level. They’re definitely pretty rough stereotypes, but the song is still very memorable and enjoyable with some nice lyrics, though unfortunately it doesn’t really last as a song for very long and the cats quickly start just speaking the lines, rather than singing them, which is a bit of a bummer. Still, while it lasts, “We Are Siamese” is a good, if slightly offensive number – any song that manages to rhyme something with ‘domicile’ is okay by me. The other songs are pretty forgettable, except for “He’s a Tramp”, though I personally don’t really care for it, if only because it strikes me as just an excuse for Peggy Lee to do a number, as she voices the dog who sings it who is also called Peg. If it was a great song it might not bother me and to a degree it has a nice, jazzy tune, but I dunno I just don’t really like it, something about that Peggy Lee dog singing it like she’s a lounge singer or something just rubs me the wrong way.

After years of build-up, constantly hearing about it being one of the classic Disney movies and seeing a few of its more famous scenes over and over, Lady and the Tramp was never going to meet my expectations, but that isn’t the movie’s fault. As it is, Lady and the Tramp is a perfectly fine movie; the animals are cute, the love story is basic, but sweet, the animation is good and it never gets too in your face. It’s a very warm comedy, seemingly designed not to make you laugh so much as make you smile and it definitely achieves that, I find it hard to believe that anyone could hate or especially dislike this movie, it’s just too darn pleasant. While unfortunately, this desire to please means that Lady and the Tramp never takes any risks and so, never becomes all that interesting or unique, it also prevents itself from ever taking any nasty missteps. Lady and the Tramp seems to have been made with the almost deliberate intention of just being “pretty good” and while something can be said about the dangers of setting low goals for oneself, it paid off here; Lady and the Tramp isn’t a knockout, but it’s pretty good.

Other Thoughts

• This is like the saddest thing ever

That dog is SAD

• Seriously look at these guys

We are weird ethnic stereotypes, if you please

5.5/10

Next Week: Sleeping Beauty!

Email: joetalksaboutstuff@gmail.com

Twitter: @JSChilds

14. Peter Pan (1953)

Peter Pan was a film that Walt Disney had wanted to make for quite some time – in fact, it was originally planned to be the second Disney animated feature, after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – and you can certainly see why. The spirit of adventure in the story and, more importantly, the idea of keeping one’s youth and never growing up, is right in line with Disney’s traditional style and attitude. Unfortunately, despite the film’s childlike energy and sense of adventure, it never really explores the issues of childhood or motherhood in an interesting way, nor does it deliver a particularly fun adventure, meaning the finished product is a little disappointing.

The animation hasn’t got much better than Alice in Wonderland, there’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s nothing special about it either. There are some pretty impressive uses of it for physical humour (even if it’s not really very funny), particularly in characters such as Captain Hook or Smee, who are constantly moving and doing multiple things at once, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen Disney do better before. The art style of the movie is nice, but basic and a bit unoriginal, you can definitely see the style of Alice in Wonderland and to a lesser extent, Cinderella in some of these character designs, particularly Wendy, who has the exact same wide-eyes and facial expressions as Alice. There isn’t much attention to detail and  though there is an attempt to give some characters a sense of unique personality in their design and animation style – again, Hook and Smee in particular, as well as Tinker Bell – many of the other characters have pretty flat designs and end up just blending together: the Darlings are a group of generic looking children, the Lost Boys are another group of generic looking children that just happen to be wearing animal skins, the pirates are a group of generic looking pirate clichés and the Indians are a group of stereotypically generic looking depictions of Native Americans in the 50’s. It’s certainly not as lifeless or derivative as in Cinderella, but the art design and animation here still leaves something to be desired.

Peter Pan, about to enter the bedroom of some young children. No wonder Michael Jackson liked this film so much

The basic premise of Peter Pan seems like a pretty interesting one, a strange boy named Peter Pan shows up to collect his shadow from the Darlings’ house, then takes them on an adventure in Neverland, a place where children never grow up, where they meet Mermaids, Indians, fairies and pirates; this sounds like a pretty exciting adventure! There are a lot of creative ideas here too, my favourite of which is the idea that Wendy has to sew Peter’s shadow back onto the soles of his feet, there’s just something so fascinating about that strange image. However, I don’t think the film ever really gets a grasp on how to use these ideas well – instead of being amazed or surprised by the idea that she has caught Peter’s shadow, or suddenly being struck by the surreal idea of sewing it back onto him, Wendy seems casually nonchalant about the whole situation and appears to just inherently understand that she has to sew it back on, as if that is an immediately obvious solution. I confess to not being that familiar with the original J.M. Barrie play or novel, so I’m not sure exactly how he approached this idea, but in my opinion Disney take an interesting situation and fumble it and continue to do so throughout the film.

