Dumbo (Remastered) (1941)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Celebrating Dumbo Featurette-Elmer Elephant Featurette-The Flying Mouse Karaoke-Look Out For Mr. Stork; Casey, Jr. Read Along-Disney Storytime: Dumbo's Big Adventure Gallery-7 Music Video-Baby Mine-Michael Crawford
Rating
Year Of Production	1941
Running Time	61:11
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Ben Sharpsteen
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Herman Bing Verna Felton Edward Brophy
Case	DV-4
RPI	$36.95	Music	Oliver Wallace Frank Churchill Ned Washington

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Portuguese Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Polish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Catalan Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.37:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Spanish Portuguese Polish Bulgarian	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Dumbo is one of Disney's classic animation movies. It is a heart warming and sentimental tale, in the style of The Ugly Duckling, of a baby elephant who overcomes adversity through love and determination. Dumbo was Disney's first title to be released on video, back in 1980. It was initially released in Region 4 on DVD a few years ago, and this is the 'remastered' edition of the DVD.

    Dumbo was produced in 1941 and was Disney's fourth animated feature length movie (although even at the time some of the distributors thought it was far too short to be a 'feature'). It was made very quickly and cheaply for about $800,000 in part, it is believed, to recoup some of the losses from Fantasia (1940). The movie grossed over $2.5 million on its initial release, and put Disney features back in the black.

    The story is set in a travelling circus, and concerns Jumbo Jr., a baby elephant who is cruelly re-named 'Dumbo' by a few mean elephants. Mrs. Jumbo (Dumbo's mother) is caged separately after she protects Dumbo from harm. Dumbo finds himself rejected by the remaining elephants, and without his mother, his only friend is a little 'hustler', Timothy Mouse. With Timothy's help, however, Dumbo will soon discover that his big ears are very special indeed.

    The story is simple and it carries a good message of triumph over adversity. The scenes between Dumbo and his mother really show how talented Disney animators can express a genuine sense of emotion and feeling through their artwork. There are a number of truly touching and haunting scenes in Dumbo, as well as a number of bright and cheery ones. As always, Disney blend the comic and the tragic perfectly.

    The background artwork and layouts are very simplistic, and the animation is a little crude by today's standards. The overall image is quite flat compared with today's 3D CGI wonders, but the style is unmistakably Disney. I agree that the movie is too short, and the third act and epilogue could have easily been teased out by a few minutes.

    As I mentioned earlier, this DVD is the remastered edition. If you are interested, you are able to read our resident Disney expert, Ian M's, review of the original release here.

Video

    Considering that this movie is now just over sixty years old, the grainy and sometimes flawed transfer is acceptable.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, full frame. This has slightly cropped the original 1.37:1 source material.

    The sharpness is acceptable, considering the age of the material. I suspect that the source material's image was a little soft anyway.

    The colour is acceptable for the age of the movie. While some scenes appeared vibrant, and almost over-saturated, others are in very poor condition, such as the messy image at 5:35. Some of the colours are murky or have faded unevenly.

    There were no MPEG artefacts or film-to-video artefacts, although at times I thought I spotted slight telecine wobble. There are very few film artefacts to complain of, and this is a testament to Disney's remastering process.

    Six sets of subtitles are present, and the English subtitles are accurate.

    This is a Dual Layered disc, but I did not spot a layer change. I suspect that it has been 'hidden' between the short feature and the extras.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Originally released theatrically in mono, and remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 for DVD, the audio retains much of its original mono feel.

    Apart from the English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track, there is also a Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track, and Portuguese, Polish and Catalan Dolby Digital 2.0 audio tracks. The Portuguese track is surround encoded.

    The dialogue quality and audio sync are fine on the default English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track.

    Dumbo won the Oscar for best musical score in its year, and the score is credited to Oliver Wallace and Frank Churchill. Ned Washington wrote the lyrics to the songs, and Edward Plumb did all the orchestrations. The music suits the movie and plot well.

    The surround presence and activity was limited, and a little clumsy. However, considering that this was a sixty year old mono track, they actually have made a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The rear speakers support the score, and provide some moments of ambience, most noticeably during the storm at 1:16.

    The subwoofer is also occasionally subtly utilised, such as during the thunder storms at 1:42 and 14:09.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are a few extras, but few relate to the movie directly. All the extras are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio, unless stated otherwise.

Menu

    A nicely animated menu themed around the movie.

Celebrating Dumbo (14:16)

    Leonard Maltin, Roy Disney Jr. and others reflect on why they like the movie.

Elmer Elephant (8:11)

    A 1936 Disney short.

The Flying Mouse (8:59)

    A 1934 Disney short.

'Look Out For Mr. Stork'

    The song from the movie with karaoke style lyrics on-screen.

'Casey Jr.'

    The song from the movie with karaoke style lyrics on-screen.

Disney's Storytime -- Dumbo's Big Discovery

    Fairly self-explanatory, this is a simplified version of the story.

Dumbo Art Gallery

    Behind the scenes stills, concept art and storyboards.

'Baby Mine' (2:46)

    Music video of Michael Crawford performing this Oscar-nominated song from the movie. This extra enjoys Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.

    Dumbo was released on DVD as a '60th Anniversary Edition' in Region 1 in October 2001.

    The Region 4 DVD misses out on:

• Audio commentary.
• Original Walt Disney TV introduction.
• Sound design feature
• Dumbo II sneak peak.
• DVD-ROM content.

    The Region 1 DVD misses out on:

• Portuguese, Polish and Catalan Dolby Digital 2.0 audio tracks.

    The extra features on the Region 1 disc force me to favour that version. However, if you are not a Disney purist, but buying Dumbo for the movie itself, I would opt for the local release.

    Dumbo is a Disney classic and an enjoyable family movie. While I accept that Dumbo is a piece of cinema and animation history, I don't think that it represents Disney's best work. In fact, I can easily think of about five or ten Disney titles that I think are far better story and animation-wise.

    The video quality is acceptable considering the age of the source material.

    The audio quality is also acceptable considering the age of the source material.

    The extras are plentiful, but fail to provide that in-depth enjoyment that some other titles enjoy through their extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall