Product: Pinocchio
Rating: 5.0
This Disney Used to Scare Me the Most
Disney movies were the joy of my childhood. (I so envy the kids today who can see them at home any time they want to; for me, you had to go to the theatre, and 20 cents for a ticket meant I could only go once a week.) PINOCCHIO was the scariest, because the set-up for Pleasure Island was so exciting, only to see Pinocchio's friends grow long ears and become mean! These days, I think, a lot of the scare-factor is gone because kids see so many movies that have frightening elements in them. But once upon a time, back in the 40s, Walt Disney had to take a chance on frightening the kids because he needed adults to buy the tickets. So in an interesting sense, PINOCCHIO is more of an adult movie than Disney's other full-length features of the time. It certainly deserves a full five stars, but it doesn't topple the best movie of all time (SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS), nor is it as integrated and coherent as CINDERELLA or DUMBO. PINOCCHIO is more episodic, more a collection of scenes with music. If you have an impressionable child, I'd hold off on PINOCCHIO for a while.