Neverland should be an outlandish and amazing place filled with wonder and enchantment, like Wonderland or Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, instead, it mostly comes across as an island you could find in the real world with few fantastical elements. Indians, pirates, crocodiles, jungles, beaches, lagoons, these are all things that exist or have existed in our world; though there are a few magical elements such as Tinker Bell and her pixie dust and the mermaids, Tinker Bell is more like a magical creature who just happens to follow Peter around, rather than some being who is intrinsically linked to Neverland and the mermaids appear in only one scene. Even in the moments with fantastical elements or at least, real-life elements that should be exciting such as the pirates, Peter Pan doesn’t have much of a sense of wonder, as said before, the children seem pretty nonchalant about all the strange things happening to them and since we mostly see the film through their eyes, that means that so we are we; there is no sense of awe or gravity to Neverland or its inhabitants, we do not marvel in childlike wonder at the discovery of mermaids, for example, but rather, are merely expected to laugh at their childish bullying of Wendy. I found only a couple of scenes to have this feeling of awe, the first being the wonderful final image of the pirate ship sailing across the moon at the end of the film and the second being the scene when the children first arrive in Neverland and must dodge Hook’s cannonballs from atop the clouds. The world above the clouds looks beautiful and Peter’s playful toying with Hook, as the cannonballs sail past him and right through the clouds, fills the audience with a sense of awe and excitement that is sorely lacking in the rest of the film.

Oh, hello there Ariel...?

It is here that we find the film’s biggest problem, namely, its awkward tone; like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan is more light-hearted and silly than some of the other Disney films we’ve seen so far and seems to be intended to primarily be a slapstick comedy. The difference is, while Alice in Wonderland commits to purely being a fantastical comedy, Peter Pan also fancies itself an adventure flick, but ultimately finds itself unable to reconcile these two different genres into one cohesive product. The film tries so hard to be funny and cute, that it completely undermines any sense of action or adventure it tries to create, Captain Hook is such an over-the-top character who engages in frequent slapstick and is consistently embarrassed by Peter, that how can we take him seriously as a villain? Peter is clearly superior to Hook mentally and physically and effortlessly defeats him at every encounter, so it is pretty clear that neither he nor the Darlings are ever in any danger; the film has no stakes and little sense of conflict, so it fails as an exciting adventure. There is nothing wrong with an adventure story being light-hearted and funny, in fact, the best ones often are, but if you want to have an exciting and meaningful adventure that actually has a sense of purpose and threat, you need to be willing to take the story seriously, or how can you expect your audience to do the same? Even the more action packed moments fall a little flat, in particular Peter and Hook’s sword fights, which are animated in a slow and clunky manner, making them a little dull to watch, the only entertaining element is the slapstick as Peter continues to ridicule Hook, which once again, completely eradicates any sense of threat or danger in the scene. Where’s the fun in watching a climactic sword fight between a hero and a villain where the hero is so much better he doesn’t even need to try?  On top of that, the comedy is – in my opinion – not very funny anyway, save for a couple of times, so Peter Pan ultimately fails as both a fantastical comedy and an adventure flick, its few shining moments notwithstanding.

You’re a crook, Captain Hook

The characters aren’t particularly interesting either, though some do have pretty strong personalities, they have so little to do in the story that it usually just feels like they’re going through the motions. Peter Pan is a pretty decent protagonist, at least by Disney’s standards, if only because he is a little different from what we’re used to from them; rather than being a squeaky-clean, eternally kind and patient, mild-mannered person who falls into adventure, Peter is a cocky, carefree trickster who wants to have things his own way and isn’t afraid to play rough. It’s a refreshing change of pace to have a hero who’s more active and a bit of a troublemaker, you actually feel kind of sorry for the pathetic and hard-working Hook, who constantly falls prey to the lazy and overconfident Peter, who seems to genuinely enjoy screwing with his nemesis. I actually would have liked to see a bit more of Peter - who, despite being the title character, ironically steps out of the action quite often - because he is usually pretty fun, if still a little bland. 

Wendy is okay, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about her; on the one hand, she’s voiced by Kathryn Beaumont, who also voiced Alice in Alice in Wonderland and once again, she does a great job and has a very sweet and charming voice and a great, natural sense of delivery. Unfortunately, unlike Alice, who had a sense of independence and backbone, Wendy is a bit of airhead who just kind of follows Peter around and is pretty useless, constantly (and annoyingly) calling out ‘Peter!!!’ for him to swoop in and save her. She returns to the tired Disney model of an ineffectual and passive girl who is only allowed to be good at “girly” things such as sewing and mothering, allowing the male characters to take care of anything important. If the film had actually explored the idea of motherhood in a mature way, this might have actually been an interesting and complex aspect to Wendy’s character; unfortunately, it doesn’t have the time for these kind of complex issues and simply associates motherhood with a perfect, kind, loving, angelic figure who is always right, while completely ignoring any of the realistic stresses or difficulties that come with the role, as well as any importance that fatherhood plays.  As a result, Wendy is far too defined by her femininity; her lack of energy or excitement even in the face of the fantastical creatures of Neverland also mean she comes off as kind of dull, wooden and disinterested.

Bang, zoom, straight to the moon

The other Darlings are as boring as can be, you know when all you can say about them is that one is younger and one has a hat and umbrella that something is wrong. They lack any sense of personality and the younger boy, Michael, is basically just there to be cute, emphasised by the fact that he has an American accent despite being from London – they just couldn’t be bothered. The Lost Boys are an entire group of this same kind of character type, even if they are a little older and less overtly cutesy, they clearly exist just to be cute little kids, but they only come off as irritating. I must also admit that I don’t really care for Captain Hook, I know he’s really popular and beloved and everything, but I just don’t really enjoy him that much; to me, Hook is just too goofy and ineffectual to take seriously as a villain, I know he’s supposed to be silly and funny, but there are much better examples of villains being ineffectual and stupid, while still posing a credible threat and quite frankly, I don’t really think Hook is funny anyway. I see why he’s supposed to be funny, all the over-the-top slapstick with him and Peter, his extreme fear of the Crocodile and his double act with Smee, but it just didn’t make me laugh; I dunno, I don’t dislike him, he’s harmless, but that’s the problem really, he just has no edge. Almost all of the characters of the movie, even the villain, are just too goofy and cutesy for my tastes and it gives the whole movie an overly silly tone that makes it very hard to really care about the story or characters.

