Joe Talks About Stuff: 24. The Fox and the Hound (1981)

The first of the 1980’s and an attempt at somewhat of a new beginning for Disney, The Fox and the Hound takes somewhat of a different approach, while still containing some familiar Disney touches. The most expensive film Disney had made to date, The Fox and the Hound ups the animation quality and tackles a more serious and mature subject matter than any film Disney had for quite some time. Despite its ambitions, however, The Fox and the Hound is not quite able to live up to these lofty goals, though it clearly has the best of intentions.

The film FINALLY does away with the xerography technique and as a result, the animation here looks much cleaner, softer and more reminiscent of the early Disney films. While it doesn’t exactly develop any revolutionary style, The Fox and the Hound is a very nice looking film with some good animation; while some of the character designs are definitely similar to some of the more recent, stylised ones we’ve looked at, they are a little more rounded and refined and, in my opinion, strike a nice balance between Disney’s early and later styles. The character animation is really good, there are no sketchy slip-ups or awkward movements that we have seen in the last few films, things are really controlled, as well as being energised, lively and just plain fun; emotion is really effectively expressed and communicated through the character’s facial expressions and movements, often without the need of any dialogue and some of the more action-packed sequences are animated so expertly that they really do become very gripping and intense. The backgrounds are also great, as always Disney show off just how great they are at creating natural, pastoral landscapes – woods and forests really are their speciality. This is the best animation Disney has done in years and, while The Fox and the Hound doesn’t exactly forge a visual identity of its own, it does manage to take some of the best parts of other films in order to create a pleasant, if familiar visual style.

‘Copper, I don’t think we can be friends anymore, cos hound dogs are kind of naturally bred to hunt foxes’

‘Oh my God Tod, not all hound dogs stop trying to spread your agenda’

The story is simplistic, but effective, rather than being centred around an involved plot or even really the titular characters, it is more focused on its singular theme – prejudice is harmful and pointless and society should never tell someone who they are or who they’re allowed to associate with. It’s a simple and obvious moral, one that has been covered time and again by many other works, from way back to Romeo and Juliet, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful. The film takes a lot from Bambi, from its setting, to its more mature attitude and the way in which in charts the growth and life of a young animal (in this case two) and how their environment shapes them. While The Fox and the Hound is not as mature or delicate as Bambi and isn’t able to make its point quite as subtly – there are a couple of times where it puts the moral of the film a little too clearly on display – it is usually not too crass and upfront about its message and is generally quite effective. Though there is some good dialogue, particularly the line ‘Forever is a long, long time. And time has a way of changing things.’ The film is generally better at communicating its message without the use of dialogue; some of the most powerful moments of the film are done just through facial expressions and body language alone. These include Tod’s crestfallen look after he discovers he and Copper can no longer be friends and the ending of the film, where Copper is able to communicate just how much Tod means to him to his master simply by stepping in front of him and giving him a purposeful, but vulnerable look. The opening sequence of the movie is also done without any dialogue and is probably the best part of the whole film – it opens on absolute silence, something totally new for a Disney film and slowly pans across the dark and quiet forest before suddenly exploding into sound and movement as we follow Tod’s mother, rushing across the forest in a desperate attempt to escape a hunter. When Tod’s mother is finally killed, she is done so in the exact same manner as Bambi’s mother – she escapes off-screen, but we hear two gunshots and we know she didn’t make it; while moments like this perhaps take a little too much from Bambi, the film never outright copies it and always manages to retain its own identity with great sequences such as this one.

