Movie Review – Dumbo (1941)

In October of 1941, Walt Disney Productions released Dumbo, the fourth full-length Disney animated film.

Dumbo is a simple story that tells the story of Dumbo, a circus elephant who was born with very large ears.  The young elephant faced teasing and ridicule from the circus’s visitors and his fellow elephants.  Dumbo finds an unlikely companion in that of a mouse named Timothy, and the two of them show the world that Dumbo is indeed a very special elephant.

As you’ll see in the film, Dumbo revolves around simplicity in telling its story.  Dumbo himself has no lines of dialogue, and his mother, Mrs. Jumbo, only speaks one line.  The animation itself lacks the levels of detail in previous films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio.  And with a running time of only 64 minutes, Dumbo is one of Disney’s shortest animated films.

Dumbo begins on a stormy night as a flock of storks are delivering babies to circus animals at their winter quarters in south Florida.  The song “Look Out For Mr. Stork” is heard as all sorts of circus animals receive their babies and start their family.  All of the animals except for an elephant named Mrs. Jumbo.  She is saddened as no baby arrives for her.

Later, the Casey Junior circus train is loaded with all of the animals and supplies to run the circus.  The circus train gets rolling and the song “Casey Junior” is played while it travels across the country.

Meanwhile, Mr. Stork (voiced by Sterling Holloway) still has one more delivery to make.  He locates the circus train as it’s traveling through central Florida, and he delivers a baby elephant to Mrs. Jumbo.  She tells Mr. Stork that the baby’s name is Jumbo, Jr.  However, when the other elephants see the baby’s unusually large ears, they nickname him Dumbo.

Despite the ridicule and teasing from the other elephants, Mrs. Jumbo still loves her baby very much.

The Casey Junior circus train crosses the mountains and finally arrives at its destination, the first stop in the national tour of the circus.  It’s a stormy night as the men and elephants unload the train and get to work.  The song “Song of the Roustabouts” is heard as the men and elephants battle the wind and rain to assemble the main circus tent.  Even Dumbo gets in the act and tries to help his mother.  They succeed with building the big top and the circus is ready to go.

The circus marches in a parade through to gain attention.  When the people laugh and make fun of Dumbo because of his ears, Mrs. Jumbo becomes angered and overprotective of her baby.  When the people push her too far she strikes back.  The Ringmaster (voiced by Herman Bing) is forced to lock up Mrs. Jumbo as it’s feared she may be a mad elephant.  It takes a dozen circus workers to finally capture and subdue the elephant.

That night, Timothy Q. Mouse (voiced by Edward Brophy), a circus mouse, overhears the other elephants talking about Mrs. Jumbo’s solitary confinement and how it’s the fault of Dumbo.  When Timothy looks at Dumbo, he doesn’t see anything wrong with his large ears.  When the elephants shun Dumbo, Timothy joins his side and scares away the other elephants.  He then makes friends with the young elephant, and the two of them form an unusual pair.

Timothy appoints himself as Dumbo’s mentor, and he tries to think of a way that would really project the elephant into the spotlight.  The two of them then overhear some of the circus clowns talking about the next act that they want to create.  The Ringmaster has an idea about having a pyramid of elephants, but he’s not sure how to finish the act.  He decides to sleep on it and let the idea form in his head.  Timothy sneaks to the sleeping Ringmaster and whispers him an idea of having Dumbo running into the arena, jumping onto a springboard, and then landing on top of a platform at the top of the elephant pyramid while waving a flag.  The Ringmaster quickly wakes and tells clowns about his sudden idea.

At the next show this idea is put into motion.  The elephants climb onto one another’s back and eventually form a pyramid.  Before he’s supposed to run into the arena, Timothy suddenly realizes that Dumbo will have trouble running because of his big ears.  He’s going to trip and fall on them.  The mouse quickly ties the elephant’s ears above his head and then sends him into the arena.

Dumbo runs across the floor, but as he reaches the springboard his ears free themselves and cause the little elephant to trip and fall.  Dumbo goes tumbling into the pyramid of elephants, causing them to lose their balance and wreck havoc in the big top.  The mast is broken and the whole tent comes crashing down to the ground.  It’s a terrible embarrassment for the circus.

The circus packs up and moves on to the next town.  While riding on the Casey Junior circus train, the other elephants discuss how Dumbo has been demoted to the role of a clown.  He’s brought shame to the elephants, and they no longer acknowledge him as being one.

In the next town we see Dumbo’s new routine in the circus.  He plays the role of a clown child trapped in a burning building.  The clown firemen are unable to put out the flames, so they make Dumbo jump out of the window and land in a bucket of soapy water.  The crowds laugh and the elephant feels humiliated by the routine.

After the show, Dumbo visits his mother who is still locked in isolation.  The touching song “Baby Mine” plays while Dumbo spends some time with his mother.