The only character I particularly like is Tinker Bell, who seems as exasperated as I was having to deal with all these stupid characters, getting understandably annoyed with the dull and irritating Wendy and her stupid brothers. A silent character, Tinker Bell is approached in a better way than say, Dumbo for example, whose lack of voice meant that he expressed very little sense of personality; in contrast, Tinker Bell arguably has the biggest personality of the cast – except for Hook and Smee – because her use of mime is so good, as well as legitimately funny. Her animation is so strong and energised that she expresses so much personality just through her exaggerated movements and facial expressions, some of the looks Tinker Bell gives in the film are priceless, such as a moment where she looks down on a mirror and realises she has big hips, to which she gives a look of mortified realisation and attempts to measure them out; even though she doesn’t say a word, just from those actions you understand her motivation and thoughts of ‘Is my butt really that big?’ showing how effective a vehicle she is for silent comedy. Though Tinker Bell’s character has been kind of over saturated these days by the constant merchandising and... let’s just say “simplistic” looking movie spin-offs where they make her talk, she’s very enjoyable to watch here and it’s understandable why she became such a huge mascot for Disney.

Hips don’t lie, Tink

The songs are boooooooooring, it’s starting to look like Disney just didn’t want to do musicals anymore, cos the songs are becoming less and less like musical numbers and more and more like brief songs shoehorned in to pad out the films. “What Makes the Red Man Red” is one of the better songs and has a memorable chorus and good sense of rhythm, but the lyrics are silly, poorly thought out and bordering on racist, the very premise is at least blindly ignorant of any sense of good taste, being about how all the Indians used to be white men before they met women and are now constantly blushing; what a stupid concept, even for a joke. The other songs are really lacking in any merit; “You Can Fly!” is pretty well remembered and I guess it’s not too bad but the lyrics are just the most generic, sugary platitudes of ‘Believe in yourself! You can do it! Follow your heart! Think happy thoughts!’ It just comes off as tired and phony. “Following the Leader” has some of the most basic lyrics you’ll ever hear in any musical, and is effectively a rhythmic chant that grows more and more annoying, especially because it is sung in the shrill and irritating voices of the younger characters, it sucks; these songs are just no good.

Peter Pan is a movie that’s difficult to dislike but even harder to really enjoy; it has a great sense of joy and youthful exuberance and has a lot of interesting ideas, but it struggles to tie them all together into an interesting or exciting narrative. It’s much easier to like this film than some of Disney’s other weak efforts, because unlike Cinderella for example, Peter Pan is not lazy and in fact exudes a sense of passion – you can tell that Disney really worked hard on this one and wanted it to turn out great and that definitely shines through. Sadly, I don’t think they achieved in making an especially good film, just an average one, but the love and thought put into this movie makes it difficult to completely dismiss; despite its faults, Peter Pan has its heart in the right place and that is something I can definitely appreciate.

Other Thoughts

• I feel so bad for the Darling’s Dad, he’s a bit stuffy and pompous but they really treat this guy like shit for no real reason and very obviously favour their mother and even THE DOG over him, what a bunch of brats.

‘I tell ya I get no respect’

• Yeah okay, I don’t think the crows in Dumbo are really that bad but the Indians here are pretty racially insensitive. Not hateful or anything just, uh, yeah. Not okay.

What makes the red man offensive? (He’s actually literally bright red, Jesus Christ what were they thinking)

• Captain Hook just straight up SHOOTS A GUY what a psycho!

PACK THE GAT IN THE SMALL OF- wait no I already did this one

5/10

Next Week: Lady and the Tramp!

Email: joetalksaboutstuff@gmail.com

Twitter: @JSChilds

13. Alice in Wonderland (1951)

After a disastrous return to full length narrative features with Cinderella, Disney continued with Alice in Wonderland, a movie that shares Cinderella’s light hearted nature, but is far more imaginative and wacky, though perhaps a little too much so. Opinion on Alice in Wonderland seems to have varied greatly throughout time – though today it is often considered to be one of Disney’s classics, as well as one of their most bizarre and humorous films, at the time it was criticised heavily for what many felt was a childish Americanisation of Lewis Carroll’s original novel. The Disney movie certainly is a little more goofy and light hearted, in comparison to the darker, subtly satirical original, but Alice in Wonderland has an oddball charm to it that I believe captures more of the original novel’s spirit than many gave it credit for, leading to a good, if not great, film.

