1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die- Pinocchio

#148- Pinocchio (1940)
Starring: Dickie Jones, Cliff Edwards, Christian Rub
Directed by: Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske, William Roberts, Norman Ferguson, Jack Kinney, Wilfred Jackson, T. Hee


Plot Summary: A woodworker named Geppetto makes a wish on a star to make his newest creation, a marionette puppet named Pinocchio, a real boy. His dream comes true when the Blue Fairy arrives and gives life to Pinocchio. She tells Pinocchio that he will become a real boy when he proves himself to be brave, truthful, and unselfish. To ensure he is successful, she assigns Jiminy Cricket to be his conscience. As he embarks on his first day of school, Pinocchio is tricked into playing hooky and becoming an actor for a puppeteer named Stromboli. When Pinocchio is caged by Stromboli, he learns the error of his ways and heads home with help from Jiminy and the Blue Fairy. After a few more detours, Pinocchio discovers that Geppetto was looking for him and he must rescue his "father" from the belly of Monstro the whale.


Once you've made the first animated film in history, there's always gonna be that fear of how you can follow it. The case I'm obviously talking about is how Walt Disney was able to follow-up Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with his next project, Pinocchio. Not only is Pinocchio just as good, I'd argue it's even better. Snow White may have started Disney's success, but I believe that little wooden puppet actually laid the foundation for a lot of Disney traditions we know to this day, including the themes of dreams coming true and wishing on stars, and of course the film's signature song that would later become the Disney anthem. That's a lot of momentum for only Disney's second film, so let's look at what makes Pinocchio a wonderfully entertaining film for all ages.

The titular character is Pinocchio, a wooden puppet voiced by Dickie Jones, who dreams of becoming a real boy. Something I noticed about Pinocchio is that while he makes mistakes, I never faulted him because he was brand new to life and he didn't know any better. He asks a lot of questions but I never got annoyed because he wants to understand the logic behind everything. He's one of Disney's most innocent of characters, which unfortunately makes him very easy to corrupt. But once he's aware of his mistakes he wants to resolve them and learns from his mistakes. A nice indicator of this is when he begins to tell lies and his nose grows big. He doesn't like his enlarged nose and once it's connected to lying, he never wants to be dishonest again. That's a really creative way to make Pinocchio a character study in morality for children to follow.

The film features a very large cast of memorable supporting characters. Pinocchio's "father" is a puppet maker named Geppetto, voiced by Christian Rub. He's got great comedic timing in many absent minded moments and has a genuine fatherly love for Pinocchio. His pets Figaro the cat and Cleo the fish also add a lot of fun to the scenes through their faces and actions. The Blue Fairy, voiced by Evelyn Venable, has a great reputation amongst the other characters thanks to her wisdom, beauty, and her ability to make their dreams come true if they wish hard enough. But of course the most important supporting character in the film is Pinocchio's conscience, Jiminy Cricket, voiced by Cliff Edwards. Jiminy serves as a great narrator for the film and an even better moral compass and best friend for Pinocchio. Following the success of the film, Jiminy Cricket has become one of the biggest Disney icons thanks to a little song he sings, which I'll get to later.

I just wanted to take a moment and note how man villains this film has. We have some obvious ones like "Honest" John and Gideon, voiced by Walter Catlett and Mel Blanc (yes...THE Mel Blanc. The voice of many of the Looney Tunes voiced Gideon's hiccups) respectively, who trick Pinocchio in not going to school. Pinocchio becomes an actor for the greedy puppeteer Stromboli, voiced by Charles Judels, who responds by locking Pinocchio in a cage. Judels also voices the evil Coachman, who takes Pinocchio and a bunch of delinquent boys to Pleasure Island. On the way to Pleasure Island, Pinocchio befriends Lampwick, voiced by Frankie Darro, who proves to not be the greatest influence for Pinocchio and causes Jiminy Cricket to abandon Pinocchio since he has found a new "best friend." And finally, there's the whale Monstro, voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft, that swallows Geppetto, Figaro, and Cleo, and Pinocchio must rescue them from inside the whale's belly. That's SIX bad guys, who all get an equal amount of time and development. This is a 90 minute animated film, so how come 2 to 3 hour superhero films can't do it right? Amazing Spider-Man franchise, you better be on point with the Sinister Six. But I digress.

Let's go back to some of the villains. The Coachman takes Pinocchio, Lampwick, and a bunch of other boys to Pleasure Island, where they can drink, smoke, fight, vandalize, and do all the things that can make a little boy look like a jackass. Unfortunately for the boys, this causes them to literally turn into donkeys, so the Coachman can sell them for profit. Now, this is never fully explained, but neither is Pinocchio's nose growing when he lies. There's no LOGICAL explanation, they just happen. And they happen so the kids walk away from the film paranoid to tell lies or misbehave for fear of the consequences. I'm all for teaching the kids lessons on morality, but does it have to be so darn scary? The Pink Elephants have NOTHING on watching Lampwick change into a donkey. It's traumatic to see and the music and visuals add a lot to the transformation. Put yourself in Lampwick's shoes (or hooves) and imagine what it would feel like to go from a human being to a donkey within a matter of moments. Now put yourself in Pinocchio's shoes and imagine what it would be like to see this happen to someone. Yeah...that'll mess a few people up.

The film's largest legacy is within the song "When You Wish Upon a Star," which has become one of Disney's biggest anthems (and the song you hear at the beginning of nearly every Disney film nowadays). Needless to say, Pinocchio was a successful follow-up project for Disney, to the point where it has become a cornerstone film for the company and one of the most important and beloved animated movies of all-time. Even all these years later, and with a seemingly endless supply of memorable Disney films, Pinocchio still remains one of my top favorites for the amount of sincerity and heart that Disney took in making the story about the quest to become a real boy come to life.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

In my opinion, Pinocchio is definitely one of Disney's most important movies. It gave the company their main theme of dreams coming true for crying out loud. This is an animated film I would strongly recommend to everyone, and it is definitely worth owning in your collection.

Pinocchio and movie images are copyrighted by Walt Disney Pictures