The pacing of the movie and its general use of time are unfortunately a little off; while the first half of the movie takes place during Tod and Copper’s childhood, the development of their friendship feels a little rushed and thus the severity of their maturity and the impact of their subsequent rivalry doesn’t feel quite as strong or believable as it should be. There is also a strangely large amount of time dedicated to a subplot about two birds chasing a caterpillar, that seems to be there purely for comic relief; the scenes are harmless and kind of cute, but they do end up feeling a little intrusive and take up time that could’ve been better used developing Tod and Copper’s friendship. I suppose this sub-plot does eventually kind of tie into the greater themes of the movie, as the helpless and frightened caterpillar eventually becomes a beautiful butterfly that can fly away from its tormentors, who no longer recognise it as their victim, perhaps representing the film’s central ideas of maturity, change and that nature and society don’t determine who you or your enemies are, but this is probably reading into things a little too much. Generally, the movie just engages in a few too many sequences that don’t really feel necessary or, at least, feel less necessary than the development of Tod and Copper’s friendship; a decent amount of the last third is dedicated to Tod’s sudden romance with another fox named Vixey and while these scenes are pretty good, they don’t really tie into the film’s greater narrative purpose. The opening and ending sequences of the film are really when things are at their best, the tense chase between Tod’s mother and the hunter in the beginning is matched by the equally tense chase between Tod and Vixey and Amos and Copper in the ending; this sequence actually becomes very dramatic, particularly in the rather brutal fight between Copper and Tod and the bear, which becomes surprisingly violent for a Disney film and honestly quite frightening for children. The middle, or rather, the majority of the film is unfortunately not as good as the beginning or end, but it’s still good and sets things up for the ending nicely; the central idea of the film is probably better than the execution of that idea, but it’s still executed well enough.

The birds constantly trying to kill and eat a caterpillar kinda undermines the whole “nature doesn’t dictate who our enemies are” thing, huh?

The characters are mostly just okay, they are mostly cute and fun but not really very interesting, young Tod and Copper are great representations of young kids and perfectly capture that sense of adventure, curiosity and spontaneity in children; once they become adults, they are still pretty likeable, but not quite as well characterised. Mickey Rooney’s voice acting for older Tod is a little over-the-top for me, he just seems to be trying a little too hard; ordinarily, you’d think Rooney’s more exaggerated style would be perfect for an animated movie, but for a generally more mature and serious story like The Fox and the Hound, it doesn’t quite work. Kurt Russell is a lot better as older Copper and effectively juggles his energetic optimism and tortured anger, he sounds a lot more like a real actor than Rooney, who, despite clearly trying hard, comes off much more like a guy trying to do the voice of a cartoon fox than a guy just trying to play his part. The side characters are fine, if mostly unmemorable: Dinky, Boomer and Squeeks are just the goofy comic relief, Big Mama is friendly and well acted, but a little dull, Widow Tweed is fine but just doesn’t get much time, there are a couple of other animals that Tod meets in the forest who don’t do much interesting either, the supporting cast just doesn’t do that much in this film. Chief is one of the more prominent supporting characters, but just seems a little too similar to previous characters, particularly the Sherriff of Nottingham, with whom he shares a voice actor and quite a similar facial design and personality; the hunter, Amos Slade gets some time to be interesting too, he’s one of the better ones. Of all the supporting characters, I found Vixey to be most interesting, though she appears only briefly, she’s very well animated and acted and is very likeable and sweet. She has this great sense of personality and attitude and it’s a shame she doesn’t appear until the last twenty minutes of the movie, as it leaves her as kind of an after-thought and her romance with Tod just feels very shoehorned in at the last minute, rather than a natural development; still, she’s very enjoyable in the few scenes she does appear in.

The songs are weird, several of them aren’t even really sung so much as just spoken by the characters, with the words just happening to rhyme. A few are sung properly, but are still not traditional musical numbers, they’re just songs sung over scenes of the characters playing or exploring or what have you. They all sound pretty much the same as well, none of them are very good and the lyrics are at times laughably lazy; really quite disappointing, with many of the more recent Disney films we’ve looked at, particularly ones such as this and The Rescuers, the songs aren’t done in a traditional musical format and so just really don’t feel like they need to be there at all. Why did Disney keep forcing in songs that they clearly didn’t want to do? Perhaps it was just because they felt that they had to, because that’s what Disney was known for, but either way they should’ve stopped because in examples like this, they just do not seem necessary and ultimately end up hurting the movie and wasting time that could be better spent on other things.

THAT’S why a bear can rest at ease

The Fox and the Hound is a movie with a familiar, but solid idea at its core and a lot of potential to be a mature and very different movie for Disney; while it doesn’t quite live up to this potential, it still feels quite different to most Disney films before it and even though it is not as good as Bambi, which it clearly takes a lot of inspiration from, it does manage to capture some of its magic. The movie is very sweet, very moving and though its moral about prejudice and social division is a simple and traditional one, it is still a necessary one that is just as relevant today and, despite a few ham-fisted moments, the message is delivered quite effectively. Not the best songs, not the best characters, but a good story and some very good animation make The Fox and the Hound a film that shouldn’t be easily forgotten.

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