User reviews

I will never get how people still say that Bambi losing his mother is the worst in the classic disney films. For me it's Dumbos mother being imprisoned because she tries to protect her child. Yes, she's not dying, but it's still so very sad! And then we get this little adventure for Dumbo and his mousey companion. These two always remind me of Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. The parade of the elephants - which Dumbo and Timothy Mouse are seeing when they're drunk (!) - is one of the craziest drug moments Disney ever did (probably only Alice in Wonderland can match it with it's weirdness). And it's so much fun to see Dumbo fly in the end and how he becomes a worldwide phenomenon after he got bullied around for such a long time.

This is the quintessential Disney cartoon: brief, engaging, and profound – storytelling at its finest. Where "Snow White" doesn't make the cut (begins with rapidly developing melodramatic plot, pauses for most of an hour to allow forest creatures and midgets to play cute, and wraps up quickly), "Dumbo" spins its wise lesson with elegant timing and charming characters. We all can use that magic feather once in a while.

Dumbo is a good movie with a reasonably well developed plot and a stellar voice cast. It is a very sweet, fun film for the whole family to enjoy, just running over an hour, it's quick and very easy to follow, but you will also find yourself very connected to these characters, the adorable elephant, the witty mouse, the charismatic crows, it's a great ride. However, the plot is slim, there is little story, we mainly follow Dumbo as he learns how to fly, but nothing really happens, in comparison to Disney's two films prior to this, Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio, development is thin. The film certainly should have focused on Dumbo's relationship with his mother, it was the only part that had any real depth or emotion, and I think it could have been very effective had it been scoped more. It's certainly not flawless, but Dumbo is a fun hour for the whole family, some unforgettable work by Disney.

A elephant who is ridiculed for his huge ears soon gains the ability to fly with them, making him a popular circus act.

Best Performance: Edward Brophy

All the other elephants shun Dumbo for his gigantic ears, and his mother has been locked up for protecting him, so he's all alone in the world... until Timothy Q Mouse shows up.

A beautiful piece of work. At just 60 mins, it is short and sweet. But it also contains some of Disney's best visual poetry. Dumbo's not saying a single word means his entire character is created through the physical. The entire opening sequence, till the gossipy elephants start talking, plays out without words, and its like the best silent movies. Simply beautiful.

Mrs Jumbo rearing up and destroying the big top to protect Dumbo from taunting kids is an incredible scene. Dumbo's mother spends the movie imprisoned in a carriage labelled "mad elephant" - and surely one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking scenes i've ever seen plays out when Dumbo and his mother have contact only by touching trunks, through the bars in the window of her cell. A beautiful sequence begins: the beautiful song "Baby Mine" plays as she cradles him in her trunk, and when Dumbo leaves she can't see him, and she stretches her trunk as far as she can out the window to try and reach him, and... oh, its too much!

The pink elephants sequence is as close to trippy Disney ever got - and its brilliant. One of the best, most inventive sequences in animation history. Great song, too.

Some terrific songs: Look Out for Mr Stork, Casey Junior (the train song), Pink Elephants, When I see an elephant fly and Baby Mine.

10/10. Timothy Q Mouse is a great character, the animation is so concise and perfect, great songs, the message that if you believe you can overcome your handicaps you will so inspiring and beautiful, and the movie so short and sweet it will forever retain its appeal.

Disney had spent vastly more money than he'd planned on "Pinnochio" and "Fantasia", and got little of it back. "Dumbo", next off the rank, was made cheaply, quickly, without fuss. The result is simple but handsome. However handsome "Dumbo" looks, the animation is not very detailed, character design is hardly adventurous, the colours are few but bright, and in an hour it's over. It needn't be more than this, though: the story is far from complicated. It is, I'll admit, a story that has made me cry more than once; and in this instance I don't feel that I've been cheated into crying, because there really is something poignant and heartbreaking about this ugly duckling variant.

Like Hans Andersen, Disney has to pad the outfit a bit to make it fill the space available; yet, with the exception of the introductory bit with the storks, it doesn't feel like padding. In fact the most gratuitous piece of padding is the most necessary. I refer to the pink elephants sequence: a masterpiece of extended unreality (caused by such a tiny quantity of champagne!) which dazzles and sizzles and all but soars out of the screen. It's the sting in Dumbo's tail, and nothing produced since can match its verve.