Purely in terms of quality, the animation is unfortunately not that much better than Cinderella – some of the rougher edges have been smoothed out and there is certainly more detail, but there’s still something a little off, at least in comparison to Pinocchio, Fantasia or Bambi, which it simply doesn’t match. That said, from this point onward none of Disney’s narrative features really approach that level of animation for a very long time, so until I say otherwise, you may as well assume this is the case; that isn’t to say the animation in Alice in Wonderland is bad, it’s just a little disappointing that Disney kind of stagnated for so long and never really reached those early heights again until many years later, if at all. What Alice in Wonderland lacks in technical mastery however, it makes up in creativity – the animation here is much more energetic and imaginative than Cinderella and overall, is a welcome return to Disney’s more signature style, there is a lot of bouncy, energised movement to all the characters and things are always done in an interesting way. 

Perhaps the best example of this is the tea party scene, where instead of simply pouring tea in an ordinary way, the animators find dozens of creative and interesting ways for the Mad Hatter and March Hare to distribute tea, from breaking the teapot like an egg and having the tea fall out like a yolk to the March Hare using his ears like scissors to cut a stream of tea like a ribbon. This imagery is always very fun and it means that scenes rarely drag on or lose your attention, because there is always something to look at; even though this scene lasts quite a while and consists solely of people pouring and drinking tea, the animators came up with so many strange ways for the characters to do so that they always keep your interest. This is something that, for the most part, only animation can do; Disney knows how to use the greatest strengths of the medium to their advantage here, in comparison to the boring and completely unoriginal use of animation in Cinderella. Also much more creative is the general art style of this movie – from the backgrounds to the character design, everything is bright and colourful, weird, imaginative and fun to look at; this movie has a very strange and wild, though not overly surreal style that fits the ridiculous and bizarre setting of Wonderland perfectly. The art and animation in Alice in Wonderland are great fun and full of a lot more love, creativity and attention to detail than we’ve seen from Disney in quite some time.

It looks like Alice found the original blueprints for It’s a Small World or something

The story is one of the loosest we’ve seen yet, there really isn’t much of one at all, in so much as the film simply follows Alice searching throughout Wonderland for the White Rabbit, though to be honest, half the time even she seems to forget her goal, so even that isn’t exactly very important; thus, the film follows the familiar pattern of just a bunch of different situations for the main character to run into. Though not exactly the most engaging narrative, I think it works a lot better here than in some of the other examples such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Dumbo; though each scene seems pretty disconnected from the last, leaving the film feeling like a series of different shorts, this fits the setting of the film – Wonderland is a place that doesn’t make sense, where nothing seems to fit together and every person you meet is as colourful and larger than life as the last. It makes sense that Alice doesn’t really have much of a strong motivation, she’s just a curious young girl interested in taking in the world around her, her curiosity is piqued by the White Rabbit, who leads her into Wonderland, but once she gets there her interest wanders, because there are so many other strange things going on for her to look at. The fact that the film is a little aimless and sometimes forgets its direction fits perfectly with Alice’s character and the world she has found herself in, which is equally without order or direction. At the very centre of the film is the idea of absurdity, it reflects the daydreams of a child: meaningless, abstract and constantly jumping from one strange idea to the next; in this regard, the narrative structure of the film, ironically enough, makes complete sense.

What ties the film together and somewhat prevents it from simply being a series of odd, disconnected scenes is not so much a direct plot, but more of a character arc, in the form of Alice. The film follows Alice’s growth from excessively curious, imaginative and easily distracted, to more mature, serious and focused; this change is not rushed or intrusive, however and is a surprisingly subtle piece of character development. Alice changes rather slowly and realistically over the course of the film, at first she is enraptured by Wonderland, but as she has to deal more and more with its ridiculous rules, lack of any order and consistently unhelpful inhabitants, she slowly loses her patience and grows to appreciate the structure and logic of the real world she once found so dull. The film opens with Alice ignoring her seemingly stiff and serious sister’s lessons, as she simply wants to have fun and daydream about a more exciting and nonsensical world, only to be chastised by her sister for her childishness; by the end of the film, Alice must be the one to take on this role of maturity to deal with the childish inhabitants of Wonderland, who are more interested in having fun than any sense of order. Presumably, Alice gains a new level of appreciation for her sister and grows closer to her, but again, this is not made completely obvious or pushed on the audience in any way and is done quite subtly; Disney deals with Alice’s growing frustration with Wonderland and her gradual progression into a more mature character really quite well here.

Alice is such a fake geek girl I bet she’s never even played Panzer Dragoon Saga what a fucking poser

Part of the reason why this is done so well is the fact that scenes rarely focus around Alice’s actions and more on the supporting characters’ actions and how Alice reacts to them. The supporting cast is varied and colourful, each with interesting and unique designs and fun, if not so unique (Everyone is basically just slightly different levels of loud and crazy) personalities. Tweedledum and Tweedledee are bouncy and energetic, always moving around and interacting with one another in interesting ways, the Dodo is an enjoyably pompous and self-involved braggart who seems unable to pay attention to anyone else, the Cheshire Cat is a smug trickster who seems to have a sense of joy and self-awareness in the fact that he’s misleading Alice that the other characters don’t, the Queen of Hearts isn’t exactly a great villain and her constant screams of ‘OFF WITH THEIR HEAD’ can get a little grating, but her physical comedy and unusual relationship with the King are pretty funny. Best of all are the Caterpillar, who is so amusingly bored and disinterested with what Alice has to say and the Mad Hatter and March Hare, who have very big personalities and never stop moving, though they do get a little tiresome eventually. The only character I don’t really like is the White Rabbit who I just think is kind of lame, I guess he’s kind of like the only somewhat sensible character in Wonderland and plays straight man to the more ridiculous characters, but that role is kind of already filled by Alice so I don’t get why he’s there, he’s just dull. Individually, these characters are very fun, but altogether they are a little too much – every single one is so odd, larger than life and mostly over-the-top that you would get kind of worn out and pretty sick of them by the end of the movie if it was about them entirely.

