Word: dumbo
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Phonograph records for children last week began their seasonal boom. Victor, most kiddie-conscious of disc makers, released its Christmas list: six sides from Walt Disney's Dumbo, and eleven Bluebird (Victor's cheaper label) albums. Seven of the eleven albums are the work of Helen Myers, who is the Rodgers & Hart of pint-sized music. Miss Myers, onetime Oklahoma City Junior Leaguer, Phi Beta Kappa, concert and jive pianist (a year at Manhattan's Rainbow Room), composer of moderately successful popular songs, has been with Victor for two years, dreaming up ideas for the children...
...Dumbo eventually has his day. Under the personal management of Timothy Q. Mouse, a rough rodent of the Jimmy Durante school and a vigorous new Disney character, Dumbo discovers what his ears are good for-flying. This time he takes off from his window high in the burning building like an angry dive-bomber, turning, banking, looping the loop, and finally machine-gunning the other performers with peanuts sucked into his trunk from the vendor's cart...
...Although Dumbo offers no startling innovations in animated cartooning, it is probably Disney's best all-round picture to date. Though it lacks the bomb-burst novelty of Snow White, its craftsmanship is far beyond that memorable fairy tale's. Seldom has Disney articulated his characters so aptly. Dumbo is a most human little fellow, not bright, but willing. His costar, Timothy, is an appealing caricature of a Hollywood agent with a heart. The elephant ladies' aid society ("Girls! Have I got a trunkful of dirt!") is artful satire...
Five black crows are to Dumbo what the Seven Dwarfs were to Snow White. Their burlesque song-&-dance routine, hilarious, eminently crowish, is typical of the good circus humor that bubbles through the picture. They have one of the best (When I See an Elephant Fly) of Dumbo's nine tuneful melodies, none of which compares with the singable Heigh-Ho. One (Look Out for Mr. Stork) has lyrics that are open to smart-alecky interpretation when removed from the picture's context...
Like story and characters, Dumbo's coloring is soft and subdued, free from picture-postcard colors and confusing detail-a significant technical advance. But the charm of Dumbo is that it again brings to life that almost human animal kingdom where Walter Elias Disney is king of them...