One of Disney's best known and loved films. About a baby elephant born in the tough world of the circus who is ridiculed and shut out because of his large ears. Comforted by his mother until she attacks a trainer and is penned up in a jaillike wagon, Dumbo eventually learns that he can fly and becomes a star. A great film that deals with discrimination, self esteem, the importance of family and friendship. Features a great score which it won an oscar for and a nomination for song, the beautiful "Baby Mine" . The pink elephants scene is a classic. Wonderfully done, arguably Disney's best on a scale of one to ten...10

'Dumbo' is one of Disney's classic films featuring an elephant with enormous ears who lives at a circus and who finds an unlikely-but-typical-pairing-for-Disney friend (a mouse, which elephants are supposed to be frightened of). The mouse provides Dumbo with confidence and a 'I think; therefore, I can' attitude to build confidence. (Such as a typical film for children's' stories.) Dumbo is supposed to be able to fly with the aid of his enormous ears.

One of the best moments in this film is the scene where Dumbo gets drunk. (I'm not sure as to what parents though about this, but I can imagine that it did not go down very well.) Dumbo hallucinates over the drink and sees many marching elephants, 'pink elephants on parade.' This is a haunting and colourful little song featuring a kaleidescope of elephants.

Overall, this is a memorable and lovable little film that I recommend.

This is clearly one of the great animated features of all time. How it squeaks by with a mere 7.4 voter average while all sorts of contemporary crap does far better is a mystery and a tribute to the downward spiral in cinematic taste. DUMBO is my favorite of all the classic Disney films (a group which ends with JUNGLE BOOK, completed after Walt's death). Nothing since then has been able to recapture the magic. Walt may have been, according to some people, a fascist and an anti-Semite, but he was also a genius.

Things that make this movie great:

The animation (I used to work at a zoo, and while the real elephants did little talking or singing the animators captured their body language incredibly well.)

"Pink Elephants on Parade".

Effective but not over-the-top heartstring tugging.

The musical crow number ("When I See an Elephant Fly"). I'm disappointed to discover the voice actors (Including Cliff Edwards, "Ukelele Ike" and the voice of Jiminy Cricket) were white guys playing black --- I was hoping they were some cool unknown black combo --- but it's a terrific number anyway.

The 64 minute running time. It starts, tells it's simple story, then knows when the hell to get off the stage. I wish more film makers had that ability.

Dumbo was the first, but certainly not the last, time in history when the Walt Disney Animation Studio was struggling to make ends meet and thus was forced to churn out a subpar movie in terms of quality. Fantasia, the previous Disney film, had been a catastrophe in the box office, and thus Dumbo was made with a very limited budget to earn some quick cash.

And it shows. As a child you probably didn't really notice, but watch Pinocchio/Fantasia and this back to back and you can see that the animation level is nowhere close. The character models are simplified, the movement seems jerky and/or too fluid, like everyone is made of melting wax, the lines are somewhat rough and even the backgrounds are not that impressive. Of course, this is only when compared to Disney's previous standards. By any objective measure this is a well-animated film.

And what it loses in aesthetics, it more than makes up in characters and charm. The story of Dumbo, a young elephant born with ears way too big, is a string-tucker beyond comparison. The story is also short and sweet enough that Dumbo doesn't overstay his welcome, and contains some really memorable scenes, like the Pink Elephants on Parade or Dumbo's mom's lullaby to her son. Good stuff in general. It's not the most complex of stories, but it's a lot better than it has any right to be, given the film's rushed nature.

And that's Dumbo. It's probably meant for younger children than the typical Disney film, but like most films from the self-proclaimed greatest animation studio on Earth, it has some good material for adults to appreciate as well. I'm glad this film allowed them to stay on their feet.

Created during a simpler, more innocent time in America when cynicism wasn't as rampant as it is today and sentimentality wasn't as shunned on screen as it is now, DUMBO remains one of Disney's simpler animated classics with a perky score and a number of catchy songs.

