Pinocchio (1940)

 

After the immense (and much needed success) of 'Snow White', Disney Studios and big chief Walt set out for their next project. They settled on the famous story by Carlos Collodi, which isn't really a fairytale but close enough. And once again Disney got it so right and iconic that pretty much everyone thinks of this film and this figure whenever they hear the name Pinocchio.

This one is a whole lot less grim than the Collodi book, but that isn't such a bad thing. 

An elderly toymaker named Gepetto spends his days carving lots of intricate stuff: clocks, music boxes and dolls. He is working on a rather large marionette whom he names Pinocchio, but he does pine for a real son so he wishes upon a star to have Pinocchio be a real boy.

Check one of the most famous songs ever in the Disney catalogue already. 

The Blue Fairy grants Gepetto's wish, but she also tells Pinocchio that in order to become a real boy, he will have to prove himself to be truthful, brave and unselfish. Not an easy task to learn, even for the most noble people, let alone a wooden boy who has just become alive for the first time. Pinocchio sets out for school the next day, but two criminals trick him into going into 'acting' with the puppeteer Stromboli, who is a greedy monster of a man. Pinocchio learns the hard way that not everyone can be trusted, but eventually escapes with help once again of the Blue Fairy. 

But when he heads back home, yet again the criminals trick gullible Pinocchio and they sell him to a coachman who by all intens and purposes is the devil himself. He takes naughty boys to Pleasure Island where they can indulge in mischief, only to become quite literal jackasses to be sold to mines and whatnot. 

Pinocchio escapes and learns that his father Gepetto in desperation went out to sea to find him and was swallowed by a monstrous whale. So now Pinocchio wants to find his father and save him, but Monstro the whale is no simple adversary... 

This once again is a stone cold classic. The songs are incredibly catchy and three of them are still staples of any Disney park. Heck, three are staples in most people's heads! The animation is absolutely stunning and the background paintings are amazing to gaze upon. Once again, Disney realized they couldn't shortsell this feature as it had to prove that 'Snow White' wasn't a fluke. Sure, you could argue that Pinocchio is a character with the brainpower the size of a peanut as he gets tricked twice by the same guy/fox, but he's also a wooden boy of a day old, so we maybe need to cut him some slack? 

Not to mention Stromboli is one scary as hell beast of a man and the finale with Monstro is incredibly intense. It might seem weird to describe what amounts to two people on a raft versus a big sperm whale as 'intense', but the music, editing and animation all come together in what is in essence a nailbiting action scene of which you don't know if our protagonists will make it out alive. 

It's thàt well done.

Obligatory viewing? Well, yes.