It is here then, that the necessity of Alice and her downplayed character development becomes apparent – Walt Disney is famously said to have claimed that Alice had no ‘heart’; it is not entirely clear whether he was talking about the film in general, or the character of Alice in particular, but if he was talking about the character I have to disagree. I think Alice is full of heart and personality – even if it is a little understated – and is ultimately the very heart of the film itself, without Alice, the movie simply doesn’t work. If the film revolved entirely around the loud and insane characters of Wonderland, the audience would quickly get tired of their antics and the film would lose any sense of direction and go completely off the rails; the use of a character arc for the sensible, but still curious Alice gives the film a human element that prevents it from becoming too wild. Like Alice, we can be frustrated and confused by Wonderland’s seemingly contradictory and nonsensical rules, but at the same time, we find it fascinating and want to see more – Alice is a character we can relate to, someone who is just as confused, but just as interested as the rest of us, she serves as our guide through Wonderland and holds what would otherwise be a messy, completely disjointed film together. 

Goo goo g’joob

On top of that, I find Alice to be extremely likeable and fun to watch, like many previous Disney protagonists, her story and actions are mostly driven and progressed by other characters, rather than by herself. However, unlike Snow White, Cinderella, Dumbo or Pinocchio, who seem all too happy to let other characters make their decisions for them, Alice is ACTUALLY FRUSTRATED by the fact that the other characters seem to control her role in the story. Alice is headstrong and self-assured, she knows what she wants, simply to find the White Rabbit and eventually, leave Wonderland; however, she finds herself unable to find her way around due to Wonderland’s impossible and senseless geography and when she asks other characters for help, they seem determined to confuse her as much as possible before leading her the wrong way. Alice is the first Disney protagonist to not just let the other characters walk all over her and tell her what to do without resistance; that is not to say she is argumentative or confrontational, she is simply smart and confident enough to resist the will of other characters and ultimately, actively rail against them when she loses her patience with their ridiculous behaviour. This may not seem like much and really, seems like a pretty basic requirement for a protagonist, but when you really think about it, it’s pretty amazing how many protagonists in movies (Especially in Disney movies and kids’ movies in general) actually lack these traits and let the plot drive them, rather than the other way around. Alice is hardly the most focused or complex protagonist, but it’s refreshing to at least see a Disney hero that isn’t just a blank doormat. 

Though on the face Alice can appear a little bland or without “heart”, I think she has quite a lot of personality: she’s generally calm and easygoing, but knows when to be firm, she is polite and friendly, but can be witty and harsh when others push her patience, she’s intelligent and capable but – perhaps most refreshing – she ISN’T PERFECT. Unlike Snow White and Cinderella, who seem inhumanly kind, patient, trusting and amazing at everything, from cooking and cleaning to singing and dancing - not to mention their beauty - Alice, while still possessing many positive traits, actually has flaws. She tries to remain cordial with the other characters, but grows angry and irritable with them when they push her too far and even displays a sense of arrogance that comes back to bite her. Unlike her predecessors, she isn’t a great singer and is even snickered at in one scene for her inability to hit a high note. She is a little too much of a dreamer, meaning she doesn’t listen to her more sensible sister, gets herself into some difficult situations and makes reckless decisions, in spite of her own better judgement; in fact, at one point she actually acknowledges this and recognises that she should be more thoughtful and take her own advice instead of jumping headfirst into things. Though it’s easy to overlook, Alice is actually much more human and relatable than many Disney protagonists, strengthening her role as the human element that holds the film together and prevents it from becoming too crazy. There’s just something so charming about her, a great deal of this being owed to her voice actress Kathryn Beaumont, who does a fantastic job; she has such a sweet and soothing voice that suits Alice perfectly and captures all the facets of her character, I just find her so enjoyable to listen to, Alice is great.

What a rascal

The use of songs is a little different here, rather than a standard musical format, where characters engage in musical numbers, in Alice in Wonderland  it’s more like the characters sing brief little songs, many of which are based on poems written by Caroll for the original novel. On the one hand this works quite well, the songs are usually quite fun and are over pretty fast, so it’s like you just get a bunch of bursts of silly music. On the other hand, this means that you rarely get too into any of the songs because they’re not really around long enough to, though a few such as “The Unbirthday Song” and “The Caucus Race” are rather memorable. Some of the musical interpretations of Caroll’s poetry are a little off too, the Cheshire Cat’s musical form of “Jabberwocky” in particular is, in my opinion, an awful adaptation of the poem that doesn’t fit its tone or style at all – you don’t hear very much of it, but what you do is a laughably mismatched marriage of music and poetry that doesn’t capture any of the original poem’s magic. There are a couple of longer, more traditional songs, but they’re not that great either, just okay. The music can be rather fun and there’s a couple of memorable songs, but it’s a little disappointing on the whole.

‘Oh man, actually so faded right now, bro.’