Among the numbers that I found delightful: "Look Out for Mr. Stork", "Casey Junior", "When I See An Elephant Fly", "Baby Mine", and the two standouts in animation technique: "Pink Elephants on Parade" (the film's most sophisticated bit of animation) and "The Song of the Roustabouts" which shows the men struggling to put up the circus tents during an oncoming storm.

The animation itself is more cartoon-like than Disney's earlier classics but intentionally so. In the brief span of 74 minutes, a lot of ground is covered in the story of an elephant with over-sized ears, his biggest defect, which is turned into his biggest asset by the film's end, thanks to a clever mouse named Timothy (voiced by Ed Brophy).

The "Roustabouts" number and the "Pink Elephants" sequence are two of the film's high points, thanks to masterful work by the artists and the clever background score.

While not in the same class with other Disney works of that era, DUMBO remains a consistently entertaining little film that should find a huge audience with its appeal to the very young as well as their elders. The music by Frank Churchill, Oliver Wallace and Ned Washington is really its major asset, aside from some very well crafted animation.

As a kid, I would watch over and over several Disney features: Pinnochio, Peter Pan, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp, and Dumbo. When I come back to those films now, I recognize that they are all marvelous films and gave Walt Disney much deserved success. It's truly sad how far Disney has fallen. All kids' flicks now are awful. I revisited Dumbo, by the way, on the same night that I first watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, destined to be one of the most successful films of all time. It is execrable, and it is simply pathetic how bad films like it are nowadays. I say, bring your kids back to Dumbo, Pinnochio, Bambi, and the like. They may not be as harmless as the kind of movie Disney and others shove out today. You shouldn't be afraid of your children showing emotion. I can remember more than anything being profoundly affected by the "Baby Mine" number from Dumbo, where he visits his imprisoned mother. Films like these will mould your children's emotional stability instead of keeping them at a safe distance and selling them toys.

"Dumbo" is one of the first full length animated movies to come out of the Disney studio's. It's also one of the shortest but there is a good reason for that. This had to be a cheap and fast production in order to compensate for the the loses long featured Disney animated movies "Pinocchio" and "Fantasia" made on their first release. It still is the cheapest full length Disney animated movie till date and it probably is also the shortest. The movie did became a success by the way at the box offices and it gained more money than both "Pinocchio" and "Fantasia" combined.

It's also the first and only Disney movie that has a main character who doesn't say a word throughout the story. Nevertheless the Dumbo character really comes to life, thanks to the talent of the animators. He's an adorable and classic Disney character, with his trademark big ears and cute big blue eyes.

But despite the fact that the movie is quite short (just over one hour), the movie doesn't really feel as if it's much shorter than any other Disney movie. It perhaps even feels a bit overlong. for I feel that "Dumbo" is a bit of a lacking movie that restrains itself too much to one location and too much on just a couple of characters. Disney movies are always filled with some really colorful and entertaining characters. "Dumbo" is also filled with that but most other character roles within this movie, besides Dumbo himself and Timothy, are not featured really prominently and they just randomly pop-up into the movie and are gone again. For example the crows. They are real classics but for how long are they actually in the movie? 3 minutes maybe?

The story also feels really quite restrained and it's simplistic. Just think about it, what exactly is the main plot-line of this movie? Probably about Dumbo being accepted by the crowd and the other animals for what he is but this is quite thin really. When you now days come up with a story like this it goes straight into the garbage-can in the studio's executive office. It's the foremost reason why I don't enjoy watching this movie as much as any other Disney movie from around the same time period. Though it's definitely one fine and real quality movie, it's just not a movie I would like to watch over and over again.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Dumbo for me is a mini- masterpiece, with beautiful animation, an inspiring message and the sweetest elephant on screen. Dumbo is an elephant born with big ears, but who cares? True beauty comes from within. Dumbo's mother was like Bambi's mother, wise and memorable, and like Dumbo, misunderstood. The song "Baby of Mine" is so sad, that I always cry when I see this film because of it, Casey Jnr is very rousing and having a good laugh during "Seen an Elephant Fly". In regard to the crows, I saw nothing racist about them, they are stereotypical yes in a sense but in a positive way. Timothy the mouse is also memorable, a bit like Dumbo's conscience in a sense. For me, the highlight was Dumbo's dream, with the elephants dancing(a bit unrealistic but very imaginative), with ballet-like incidental music towards the end. I found the song "Elephants on Parade" catchy and I love how trippy the whole sequence is. In conclusion, I rejoiced when Dumbo conquered his fears, when it looked impossible. Great idea, Disney, about the flying elephant, although Don Bluth used a similar idea 50 years later for Pebble and the Penguin. A beautiful film, 10/10 Bethany Cox

