Product: Pinocchio
Rating: 4.0
Earning his wish
Like most of them, Disney's second feature-length animated film has a subtle moral: if a child will honor his parents, go faithfully to school, tell the truth, and above all avoid temptation to do wrong, what he most longs for will someday be his. The old woodcarver Geppetto (Christian Rub) lives in a picturesque little village in the Italian Alps, alone except for his tuxedo kitten Figaro and goldfish Cleo, creating beautiful toys and wondrous mechanical clocks and music boxes. Not till he makes the marionette he calls Pinocchio does he realize how much he longs for more. So, when the brilliant Wishing Star appears outside his bedroom window, he asks to have the puppet become "a real boy." And because he has brought so much joy to so many through his work, the Blue Fairy (Evelyn Venable) descends from the star to grant his desire. She brings Pinocchio to life--but he's still made of wood. "Prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish, and some day you will be a real boy," she promises, recruiting the wandering cricket Jiminy (Cliff Edwards) to be his conscience. Pinocchio (Dickie Jones) wants to do well, but his utter innocence soon gets him into trouble. First he's dazzled by the tales of "Honest John" the ne'er-do-well Fox (Walter Catlett) about the charms of the theatrical life and sold to the puppetmaster Stromboli (Charles Judels), who sees him as a cash cow ("the only marionette...completely without the aid of strings!") and imprisons him in a birdcage. When the Fairy frees him, he again falls in with John and is hustled off to Pleasure Island, where "stupid little boys" can indulge themselves in food, tobacco, beer, pool, dice, fighting, and destruction to their hearts' content--but at a price: they transform into donkeys and are sold as such by the sinister Coachman. Escaping with Jiminy's help, half-transformed, he makes his way back to Geppetto's shop, only to find that the old man and his pets have gone off to search for him and been swallowed by the infamous sperm whale, Monstro. Now the two must venture under the sea to search for the missing ones.Though not as musically rich as some Disney films, this one still includes at least two memorable numbers ("An Actor's Life for Me" and the classic "When You Wish Upon a Star"). The kitten Figaro is among the best animal characters of the studio's long history--sometimes jealous, sometimes affectionate, and sometimes a mirror of Geppetto's moods. (Watch for his kitten-sized bed and high chair.) And Pinocchio and Jiminy, once they get on the same page, make a formidable team. The undersea sequences are to my mind the highpoints of the movie, though Pleasure Island comes in a close second. And while it isn't a fully accurate adaptation of Collodi's originalThe Adventures of Pinocchio, it's still a recognized classic and one that every kid should see.