Dumbo

Ben Sharpsteen’s 1941 animation follows Dumbo, a baby elephant mocked for his huge ears, whose mother is locked in a train car for defending him. He only flies near the end, after two scenes: a visit where mother and son can touch trunks but not see each other, and the pink elephants he sees after drinking champagne-spiked water. Made simply and cheaply to recoup the losses of Pinocchio and Fantasia, it runs 64 minutes; when distributor RKO asked for about ten more, Walt Disney refused. The animators’ strike of May 1941 hit mid-production. Organiser Art Babbitt animated the clowns’ song about asking the big boss for a raise, but said he got the scene before the strike and others attached the politics. At the 14th Academy Awards the Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace score won Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture), and Baby Mine was nominated for Music (Song). Disney’s Stories Matter note says the crows pay homage to racist minstrel shows and their leader is named Jim Crow; in October 2020 Disney+ strengthened the advisory in front of the film rather than cut it. A good fit if you will watch with a young child and talk through the separation and hallucination. Not for viewers avoiding the crow caricatures: they hand Dumbo the magic feather, so the scene stays.