The stork delivers a baby to an elephant at a travelling circus. His mother wants to call him Jumbo Jr but after seeing his very large ears the other elephants start disparagingly calling him Dumbo. His clumsiness soon gets himself and his mother into trouble. He befriends a mouse who manages to get him gigs in the circus but he wastes these breaks. Surely there's something that he can do?

A sweet, fun Disney classic. Some great, fantastical plot developments and scenes, all presented with great warmth. The bond between animals and their young is quite emotional and is wonderfully done.

Not all sweetness and light though. There are some harrowing dramatic moments, especially the bullying of poor Dumbo and the treatment of his mother. Ultimately this gives Dumbo something to overcome so is necessary to the plot.

The animation is brilliant and despite being made in 1941 the movie still looks great by modern standards.

Not perfect though. The story feels a bit basic and touch incomplete. While there's some decent themes on display (anti-bullying, finding your talents, don't judge a book by its cover) the end result doesn't feel very profound: the movie could have done with an emotional, thought-provoking wrap-up.

I used to LOVE this film when I was little and then, like most other kids' films I forgot about it. However, the other night I was babysitting until 3.30am and to keep awake I invaded the family's video collection. On watching Dumbo, I was as moved as ever, but also reminded of what a scary and shadowy film it is. My brother had to be guided out of the cinema, crying with his hands over his eyes, when he saw it, and that says a lot for a kids' film. The use of shadows and silhouettes is widespread and the weather is largely rainy and stormy. I can remember being scared during the scene when the train is travelling through the stormy night and particularly when the men (all black, I notice) are building the Big Top. The Pink Elephants sequence is imaginative and impressive for adults but imagine watching it as a kid - it's pretty scary. It's strange to have a film where the main character, title character even, doesn't actually talk, but I suppose there's nothing for him to say, his actions and expressions say it all. The treatment of Dumbo's mother always gets me, particularly the beautiful and haunting "Baby Mine" scene. However, through all the sadness and sinisterness, the heart of the film shines through, and it's a beautiful one with a wonderful message.

Dumbo (1941)

Poor little Dumbo is ostracised because of his massive ears and his doting mother is locked away as a 'mad elephant' for protecting him against bullies. A sympathetic mouse makes friends with him and helps him to deal with the nasty herd and the rest of the circus.

The shortest film so far at just over an hour is also one of the most upsetting for young kids, with the cutest of baby elephants being threatened, bullied and mistreated throughout by pretty much everyone he meets. It's pretty dark, sad stuff.

The use of animals in circuses will also be an anathema to modern audiences, and the scene where little baby Dumbo gets so drunk he hallucinates will date it even further...can you imagine that happening in a kid's film today?!...and don't even get me started on the crows.

But you can't help but love the poor little guy and root for him throughout and it's great to see how he overcomes the diversity that faces him.

I've never found 1941's 'Dumbo' anything extraordinary, in all honesty.

While Dumbo is extremely cute and simply adorable, he's the only great thing that this film has going for it. The animation, even when compared to that of Disney's first two films, isn't that good. It's very cartoony, none of the characters have aged brilliantly in that regard.

The voice talent aren't anything grand, though that's expected given the main character doesn't speak. Edward Brophy's Mouse is amusing, though he's arguably a cut-and-paste of Jiminy Cricket from 'Pinocchio'.

The message of the film is a little blurred, also. It certainly teaches the audience not to judge a book by its cover, but you expect it to stir up questions about circuses and the way the animals are treated, e.g. Dumbo's mother, but it never truly does.

There's also a scene where Dumbo enters a hallucinogenic state which begins funnily, though really does go on for too long. It feels like it's just there to fill the already slacking run time, which adds to my belief that it's a film that was rushed out to make money - that could be me being overly cynical, though.

Reading this review back, it does come across as if I hate the film - I don't, I just think it has a number of flaws to it.