Italian author, humorist, and journalist Carlo Lorenzini, better known by his pseudonym Carlo Collodi, published his magnum opus, The Adventures of Pinocchio, in serial form for the children's magazine Giornale per i bambini from 1881 to 1882, and would receive acclaim as one of Italy's most significant contributions to the worldwide literary zeitgeist, its most translated and widely read after the Bible. It would inspire countless other fiction and adaptations like Disney's iconic version, its name shortened to Pinocchio, released in 1940, which initially failed at the box office due to the forthcoming Second World War.
The film opens with the Talking Cricket, named Jiminy in Disney's version and voiced by Cliff Edwards, singing "When You Wish Upon a Star," which would eventually serve as the studio's musical motif. Then he narrates the tale of the eponymous puppet, so named for being made of pine, whom poor, elderly woodcarver Geppetto creates and wishes alive upon a star. Pinocchio consequentially animates thanks to the Blue Fairy but retains his puppet form, and she assigns Jiminy as his "conscience," Geppetto doing his part to raise him and trying to send him to school.
On the way, Pinocchio encounters the effeminate vulpine con artist "Honest" John Worthington Foulfellow and his silent feline companion Gideon, who recruit him into vagrant showman Stromboli's puppet show. Jiminy fails to emancipate his charge, with the Blue Fairy eventually doing the job after a round with Pinocchio's untruths that results in her constantly elongating his nose, coupled with her iconic quote, "A lie keeps growing and growing until it's as plain as the nose on your face." Afterward, the puppet is on his own and joins a coach of boys en route to Pleasure Island.
The island bears a curse where its visitors, free to engage in vices like vandalism, fighting, smoking, and drinking, turn into donkeys due to making "jackasses" of themselves, with Pinocchio, mid-transformation, escaping with Jiminy's help and finding Geppetto in the belly of the whale Monstro, from whom they must escape. Overall, Disney's adaptation is, to date, still one of the strongest; however, there are some dangling threads, like what happens with Honest John and Gideon, and many moments come off as ridiculous today. Regardless, the musical numbers like "Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee" (which serves as a bit of a central theme) are endearing, and aside from endless ruination by past and modern activists, journalists, and politicians, is an iconic piece of animated cinema.
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A must-see among Disney enthusiasts. |
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