Alice in Wonderland is a good time, nothing more or less; it’s good natured, silly and fun and that’s all it tries to be. The film doesn’t take itself too seriously and, like Wonderland itself, doesn’t confine itself to traditional rules or structure, jumping from scene to scene with exuberant energy. Unfortuantely, not all of these scenes hit the mark and the continuous character archetype of a wacky weirdo who misleads Alice gets a little tiresome by the end, some scenes are definitely a lot better than others and while the design of Wonderland is fun and unusual, they didn’t quite commit to making it as surreal as it could be – it is perhaps a little too light and fluffy, but this is Disney after all, not American McGee’s Alice. At the centre of the film is its greatest strength, Alice herself, an enjoyably fun, spirited and relatable protagonist who keeps the film from falling apart too badly; though many of the side characters do outstay their welcome a little and, like Alice, I found myself wanting to leave Wonderland by the end, she keeps things from becoming too annoying. Alice in Wonderland isn’t exactly a great film, but it’s still a fun time with a well realised hero who, despite what Mr. Disney might have believed, I think has a lot of heart. 

Other Thoughts

• This film might not be perfect but it’s a fucking masterpiece compared to Tim Burton’s version.

Where’s the tea gone why is the tea gone hahah get it you guys

6.5/10

Next Week: Peter Pan!

Email: joetalksaboutstuff@gmail.com

Twitter: @JSChilds

12. Cinderella (1950)

After eight years of production troubles, six package films and countless scrapped or retooled ideas for new films, Disney finally returned to full length features with Cinderella. And wow, what a fucking disappointment. Cinderella is so white bread, so basic, so derivative, it’s honestly kind of embarrassing to watch; not only does Disney not take a step forward here, they take a huge, graceless leap backwards. After already stinging from the commercial failures of Pinocchio, Fantasia and Bambi, Disney continued to take hits with a string of financial disappointments throughout the 40’s. By this point, they were in the red and needed another hit – thankfully for them, Cinderella was a smash hit and their biggest success since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which is not too surprising considering how shamelessly Cinderella borrows from that film. This leaves the film with a very bittersweet after taste, on the one hand it revitalised Disney financially and allowed them to carry on making films, increase their budget and, in some cases, be more creative and elaborate in the future; on the other hand, to get to that point we had to have Cinderella. A fair trade? To be honest, I’m not so sure.

The animation is one of the film’s better points, which says a lot considering how bland this animation is. It’s mostly decent and gets the job done, but it is so lacking in any energy or creativity, the animation only ever does what it has to – there are next to none of Disney’s inventively wacky uses of animation, no exaggerated movements, no interesting use of shape, perspective or colour, every piece of animation is only as complex as it needs to be to amount to the bare minimum. I imagine that this was due to Disney’s financial issues, causing them to cut back on the more elaborate style they were used to and keep things simple, but that’s not much of an excuse for this dull, lifeless animation. The art design is even more bland, the animal critters are generically cutesy and cartoony, with no real sense of personality, most of the human characters look like bored, cardboard cut-outs of people with no interesting design quirks – Prince Charming in particular looks like a Ken doll, appropriate considering how rigid and lifeless his character is - and the few that are more exaggerated in their design, like the King and Duke, just look silly and poorly thought out.

The art style of the movie in general, is lifted pretty heavily from Snow White – being just one of the many things Cinderella takes from it – it appears as if the animators just traced over most of the characters from Snow White and then coloured their hair in a little different. The animal critters have the same kind of style and look, Cinderella and Prince Charming are basically Snow White and the Prince, just with some of the more uncanny and awkward parts of their facial design and animation fixed and in the case of Cinderella, different hair. Most embarrassing of all is Lady Tremaine, whose character model is based so obviously on the Evil Queen’s you can tell that the writers basically just gave up and said ‘Fuck it let’s just make her the Queen from Snow White, the kids won’t notice.’ I mean Christ, she has the exact same green eyes, the same lips, the same scowling face – there’s one point where she gives this evil look and her eyes narrow and the shot looks pretty much entirely lifted from Snow White it is laughable. Like I said, the animation is hardly the weakest part of the movie, despite the lazy art and character designs and restrained movements, it looks decent enough and the colours at least are very nice. Still, considering Disney are, you know, an animation studio, it’s disappointing to see them take such a step back and produce animation that’s not even on the same level as most of their package films, which were made with limited staff and serious budget cuts.

Cool this doesn’t look creepy at all great job guys

The story is absolutely pathetic, again taking far too much from previous films and then padding out its few copied ideas for as long as possible until it can hit the running time they wanted. At the base of the story is, once again, Snow White: a beautiful and kind young woman lives with her evil stepmother, who schemes to get rid of her, but the heroine eventually succeeds and is whisked away to a life of luxury with a handsome prince. This is as standard as it gets, with Snow White you can forgive this, because these clichés hadn’t really been established yet – at least, not as part of Disney’s films – and it was their first film, they were still trying out their style and so stuck to a relatively basic fairy tale. Cinderella however, came eleven films and thirteen years later, at this point Disney should be beyond this very basic story and certainly shouldn’t be taking steps backwards by copying their very first film; the story doesn’t even work as well, because Cinderella is so stuffed with pointless scenes to further stretch out its nonexistent plot and push up the running time.

