Charlotte's Web (1973 film)

Theatrical release poster

***Charlotte's Web*** is a 1973 American animated musical drama film based on the 1952 children's book of the same name by E. B. White. The film was produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by Buena Vista Distribution. Like the book, this film centers on a pig named Wilbur who befriends an intelligent spider named Charlotte who saves him from being slaughtered.

Directed by Charles A. Nichols and Iwao Takamoto from a story by Earl Hamner Jr., it stars the voices of Debbie Reynolds, Paul Lynde and Henry Gibson, alongside narration by Rex Allen. *Charlotte's Web* features a score of music and lyrics written by the Sherman Brothers, who had previously written music for family films like *Mary Poppins* in 1964, *The Jungle Book* in 1967 and *Chitty Chitty Bang Bang* in 1968.

*Charlotte's Web* premiered at the Radio City Music Hall on February 22, 1973, and was released on March 1 to moderate critical and commercial success.

## Plot

Early one morning, Fern Arable prevents her father John from slaughtering a piglet as the runt of the litter. Deciding to let Fern deal with nurturing the piglet, John allows Fern to raise it as a pet. She nurtures it lovingly, naming it Wilbur. Six weeks later, Wilbur, due to being a spring pig, has matured, and John tells Fern that Wilbur has to be sold (his siblings were already sold). Fern sadly says good-bye to Wilbur as he is sold down the street to her uncle, Homer Zuckerman. At Homer's farm, a goose coaxes a sullen Wilbur to speak his first words. Although delighted at this new ability, Wilbur still yearns for companionship. He attempts to get the goose to play with him, but she declines on the condition that she has to hatch her eggs. Wilbur also tries asking a rat named Templeton to play with him, but Templeton's only interests are spying, hiding, and eating. Wilbur then wants to play with a lamb, but the lamb's father says sheep do not play with pigs because it is only a matter of time before pigs are slaughtered and turned into smoked bacon and ham. Horrified at this depressing discovery, Wilbur reduces himself to tears until a mysterious voice tells him to "chin up", and waits until morning to reveal herself to him. The following morning, she reveals herself to be a spider named Charlotte A. Cavatica, living on a web on a corner of Homer's barn overlooking Wilbur's pig pen. She tells him that she will come up with a plan guaranteed to spare his life.

Later, the goose's goslings hatch. One of them, named Jeffrey, befriends Wilbur. Eventually, Charlotte reveals her plan to "play a trick on Zuckerman", and consoles Wilbur to sleep. Fern and Avery visit the barn that same day. Avery tries to capture Charlotte, but is foiled by the stench of a rotten egg. The next morning, Homer's farmhand, Lurvy, sees the words, SOME PIG, spun within Charlotte's web. The incident attracts publicity among Homer's neighbors who deem the praise to be a miracle. The publicity eventually dies down, and, after a hornet lands in Charlotte's web and ruins the SOME PIG message, Charlotte requests the barn animals to devise a new word to spin within her web. After several suggestions, the goose suggests the phrase, TERRIFIC! TERRIFIC! TERRIFIC!, though Charlotte decides to shorten it to one TERRIFIC. The incident becomes another media sensation, though Homer still desires to slaughter Wilbur. For the next message, Charlotte then employs Templeton to pull a word from a magazine clipping at the dump for inspiration, in which he returns the word RADIANT ripped from a soap box to spin within her web. Following this, Homer decides to enter Wilbur in the county fair for the summer. Charlotte reluctantly decides to accompany him, though Templeton at first has no interest in doing so until the goose tells him about all the food there. After one night there, Charlotte sends Templeton to the trash pile on another errand to gather another word for her next message, in which he returns with the word, HUMBLE. The next morning, Wilbur awakens to find Charlotte has spun an egg sac containing her unborn offspring, and the following afternoon, the word, HUMBLE, is spun. However, Fern's brother, Avery, discovers another pig named Uncle has won first place, though the county fair staff decides to hold a celebration in honor of Homer's miraculous pig, and rewards him $25 and an engraved, bronze medal. He then announces that he will allow Wilbur to "live to a ripe old age".

