Word: disneying
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...JUNGLE BOOK. This animated version of the children's classic may be a perverse introduction to Rudyard Kipling, but it is a nice way to remember the late Walt Disney; it is the last film he personally supervised...
Judging from The Jungle Book, the last film he personally supervised, Walt Disney never Kippled either. Hardly a line is left of the stories about Mowgli, the Indian "man-cub" who was raised by animals. Like Disney's other adaptations of children's classics, The Jungle Book is based on the Kipling original in the same way that a fox hunt is based on foxes. Nonetheless, the result is thoroughly delightful...
...reasons for its success lie in Disney's own unfettered animal spirits, his ability to be childlike without being childish. In his Jungle safari, he obviously aimed for the below-twelve market by stuffing his scenario with pratfalls and puffing it with the kind of primitive tunes that can be whistled through the gap left by a missing front tooth...
...Disney's last live-action features, such as The Happiest Millionaire (TIME, Dec. 15), cast doubt on his ability as a film maker. But in the area of the animated film, he unquestionably remained supreme to the end. The Jungle Book may be a perverse introduction to Rudyard Kipling, but it is the happiest possible way to remember Walt Disney...
Such lapses of judgment only serve to point up the huge generation gap between children's film makers and their audience. Somehow-with the frequent but by no means infallible exception of Walt Disney-Hollywood has never learned what so many children's book-writers have known all along: size and a big budget are no substitutes for originality or charm. The greatest works remain those that keep their audience in mind by thinking small...