When you think of Cinderella, you think of that little synopsis, a girl living as a slave for her stepsisters and stepmother, before going to the ball, meeting the prince and then proving she’s the girl he met by showing she fits the glass slipper she left behind. However, that only comprises about half of the film, the rest of it is taken up with dreadfully boring scenes of a cat chasing mice; every time we see Cinderella and have the “plot” advanced at all, we then have to watch a five minute long scene of some cartoon animals dicking around. Seriously, it is insane how much of this film is wasted with this Tom and Jerry shit, unfortunately, unlike Tom and Jerry this isn’t funny on ANY LEVEL. I legitimately don’t understand how Disney thought this would be entertaining in any way, were they seriously looking at these scenes, laughing their asses off and ensuring each other ‘Yeah this is a good idea, the kids will love this. When you hear the name Cinderella you think of fucking mice running away from cats and making dresses.’ It’s filler, plain and simple and that’s a crime to begin with, but even worse is the fact that this filler takes up almost as much of the film as the main story does; I understand that Cinderella is a pretty basic fairy tale where not much happens, making it hard to expand into a full length film, but to be honest therein lies my point, they shouldn’t have made a fucking full length feature film out of Cinderella.

Pictured: 65% of the scenes in Cinderella (Spoilers: No unfortunately the mouse doesn’t die)

Not only is the plot bogged down by constant irrelevant scenes of animal shenanigans, which don’t add to the story on any level, but it suffers from perhaps an even greater issue – Cinderella has no stakes. Now on the face, it does, Cinderella is treated like a slave by her family, she lives in squalor, if she stays there she will suffer; eventually she is able to escape with Prince Charming and gets her happily ever after. But think about it, what is keeping Cinderella there? Does she need to be her family’s slave? Are they keeping her locked in a dungeon, or under armed guard, or threatening her with something? No, Cinderella could leave any damn time she wants, which raises the question WHY DOESN’T SHE JUST FUCKING LEAVE? If Cinderella hates living with her family so much, why does she? They clearly don’t want her around, I’m sure they’d be happy to see her go and even if not, they seem to stay in their rooms all day and pay no attention to her, so she could easily sneak off if she wanted – she hardly has much to bring with her. I’m sure she wouldn’t have much money and that might be a problem, but if she’s just going to work as a scullery maid for her bitchy stepsisters, who treat her like crap, why not just go work for someone else? She’s not their slave, they don’t own her, she can work for someone else if she wants; working as a scullery maid probably sucks no matter what, but at least if she works for someone else Cinderella will not only have shelter, but might actually get paid and not treated like scum.

I would even be willing to give Disney the benefit of the doubt and accept the idea that Cinderella stays with her family because she doesn’t want to leave her father’s château, as it holds a special place in her heart (although this is clearly giving them far too much credit) but obviously that isn’t the case either because the second Cinderella meets the Duke, she just pisses off to go live with Prince Charming in the castle. The story relies entirely on Cinderella being an idiot, if she thought like a rational or realistic person on any level she would just take her stupid mice friends and go live somewhere else and the film would never happen, nothing is stopping her and she has nothing to lose; I have no sympathy for Cinderella, nor do I care what happens in the story, because she could easily solve her problems – when the stakes for the film rely entirely on your character being stupid and pointlessly passive, it becomes impossible to immerse yourself in it.

You’re so vain you probably think this film’s about you. Well it’s not. It’s about mice.

This passivity also makes it difficult to care about Cinderella as a character, again, she is just Snow White, not only somewhat in character design but pretty much completely in personality. She is sweet, but dull, completely passive and unwilling to take any action towards helping her own situation, she just sits around dreaming, making wishes and waiting for somebody or something else to come along and help her. Like Snow White, the only areas in which she is allowed to be active and competent are cooking, cleaning, washing, sewing, you know, chick’s stuff. Again, you could forgive the sexist undertones in Snow White and yes, Cinderella was still made in a time where women’s rights weren’t exactly recognised and traditional gender roles were still strongly adhered to, but come on. Disney’s narrative films so far have mostly starred boring and passive protagonists, but Cinderella is probably the worst of all, like her predecessors, her story progresses entirely as a result of other characters’ actions – the mice make her dress for her, the Fairy Godmother makes it so she can go to the ball, the Duke comes to find her, the mice get her out of her locked room, the Duke takes her to Prince Charming who marries her, taking her away from all her problems and letting her live happily ever after. NONE of this is due to Cinderella’s actions or hard work, the only times she is allowed to work hard and make progress is when she is doing housework. On top of this, we have Cinderella and Prince Charming spending only a couple of hours together before they supposedly fall in love and decide to marry, an idea that wasn’t as cliché in Snow White but at this point has become so tired and silly that even the Duke acknowledges how stupid and unrealistic it is. This, along with such wonderful moments as the male mice being happily told to ‘leave the sewing to the women!’ Gives the film an uncomfortably sexist undertone that makes it very hard to enjoy, even when you try and understand the social context at the time, it’s still just a little too much – Snow White got away with it, but Disney dropped the ball trying to pull this shit again.

