

Dumbo was supposed to appear on the cover of "Time" magazine when it was released in December 1941. But sometimes history gets in the way of entertainment, and when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the antics of a flying elephant somehow seemed less important than news of the war. The cover idea was scrapped and replaced with a photo of Japanese general Yamamoto. "Dumbo" appeared after two hugely expensive Disney films, "Fantasia" and "Pinocchio," but it was a far less expensive effort, costing the studio only about $800,000. It was only 18 months in the making -- a process that by all reports went exceptionally smoothly. But the time and expense doesn't in any way relate to the power of the film. As Leonard Maltin writes in "The Disney Films," "Dumbo is one of the shortest animated features Disney ever made. It is one of the least pretentious. It is also one of the finest." Critic Cecilia Ager agrees. "Dumbo is the nicest, kindest Disney yet. . . . It tries only to be a wonderful example of a form they themselves created -- the fable expressing universal human truths in animal guise."
Actually, Walt had less personal involvement in "Dumbo" than in many of the other animated features. Much of the work on the film was done when Walt was under great personal stress, owing to the painful studio strike that began in the spring of 1941. He was even away from the studio for a 12-week period in the fall of that year, on a trip to South America. Fortunately, Walt's animators were more than up to the task; and Dumbo's story was remarkably straightforward, filled with engaging characters and less in need of Walt's regular involvement than others. Even the small details came together well. Disney regular Sterling Holloway provided a perfect voice for the stork who brings little Dumbo to his loving mother. The choice of a mouse named Timothy as Dumbo's best friend was ideal. And the scene in which Dumbo's mother holds the young elephant's trunk through the iron bars of her cage is one of the most moving in any Disney film. In its own way, it is even more of a tear-jerker than the death of Bambi's mother.
|