A Look Back at Pinocchio (1940)

 

With the new live-action remake of Pinocchio coming out soon. I do what I usual do, many times before, look back and review.

Pinocchio is a animated fantasy musical movie based on the 1883 Italian children's novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio. The film was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. Pinocchio was written by Ted Sears, Otto Englander, Webb Smith, William Cottrell, Joseph Sabo, and Erdman Penner and Aurelius Battaglia and directed by Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Norm Ferguson, Jack Kinney, Wilfred Jackson, and T. Hee.

The story is when Geppetto first created his newest puppet Pinocchio, that's all he was, just a puppet. Then later on into the night he wishes upon a star and Pinocchio comes to life. Soon Pinocchio explores the world only to find trouble. Now Pinocchio must get out of this mess, and find his way home.

• Negatives

I've got nothing to say. Let's move on.

• Mix

Once again, I've got nothing. So move on.

• Positives

One reason why this film is such a classic is because of the voice acting. The cast is amazing. The guys who played all of the villains, sounded truly villainous, and then we have Dickie Jones as the tilted character, and Cliff Edwards as Jiminy Cricket. These two are extraordinary. Dickie truly made Pinocchio sound perfectly innocent and very curious about the world. And Cliff really brought out Jiminy's charm. And to those two will forever be the voices of those characters. I've got nothing against all of the other actors who played these after those two, but every actor who plays those characters really have big shoes to fill.

Then we have the music. I really don't know what to say about the music. It's an all time classic. Everyone's heard of "When You Wish Upon a Star" and of course "I've Got No Strings". Even if you haven't seen the film, at some point, you've had to have heard of them somewhere.

So now we have the animation. All I can say that it's timeless. Even though it was made in the 40's, to this day, it still holds up. It also can overshadow a lot of today's animation. And much like I've been saying when I review this older animated films, it really makes me wish someone, anyone would take the risk and make a 2D theatrical animated film.

Since it's a Disney film, you can expect a lot of fun and charming moments, but that doesn't stop the movie from taking some dark turns. One scene that'll always stick into my head, was a donkey transformation (any of that saw the film know exactly what I'm talking about), where it's quite terrifying. It almost played like an animated horror film. That scene scared me as a kid when I saw on Disney Channel, and it gave me bit of a scare now. But like I said before, there are still a lot of charming moments, so really by the end of the day, it all pretty much evens out.

Overall, the 1940 version of Pinocchio is an all time classic. It's got great voice acting, classic music, timeless animation, and a nice balance of charming and dark moments.

My final rating is A Must Watch.

So that's going to do it for me. Come back on Thursday, Sept 8th for my review of the live-action remake of Pinocchio. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.