Audio:

Subtitles:

English, Dutch, Hindi, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, none

English, French, Spanish, none

The Film: 10
If there is an animated feature more genuinely affecting, with more timeless universal appeal than Dumbo, I am unaware of it.

Dumbo is Disney's fourth movie in the Pentatuch that includes Snow White (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940) and Bambi (1942). Dumbo is credited for having saved the studio, for despite the popularity and critical acclaim heaped upon Snow White and Fantasia, these films were not moneymakers and Disney needed to reconsider his product. Would it be possible to make a less expensive movie that honored the direction he wanted to go in the medium? Just ask any of the dozen or so contributors to the extra features on this set.

At first glance, and in the context of Disney's own efforts up to then, Dumbo appears less artistic, more cartoony than the three earlier films – and in a way you'd be right to see it that way. Dumbo is a distillation of everything Disney animators had learned to that point. Animation, remember, is not the art of painting, but bringing drawings to life – to animate the inanimate. It isn't animals that they are breathing life into, it is drawings of animals, or people, or tress, or anything they choose.

In the case of Dumbo, this art has been pared down to the absolute minimum, consistent with pleasing audiences and making money. These guys aren't starving artists working in a loft someplace burning their overcoats to keep warm, after all. To make matters even more challenging, the decision was made to keep Dumbo mute - and except for a whimper or two, all of Dumbo's feeling are expressed visually through drawings. Much the same is true for Dumbo's mother, Jumbo. All the other elephants speak, but Dumbo and Jumbo react only in mime.

What makes Dumbo so universally engaging is its ugly duckling story of finding worth in exactly the thing for which others ridicule you and for which you come to hate in yourself. Dumbo not only has huge ears that everyone makes fun of, he continually trips over them and, once he comes to see how others tease him and ostracize him, he hides himself in them. It's a story often told, and for good reason – but I think never expressed better than in Dumbo.

Image: 9/9   NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.
The first number indicates a relative level of excellence compared to other Blu-ray video discs on a ten-point scale. The second number places this image along the full range of DVD and Blu-ray discs.

Compared to the U.S. "Big Top" DVD, the new Blu-ray is a revelation: Colors are brighter, and lighting has been reconsidered for proper dramatic intention. Noise is seriously reduced without loss in sharpness. Dumbo is not big on texture in the first place, but what little there is is now more apparent. A close examination of the edges around the tuba reveals a subtle swash of shading to give dimension to the instrument, else it would appear completely flat. The artist did that. Cool, huh.

But don't expect the same level of restoration we see in the Blu-ray editions of Sleeping Beauty or Pinocchio. Scratches and specks, which in some scenes on the DVD seemed almost painted into the background, are now 99% removed. Natural watercolor splotching can now be seen where before it was just noise. Sharpness, especially in respect to the line art, is restored. All in all, a huge upgrade, but not perfect.

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

1) DVD TOP - 2) UK Blu-ray MIDDLE 3) US offered DisneyView Blu-ray BOTTOM

More Blu-ray Captures

Audio & Music: 5/9
I wish I could report the same level of care for the audio that was offered for Pinocchio. Alas, this is not be. I feel the idea of turning a mono score into a 7.1 surround is preposterous to start with, but I wouldn't have minded if there were an original somewhere to be found. But the bad news doesn't stop there. The DTS-HD MA mix is too screechy, with exaggerated treble. Much better is playing that same mix through the digital output of your player, possibly even the analog output (I didn't try it), bypassing HMDI for the audio.

The film won an Oscar for Best Musical Score and a nomination for "Baby Mine" – a song that any of today's composers would give their index finger to have written. And look at how Disney dramatizes the song in a series of mother and child tableaux, alternating sentiment with deft humor. At least the song had the good taste to lose to the Meryl Steep of composers: Jerome Kern, for "The Last Time I Saw Paris."

US Blu-ray Menus

Bottom line: 9
My only gripe – and it's no small one – is the audio. But it least there is a workaround. The image quality is a huge improvement over the DVD (I hope you appreciate my avoidance of elephantine metaphors here). The special features are quite good considering the lack of on the spot archival footage. And, yes, the Cine-Explore panel does address the question of the elephant in the room – the crows. I've always thought the issue was something of a pink elephant myself, but that's another story.

Leonard Norwitz
March 27th, 2010

Gary Tooze

September 11th, 2011