This time it's the sound, not the pictures

Rating: 7/10 (8 May 2000)

Generally acknowledged as the end of Disney's golden age (it's the last animated feature Walt supervised before he died), and the more modern, streamlined style successfully introduced in 101 DALMATIANS is starting to look bland and (gasp!) a bit cheap. Fortunately, THE JUNGLE BOOK features just about the greatest voice cast the studio ever assembled, and for once it's the human performances in the recording studio that really make the movie; perhaps only Robin Williams as the Genie in ALADDIN has created as forceful impression on the screen without ever being seen in the flesh.
The Sherman Brothers, perhaps still aflame with inspiration from MARY POPPINS, contribute their second-best song score, although the tune everyone remembers, "The Bare Necessities", was an interpolation by pop songwriter Terry Gilkyson. (And for an example of how fast and completely the Shermans cooled, see the same year's megaflop THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE. How could the same guys who wrote so cleverly for magical nannies and anthropomorphic animals turn so dim when it came to writing for actual humans?) Phil Harris, a huge radio star who didn't have the same success in films, is completely wonderful as Baloo, the sybaritic bear -- a kind of jungle Hoagy Carmichael or ursine Dean Martin, his rascally warmth transcends sentimentality. Sterling Holloway, Disney's erstwhile lovable Pooh, is equally perfect as a sibilant snake, hissing the excellent "Trust in Me". When the masterful George Sanders speaks, he supplies all the grandeur and menace the animation can't quite muster; too bad he only gets one line to sing (if you don't believe Sanders had one of the most impressive and underutilized singing voices in film history, rent CALL ME MADAM sometime.) The ultimate showstopper, of course, is lounge legend and professional wildman Louis Prima as the Orangutan king, infusing the inspired "I Wanna Be Like You" with his anarchic humor and fevered swing sensibility. By the time this becomes a scat "cutting contest" with Harris (Baloo, in the best non-Disney, Bugs Bunny tradition, has disguised himself as a female Orangutan to distract the king), the number has risen to a level of jazz-inflected ecstasy achieved by only the best movie and stage musicals.
The low point, and an unfortunate omen of what would follow up until THE LITTLE MERMAID breathed new life into the form, occurs at a critical juncture late in the action. The boy Mowgli, now wandering the jungle alone, encounters a trio of Cockney buzzards. One of them is clearly modeled after Ringo Starr, and I remember vividly thinking, watching the original theatrical release at age nine, how exciting and cool it was to see a Disney movie acknowledging my then-idols, The Beatles. But when they launch into song, it's immediately clear that Prima was as "far out" as Uncle Walt would ever get. Instead of the anticipated rock 'n' roll pastiche, the mop-topped birds sing in insipid barber-shop harmonies. Luckily, the movie winds up so quickly afterward that the harm isn't fatal. In spite of its flaws, it's hard to imagine a child, or even many adults, who won't find sufficient pleasure in THE JUNGLE BOOK.
A note on the stereo sound mix on the laserdisc (and, I assume, the DVD): it's grand. As in so many technical departments, the Disney sound engineers staked out the cutting edge of movie technology, and the happy result is a 1967 release that sounds as fresh and vibrant as if it were recorded last week.