A banner year at the old Bender family

The other characters are just as tedious and unlikeable in different ways, the Ugly Stepsisters are just catty and annoying, they get a couple of funny lines in but other than that they’re woefully undeveloped. Lady Tremaine is, as said, pretty much a carbon copy of the Evil Queen in look, style and attitude, but instead of being an enjoyably over the top megalomaniac she’s just kind of a bitch. It’s kind of interesting to see a Disney villain that’s played a little more low-key and realistic and she is appropriately cold and restrained, but the most fun and entertaining part of the Evil Queen’s character was how ridiculously evil she was, you couldn’t help enjoying how much she seemed to enjoy being a villain. Tremaine’s attempts at realism then, just make her seem more like a watered down and less charming version of the Evil Queen, perhaps if she had more of an original character design, motivation or personality this wouldn’t be a problem, but because she is so similar to the Evil Queen in every other way you can’t help but make the comparison. Prince Charming is barely even worth talking about, he is the most shamelessly copied from his Snow White counterpart, down to the fact that he only has about two lines, shows up in two scenes, doesn’t even get a name (Charming doesn’t count) and we get no insight into his personality whatsoever. 

The King and Duke are two of the more colourful characters and at least have some personality and a somewhat fun dynamic between them, but it devolves pretty quickly into lazy slapstick so whatever, not much to say. The Fairy Godmother, despite being one of the most remembered parts of the film, is only in one scene and just kind of shows up out of nowhere with practically no explanation and then just leaves, she’s not even worth talking about, there’s nothing to say. Worst of all are the animal characters, particularly the mice, who plague this film with their goofy antics which we are obviously supposed to think are cute and endearing, but they come off only as irritating time wasters. If you are one of the five or so people who actually reads this blog (Thanks, by the way!), you may recall me talking in Snow White about a character archetype I like to call “The Hooter”, a clumsy, stupid character obviously designed to be the loveable comic relief and, hopefully, the breakout character; the mice are basically an entire group of this archetype. They talk in weird, overly cutesy voices where they pronounce things wrong and repeat words and awwww look how adorable they are awww you guys. It’s so plainly manipulative, Disney’s attempts to push these goddamn mice as the lovable, goofy sidekicks to Cinderella that the audience can’t help but love only make them even more annoying; worst of all is the fact that they take up so much of the plot and appear almost as often as Cinderella herself, just so they can participate in irrelevant slapstick scenes with the cat that are completely devoid of any humour or entertainment value. If you can call one in particular the Hooter it has to be Gus, a fat, stupid little mouse who even kind of looks like Hooter, at least in terms of his shape and certainly acts like him – running around like an idiot, falling over, screwing up his friend’s plans and constantly causing them grief, but we’re clearly supposed to love him cos he’s so cute and funny guys what a goofball ahahah!!!! These mice shouldn’t even be in the movie, let alone be such a big part of it, they’re just the worst.

‘Is... is that mouse wearing a little hat?’

The songs suck, they are as generic and derivative as you can imagine, in its musicals Disney has a tendency to have one or two sappy songs in the mix, songs that tend to be about love, dreams or wishes, usually on stars. Now when these are just one part of the picture, they can work well – I like to refer to this type of song as the “Whole New World Number”, because most of Aladdin’s songs are fun and energetic, except for “A Whole New World”, which, while good, is a very slow and generic love song that doesn’t really gel with the others and seems to be in the film just to fill some kind of quota. With that in mind, picture Cinderella as a whole film of “Whole New World Numbers”, almost every song is an overly sugar sweet, slow song about loves, dreams, wishes etc. They all sound exactly the same and they are all boring, the lyrics lack any creativity, the music is generic and overall they all come off as desperate attempts to recapture the magic of “When You Wish Upon a Star”. I mean really, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” is basically the same thing, it is embarrassing how derivative these songs are. The only half-way decent songs are “The Work Song” which is at least a little fun, but is ruined by the annoying singing voices of the mice and “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo”, which to be fair is pretty good. The lyrics are hardly clever or well thought out and it’s constantly interrupted to have the Fairy Godmother talk, but at least it’s catchy and fun to listen to, which is much more I can say about any of the others.

‘Hey do you guys think this might be a bit too much like that scene in Snow White where...’

‘DO NOT SPEAK OF THE OLD ONES YOU INSOLENT CUR AND RESUME WHISTLING WHILE YOU WORK’

This movie is just a waste of time, it is boring, unoriginal, schmaltzy, packed to the brim with filler and lacking in any creativity to the point where Disney actually copies itself. The songs are crappy, the characters are either completely undeveloped or relentlessly irritating, the animation is lazy and thoughtless and the story is predicated on the protagonist being a completely ineffectual moron and goes absolutely nowhere interesting. To call Cinderella a disappointment is an understatement, as the first full length narrative feature in eight years, it had a lot to live up to and boy, did it miss the mark spectacularly. To say this is not a worthy follow up to Bambi is obvious, but it’s not even a worthy follow up to Snow White, this honestly seems like it should be the first Disney movie, before they developed their style along with any sense of depth or creativity. When people decry Disney for being sexist, overly cutesy and always focused around silly fairy tales about boring women falling in love with boring Princes they met five minutes ago and living happily ever after despite barely knowing each other, this is probably what they’re thinking of. Cinderella is so bad it marred the entire Disney name with its idiotic story, boring characters and Hallmark card sentimentality; fuck Cinderella, and her little mice too.

Other Thoughts

• Wait, did the cat just die?

Jesus Christ I thought this was Cinderella, not Milo and Otis

3/10

Next Week: Alice in Wonderland!

Email: joetalksaboutstuff@gmail.com

Twitter: @JSChilds