On My Shelf: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Only half of this movie actually qualifies as a Halloween movie, and not the first half.... which is why I saved it for post-Halloween time.
This is an odd anthology movie (if you can call an anthology when it only has two parts); produced by Disney out of two separate stories that weren't quite long enough on their own, so they crammed them together on the weak premise that they were both from "literature".
Plot (I): Mr. Toad is a jerk! He has a passion for fads with things that go at high speed -- an all-consuming passion that causes him to get into debt and mortgage not only his future but his ancestral estate. He keeps going on this path until he stumbles across a new invention, THE MOTORCAR. He immediately buys stolen goods and gets arrested like an idiot. Then he escapes from jail and only avoids having to return with a legal loophole (at Christmas).
Plot (II): Ichabod Crane is a jerk! He's a lanky weirdo who arrives in a small New England town which is also populated by self-centered weirdos, including Brom Bones (town braggadocio) and Katrina Van Tassel (town egotistical flirt). It would be one thing if Ichabod Crane just wanted to be the local schoolmaster and go about his business -- but he seems intent on eating everything in sight and flirting with everything in a skirt -- until he meets Katrina, whose money is he most enamored with. He and Brom Bones battle it out for her attentions, until Halloween night...
Thoughts
Why did Disney decide to put together two stories where the only connective tissue is that the main characters happen to be huge jerks?
I happen to know the answer to this question -- and I've already more or less answered it above. Both stories were more or less proposed as solo-films, but due to wartime shortages of animators, Mr. Toad wound up being shelved for a while and never fully completed -- and Sleepy Hollow wound up being just plain too short. So, just make up the difference with narration, right? Provide a loose connective tissue where we see a bookshelf and then the narrators introduce the stories? They got esteemed British actor Basil Rathbone (aka the 1940's Sherlock Holmes) to provide some narration for Mr. Toad (mainly just to fill in gaps)...
I like Basil Rathbone, so no problem there....and 1930's singer/heartthrob Bing Crosby to provide full narration (all characters, and sing songs).
I also like Bing Crosby, so hard to complain about that!...Which, even as a child, struck me as a bit odd. Can anybody else tell me if Disney ever did that again -- had just one person provide all the voice-over work for a feature cartoon?
Animation
The animation in both cartoons is beautiful, of course. Mr. Toad climaxes with a hilariously, over-the-top violent fight scene -- but the best part is the denouement of Sleepy Hollow. It's completely magnificent from the point where Brom Bones tells the headless-horseman story onward.
The headless-horseman chase at the end is definitely on my list of favorite sections of Disney animation, right up there on the "amazing animation" list with the Prince/Dragon battle at the end of Sleeping Beauty.
You can't beat it! I'm not sure there has been a better depiction of the headless horseman... ever. And all subsequent tellings of this story that I have seen demonstrated not only awareness of the cartoon but minor homages to it.
THAT SAID...
... The big problem with both of these cartoons is that both the protagonists are so profoundly unlikeable. I wanted Mr. Toad to go back to jail! He was an idiot with no thought for the concerns of his friends. And Ichabod Crane could have been a sympathetic character -- if they had just left out the minor detail that he was mainly only interested in Katrina's money. In fact, in the version of this that I saw as a child (taped off TV and part of a general Halloween special, so rather abbreviated), they edited out everything that made Ichabod seem like a jerk -- so he was more of a hapless victim, which actually makes the story significantly more palatable.
Ultimately
Do I recommend this Disney film? Yes and no. MOSTLY no, because if you're actually paying attention to the stories, it's really not a highly enjoyable experience. Yes, if you're just going to watch the animation and listen to the music (or, maybe, if you're planning on just paying attention during the climax of Sleepy Hollow). So, for once a "recommended with reservations" doesn't cut it -- and neither does a flat "no", so...
MOSTLY "NO"
This is an odd anthology movie (if you can call an anthology when it only has two parts); produced by Disney out of two separate stories that weren't quite long enough on their own, so they crammed them together on the weak premise that they were both from "literature".
Plot (I): Mr. Toad is a jerk! He has a passion for fads with things that go at high speed -- an all-consuming passion that causes him to get into debt and mortgage not only his future but his ancestral estate. He keeps going on this path until he stumbles across a new invention, THE MOTORCAR. He immediately buys stolen goods and gets arrested like an idiot. Then he escapes from jail and only avoids having to return with a legal loophole (at Christmas).
Plot (II): Ichabod Crane is a jerk! He's a lanky weirdo who arrives in a small New England town which is also populated by self-centered weirdos, including Brom Bones (town braggadocio) and Katrina Van Tassel (town egotistical flirt). It would be one thing if Ichabod Crane just wanted to be the local schoolmaster and go about his business -- but he seems intent on eating everything in sight and flirting with everything in a skirt -- until he meets Katrina, whose money is he most enamored with. He and Brom Bones battle it out for her attentions, until Halloween night...
Thoughts
Why did Disney decide to put together two stories where the only connective tissue is that the main characters happen to be huge jerks?
I happen to know the answer to this question -- and I've already more or less answered it above. Both stories were more or less proposed as solo-films, but due to wartime shortages of animators, Mr. Toad wound up being shelved for a while and never fully completed -- and Sleepy Hollow wound up being just plain too short. So, just make up the difference with narration, right? Provide a loose connective tissue where we see a bookshelf and then the narrators introduce the stories? They got esteemed British actor Basil Rathbone (aka the 1940's Sherlock Holmes) to provide some narration for Mr. Toad (mainly just to fill in gaps)...
I like Basil Rathbone, so no problem there....and 1930's singer/heartthrob Bing Crosby to provide full narration (all characters, and sing songs).
I also like Bing Crosby, so hard to complain about that!...Which, even as a child, struck me as a bit odd. Can anybody else tell me if Disney ever did that again -- had just one person provide all the voice-over work for a feature cartoon?Animation
The animation in both cartoons is beautiful, of course. Mr. Toad climaxes with a hilariously, over-the-top violent fight scene -- but the best part is the denouement of Sleepy Hollow. It's completely magnificent from the point where Brom Bones tells the headless-horseman story onward.
The headless-horseman chase at the end is definitely on my list of favorite sections of Disney animation, right up there on the "amazing animation" list with the Prince/Dragon battle at the end of Sleeping Beauty.
You can't beat it! I'm not sure there has been a better depiction of the headless horseman... ever. And all subsequent tellings of this story that I have seen demonstrated not only awareness of the cartoon but minor homages to it.
THAT SAID...
... The big problem with both of these cartoons is that both the protagonists are so profoundly unlikeable. I wanted Mr. Toad to go back to jail! He was an idiot with no thought for the concerns of his friends. And Ichabod Crane could have been a sympathetic character -- if they had just left out the minor detail that he was mainly only interested in Katrina's money. In fact, in the version of this that I saw as a child (taped off TV and part of a general Halloween special, so rather abbreviated), they edited out everything that made Ichabod seem like a jerk -- so he was more of a hapless victim, which actually makes the story significantly more palatable.
Ultimately
Do I recommend this Disney film? Yes and no. MOSTLY no, because if you're actually paying attention to the stories, it's really not a highly enjoyable experience. Yes, if you're just going to watch the animation and listen to the music (or, maybe, if you're planning on just paying attention during the climax of Sleepy Hollow). So, for once a "recommended with reservations" doesn't cut it -- and neither does a flat "no", so...
MOSTLY "NO"
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