Dumbo (1941) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Life is bound to take unexpected turns and it felt quite obvious when watching Walt Disney’s Dumbo.


PLOT


Based on the children’s book by Helen Aberson, Harold Pearl & Helen Durney, the 1941 film follows an elephant calf that is delivered to his mother, Mrs. Jumbo, via stork. She is part of a circus that includes many animals including other elephants that are more of her coworkers than friends. When he is delivered to her via stork, he is given mockingly given the titular nickname for his ears that are bigger than what an average elephant would have. Despite his ears making him clumsy, Jumbo took care of him with all the love she was prepared to give. Things sadly take a turn for the worst as her decision to defend her baby from humans bullying him leads to the ringmaster intervening by putting her in solitary confinement. Rather than be sentimental, the other adult elephants choose to blame Dumbo for what happened. Ironically, the only animal that feels bad is a talking mouse named Timothy who chooses to defend him by scaring the others. He then decides to make his big ears his strength by whispering to the ringmaster in his sleep, convincing him to make him part of an act in which he and the other elephants topple over each other like a pyramid. Sadly, that doesn't go according to plan when he trips over his ears again and causes the elephants to be injured after falling onto each other. With the fallout so severe, the ringmaster responds by booking him with the clowns where his act involves jumping off a burning building prop and falling into a vat of pie. He then has the hiccups after a emotional visit of his mom. Timothy tries to solve the problem by feeding him champagne, but as he shares it, they both get hallucinations of pink elephants. When they wake up, they find themselves up above a tree and when they are woken up by a group of crows, they fall into a pond. As Timothy wonders how they even got up there, the crows jokingly suggest Dumbo must've flown up. The mouse takes the theory serious as it could help him be famous for the right reasons. The crows laugh of that idea until the former shares how much the calf has been through. The leading crow credited as Jim gives them a feather from one of his own and calls it magic as motivation and once his group pushes Dumbo off a hill as he flaps his ears, it is proven he can indeed fly. He then pulls it off again during his clown act without the feather and blows the audience away. The film's epilogue concludes where Dumbo would gain high fortunes to the point of freeing Jumbo and scoring a private coach, whereas Timothy secures him a Hollywood contract.


THOUGHTS


You know, it's crazy how much can be told in an hour because this was quite the journey in a limited amount of time compared to double the amount we see as average. Nevertheless, it's not off putting to say this story is inspirational in one form. Now there is definitely a point of controversy to be made with the crows depicting African-American stereotypes and the unusual PSA to not do underage drinking, but there were a few other things I'd like to address that didn't make sense to me story-wise. For instance, why do the tiger cubs get packaged together whereas the bear cubs were separated? You can’t say they don’t fit if five tigers could. And why was only one stork delivering Dumbo in a uniform while the rest before him were not? Forget the silhouettes, he didn’t seem like a trainee due to the experience his voice makes. Also, why does jumbo have to get a signature if the other animal never needed to? Forget the fact it was night time because if this is so serious for storks to do, there should be a valid explanation. It’s even crazy Timothy never even practiced the pyramid act with Dumbo in advance if he didn’t want to be embarrassed. Like there is no excuse for that to not happen. And if we’re gonna get into continuity errors, let’s point out how the script forgets the amount of elephants there are supposed to be since the ringmaster has the idea of using 17 elephants for the pyramid act, but we see the usual seven apart from Dumbo. The same can be said with how long his trunk is supposed to be when seeing his confined mom. Moving on, who contains the fire for the burning building act? Like we don’t see anyone with a fire extinguisher, so it’s crazy to see how organized the clowns were for this one. If I can get any more technical, I can say I refuse to believe the clowns would not un-finish the champagne considering how drunk they sounded after the show ended. The last thing that trips me out is the fact Jim Crow hears Timothy talking to himself on wondering how he and Dumbo got up on the tree before chiming in. They just fell into a pond and he was a bunch of feet away with his group watching them from a fence, so I can’t buy that at all. When putting these issues aside though, I still think there is something special to be said. For being the only protagonist in Disney’s catalog to not speak, Dumbo has been an inspiration because he is able to teach us that what makes you different is your biggest strength and the sooner you learn that, the stronger you become. Dumbo did his best in participating before learning to fly because it’s what his mom would’ve wanted. Speaking of which, Jumbo may have gotten in a bad predicament due to her parental instincts and in fact, the entire predicament that all elephants go through proves that the circus ain’t the right environment for any animal when you look at it, but you can’t blame her at all because the ideal parent has to protect her kids from harm which she tried. Her song ‘Baby Mine’ is the only song from the soundtrack that matters most because it emphasizes how unconditional the love of a mother will be no matter how blue a child will be. As much as Dumbo wanted his mom to be free, that would’ve not been possible had it not been for the one animal that took a chance on him. Actor Edward Brophy has us love Timothy Mouse as well because he’s the one who’s far more brazen which he passes on his efforts to help Dumbo overcome his fears. He takes a chance on him because he knows what it’s like to be treated different and returns the favor in being his promoter which he pulls off unconventionally. Without him, there is no happy ending and after all that had happened, it was all worth it. In short, Dumbo is one of Disney’s most brash films due to finding the path to be heartwarming after a struggling journey. If you are a Disney fan and want to find motivation, check this out.