PINOCCHIO (1940)
Article #1031 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-10-2004
Posting Date: 6-8-2004
Directed by Hamilton Luske, Ben Sharpsteen
Featuring the Voices of Dickie Jones, Cliff Edwards, Christian Rub

A puppeteer wishes that his new puppet creation would be a real boy, and a fairy grants him his wish by bringing the puppet to life. However, it is up to the puppet to prove that he is worthy to be a real boy before he can become one.

If there’s one thing Disney really knew what to do, it was how to inject charm into the proceedings. This comes in very useful here; the first half of this movie is actually somewhat slow moving in terms of plot, but the movie is loaded with simple pleasures (the clocks and toys in Gepetto’s home, for example) to hold your interest until the things really get moving in the second half. In particular, horror fans will find two sequences particularly interesting; the scene on pleasure island when Pinocchio and his friend begin turning into donkeys is quite unnerving, and the Monstro the whale sequence is truly terrifying. This is another thing I appreciate about Disney’s work; he wasn’t afraid to be scary, and that helps make his movies enjoyable to adults as well as children.