Meanwhile, the clowns are toasting to themselves for their spectacular show with the burning building.  They drink and decide to make the show even bigger by raising the height of the building.  The crowds will love it!  When they head out to tell the Ringmaster about this idea, one of their bottles of champagne is accidentally dumped into a tub of water.

As Dumbo and Timothy are returning from visiting Mrs. Jumbo, Dumbo cries and starts to hiccup.  Timothy has him drink some water to stop the hiccups, but he doesn’t know that the water he’s drinking from has the spilled alcohol.  Both Timothy and Dumbo become drunk and intoxicated.  During this time they hallucinate and see pink elephants, and we hear the song “Pink Elephants on Parade.”

When Dumbo and Timothy finally wake the next morning they find themselves high in a tree and with a murder of crows.  The leader of the crows, Jim Crow (voiced by Cliff Edwards), pokes fun at the situation when Timothy wakes from his night of drinking.  When Dumbo also wakes and realizes that he and Timothy are in a tree, they go crashing to the ground.

But how did they make it into the tree in the first place?

As Timothy ponders the question, Jim Crow suggests that they flew into the tree.  Timothy refuses to believe it until he realizes that with Dumbo’s large ears, maybe they really did fly into the tree that previous night.  Jim Crow continues to poke fun at Timothy with the song, “When I See an Elephant Fly.”

To get Dumbo to build his confidence to try to fly again is going to take some work.  Jim Crow convinces Timothy to trick Dumbo and give him a “magic feather,” making him believe that the feather is responsible for flight.  Dumbo grips the feather, flaps his ears, and suddenly he and Timothy are flying through the air.  The crows celebrate as the elephant discovers that he can fly like a bird.

Timothy and Dumbo return to the circus and the act with the clowns and the burning building.  This time Timothy wants to turn the tables on the clowns and use the magic feather to fly around the arena.

The act proceeds and it’s time for Dumbo to jump out of the burning building.  The elephant leaps, but he loses his grip on the magic feather while they’re falling.  Timothy tries to convince Dumbo that the magic feather was just a joke.  The power of flight has been inside of him this whole time.  He just needs to believe in himself.  The elephant finally does and Dumbo soars around the big top, thrilling the crowds and scaring the clowns.  Dumbo also gets a little revenge against the other circus elephants by shooting peanuts at them.

After the circus act, Dumbo becomes a celebrity and national hero.  The circus now treats him like royalty.

Dumbo ends with Mrs. Jumbo now riding in a private, luxury car at the end of the Casey Junior circus train as Dumbo and the crows flying behind them.  Dumbo then lands in his mothers arms, happier than ever to be with her again.

So is Dumbo a good movie?

Yes.

Despite the film’s short running time and and simple animation, this is still a fun film that can be enjoyed by people of all ages.  The circus theme is fantastic, the colors are bright, and the music is triumphant.  It’s a great feeling when Dumbo succeeds at the end of the movie and proves that he’s a special elephant.

The film’s shortcomings (the short length, lack of detail in animation, etc.) are mainly explained by the, at the time, financial failure of the previous full-length animated film, Fantasia.  Although Fantasia was a critically acclaimed success, the film itself had trouble making money from the loss of the European market (war in Europe during the early stages of World War 2) and the special requirements needed to show Fantasia “correctly” in theaters.

As a result, Disney needed to quickly make an animated film that would return a profit.  “Simple” and “inexpensive” were the terms used that dominated the decisions to be made in the creation of Dumbo.  The end resulted in a more “cartoony” look to Dumbo than the other animated films.  The final product looked more like an average Mickey Mouse cartoon rather than the richly detailed animated films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio.

On top of that, a majority of the Disney animators went on a five-week strike starting on May 29, 1941.  Word has it that several of the strikers were caricatured in the film as the clowns who wanted to see the Ringmaster and ask for a raise.

Despite the simplicity in the animation, the strike by the workers, and the film’s short running time, Dumbo was still a hit with both the critics and the audiences.  People loved the story of the little elephant born with large ears, and how he learned that he had a very special skill.

The legacy of Dumbo lives on in the Disney theme parks around the world.  Each of the Magic Kingdom parks has a “Dumbo the Flying Elephant” kiddie ride.  Both Disneyland and Disneyland Paris have a “Casey Junior Circus Train” ride.

In May of 2012, the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida received a major upgrade themed to Dumbo.  The new Storybook Circus section in the Fantasyland expansion has a circus theming right out of Dumbo.  The new version also has a much larger version of the “Dumbo the Flying Elephant” ride, and it has the “Casey Jr. Splash ‘N’ Soak Station” water playground.

Dumbo (1941) – movie trailer

As far as the 1941 animated film, Dumbo is a great movie for the whole family.  It’s short, it stays on target, and it has some fantastic circus theming as well.  Fans of animated films and the Disney movies will feel right at home with Dumbo.