Exhausted from laying eggs and writing words, Charlotte tells Wilbur she will remain at the fair to die. Not willing to let her children be abandoned, Wilbur has Templeton retrieve her egg sac to take back to the farm, just before she dies. Once he returns to Homer's farm, he guards the egg sac through the winter. The next spring, Charlotte's 514 children are hatched, but leave the farm, causing Wilbur to become saddened to the point of wanting to run away. Just as he is about to do so, the ram points out that three of them did not fly away. Pleased at finding new friends, he names them Joy, Nellie, and Aranea, but as much as he loves them, they will never replace the memory of Charlotte.

## Voice cast

* Henry Gibson as Wilbur, a pig who was almost killed due to being a runt. Over time, however, he grows so much that one would never have known he was once a runt. When he learns of his fate of being slaughtered, Wilbur instantly breaks down into tears, until Charlotte tells him that she will do whatever it takes to save him. Wilbur is a friendly pig, but also prone to anxiety.
* Debbie Reynolds as Charlotte A. Cavatica, a spider who lives on a web in a corner of Homer's barn above Wilbur's pig pen. She is very loving and motherly, as well as assertive and good at leading the barnyard group. She sometimes grows frustrated at Wilbur's anxiety issues. At the end of the film, she dies after laying 514 eggs, but three of them decide to stay with Wilbur.
* Paul Lynde as Templeton, a care-free, gluttonous and egotistical rat who lives at Homer's farm. He helps Charlotte get new ideas for her webs on the condition that he is promised food. At the end of the film, as well as the sequel, he has four bratty children of his own: Henrietta, Lester, Ralphie, and Junior.
* Agnes Moorehead as the Goose, an unnamed goose who is the one that encourages Wilbur to speak for the first time. Her seven goslings later hatch, although there were actually eight eggs (one was rotten). In the sequel, she was named Gwen.
* Don Messick as Jeffrey, a young, undersized gosling whom Wilbur befriends shortly after his birth. He initially lives, eats, and sleeps with Wilbur rather than his mother and siblings. At one point, Avery remarks that he sounds more like a pig than a gosling, which pleases Jeffrey. When Wilbur is loaded into a crate destined for the fair, Jeffrey casually walks in to join him, amusing the humans but they still remove and restrain him nevertheless. International VHS releases show a deleted scene in which Jeffrey is briefly seen riding with Avery in the back of the Arables' truck, until it stops so Avery can set him down in the middle of the road. Distressed at being separated from Wilbur, Jeffrey tries to catch up with the truck to no avail, leaving him heartbroken. His mother gently directs him to the pond to join his siblings. Despite his previous insistence that they be friends forever, Jeffrey does not reunite with Wilbur when the latter returns from the fair nor does he appear in the rest of the film.
	+ Messick also voices several other characters, including: Uncle the Pig (impersonating Candy Candido), a county fair pig who wins the first prize; and a Lamb.
* Herb Vigran as Lurvy, Homer's farmhand who is the first to notice the messages in Charlotte's webs.
* Pamelyn Ferdin as Fern Arable, John's daughter who convinces him to spare Wilbur's life.
* Martha Scott as Mrs. Arable, Fern's mother who first tells her of what was going to happen to Wilbur.
* Bob Holt as Homer Zuckerman, Mrs. Arable's brother and Fern's uncle.
* John Stephenson as John Arable, Fern's father. He was about to "do away" with Wilbur until she intervened.
* Danny Bonaduce as Avery Arable, Fern's older brother.
* William B. White as Henry Fussy, a boy of about Fern's age, whom she soon starts spending time with while Wilbur is at the fair.
* Dave Madden as the Ram, one of the first animals Wilbur meets at Homer's farm. He is the first to tell Wilbur that it is a pig's fate to be slaughtered and turned into smoked bacon and ham. Madden also voiced other characters in the film.
* Joan Gerber as Edith Zuckerman, Homer's wife. She comes up with the idea of giving Wilbur a buttermilk bath.
	+ Gerber also voices Mrs. Fussy, Henry's stern mother who never lets him have fun.
* Rex Allen as the Narrator