╥Dumbo,╙ coming to the New Gallery on Sunday, is Mr. Disney at his most irresistible. It is certainly the most satisfying Disney since before or after ╥Pinocchio,╙ and some will even prefer it to that masterpiece of puppetry. ╥Dumbo╙ lasts sixty-five minutes, and for once in a way it seems neither a minute too long nor a minute too short. It is enchanting, and as gay as a rondo of Mozart.
Dumbo is a blue-eyed baby elephant with abnormally big ears. May one dare to suggest to Mr. Disney that his eyes are one shade too light in colour? Elephants╒ eyes, baby or adult, are the colour of the periwinkle or wild clematis. Dumbo╒s eyes have, in Tennyson╒s phrase, ╥thelittle speedwell╒s darling blue.╙ However, the major point about this lyrically charming person is his ears and not his eyes. They make him the butt and the joke of the circus.
But Timothy Mouse is a valiant though tiny sympathiser. Together they drink a bucketful of champagne, have an elephantine nightmare (a fantasia far more exciting than ╥Fantasia╙ itself), and wake up at the top of a tree. Six amusing black crows with Negro voices laugh a their plight. But Timothy has a notion. Dumbo, in his accidental cups, can have arrived there in only one way. He must have flown. He must be able to fly. He must be the world╒s new wonder ╤ a flying elephant. His fortune is made as quickly as his fame.
Dumbo is a joy, but Timothy Mouse is still more. He is a complete and rounded character. We are concerned about him, whereas we were only amused by his progenitor Mickey. It is the difference between a personage and a figment. Timothy must have a whole short Disney to himself. So must Casey Junior, that delightful live railway-train which whoops with joy and relief when it reaches the top of a gradient.
Meanwhile we have ╥Dumbo╙ for Christmas, with all these pleasures in it. It is rich in imaginative fun, it is often witty, and even its inevitable piece of slop ╤ a zoological lullaby ╤does not last long.
