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Pinocchio (1940 Film)
''Pinocchio'' is the second animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics. It was produced by Walt Disney and was originally released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on February 7, 1940. Based on the story ''Pinocchio: Tale of a Puppet'' by Carlo Collodi, it was made in response to the enormous success of ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs''. The plot of the film involves a wooden puppet being brought to life by a blue fairy, who tells him he can become a real boy if he proves himself "brave, truthful, and unselfish". Thus begin the puppet's adventures to become a real boy, which involve many encounters with a host of unsavory characters.
The film was adapted by Aurelius Battaglia, William Cottrell, Otto Englander, Erdman Penner, Joseph Sabo, Ted Sears, and Webb Smith from Collodi's book. The production was supervised by Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske, and the film's sequences were directed by Norman Ferguson, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, and Bill Roberts.
Plot
Geppetto makes a wood puppet called Pinocchio. His wish that Pinocchio be a human is unexpectedly granted by the Blue Fairy, however she only animates the puppet telling him that he has to prove himself in order to become a "real boy". The Blue Fairy assigns Jiminy Cricket to act as Pinocchio's ''conscience'' and keep him out of wrong, and Jiminy requests that if he succeeds, he wants a medal. Jiminy is not too successful in this endeavor (mainly due to the fact that Pinocchio repeatedly ignores Jiminy's good advice), so most of the film is spent with Pinocchio deep in wrong.
On his first day of school Pinocchio is led astray by the conniving Honest John and Gideon who convince him to join Stromboli's puppet show instead. Pinocchio becomes Stromboli's star attraction but Stromboli abuses Pinocchio by locking him in a bird cage. Stromboli also tells Pinocchio that "once you get too old, you'll make good fire wood." The Blue Fairy appears and questions Pinocchio about his situation, Pinocchio lies about how he got into the situation but recants when his nose grows in size. With the help of the Blue Fairy and Jiminy, Pinocchio escapes from the cage after his nose is returned to normal.
Honest John and Gideon once more manage to lead Pinocchio astray by convincing him to go to Pleasure Island. On his way he befriends Lampwick, a misbehaving and destructive boy who convinces Pinocchio to act like he and the other boys on Pleasure Island do. Pinocchio enjoys gambling, smoking, getting drunk and destroying Pleasure Island much to Jiminy's dismay. However Jiminy discovers that the island has the power to turn boys who "make jackasses of themselves" into literal donkeys. These boys are then sold to work in the local salt mines.
Lampwick is transformed but Pinocchio manages to escape with only his ears transformed and having gained a donkey's tail, they escape Pleasure Island and return to Geppetto's house. However, when he returns to Geppetto's store the Toymaker and his pets Figaro and Cleo (who somehow learned that Pinocchio was on Pleasure Island), have gone to sea in search for him.
To search for Geppetto, Pinocchio and Jiminy manage to traverse underwater. However Pinocchio gets swallowed by the gigantic whale Monstro, with Jiminy trapped in a bottle, outside. Inside the whale, Pinocchio finds that Geppeto and his pets also reside there having been swallowed themselves. Pinocchio devises an escape plan by burning wood in order to make Monstro sneeze. The plan works but in the process Monstro chases after them. Geppetto nearly drowns and asks Pinocchio to save himself, by swimming for shore. Pinocchio grabs his father and tries to swim to shore, but in the process, Monstro bumps into a huge boulder and causes a huge tidal wave, which washes everyone onto shore. Geppetto survives, but Pinocchio drowns and is dead.
Geppeto, Jiminy and the pets are distraught and return home with Pinocchio's body. The Blue Fairy decides that Pinocchio has proved his worth and brings him back to life and also turns him into a real boy. Everyone is overjoyed and they begin to celebrate. The Blue Fairy rewards Jiminy with the medal he requested when he was assigned as Pinocchio's conscience. The movie ends with Jiminy singing the classic song "When You Wish upon a Star".
Characters
*Jiminy Cricket, voiced by Cliff Edwards. Jiminy is a cricket who acts as Pinocchio's "conscience" and the partial narrator of the story.
*Pinocchio, voiced by Dickie Jones. Pinocchio is a wooden puppet made by Geppetto and turned into a living puppet by the Blue Fairy.
*Geppetto, voiced by Christian Rub. Geppetto is a toymaker who creates Pinocchio and wishes for him to become a real boy.
*Figaro and Cleo, voiced by Mel Blanc. Geppetto's black and white housecat and goldfish, respectively.
*J. Worthington "Honest John" Foulfellow, voiced by Walter Catlett. Honest John is a sly anthropomorphic fox who tricks Pinocchio twice in the film. His full name is possibly John Worthington Foulfellow.
*Gideon is Honest John's dumb, mute and crafty anthropomorphic feline accomplice. His voice was originally to be supplied by Mel Blanc of Loony Tunes fame, but they deleted his dialogue in favor of a mute performance (i.e. Harpo Marx) just like Dopey of ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs''. However, Gideon's hiccups were provided by Blanc.
*Stromboli, voiced by Charles Judels. Stromboli is a large, sinister, bearded puppet maker who forces Pinocchio to perform onstage in order to make money. He speaks in an Italian Accent.
*The Blue Fairy, voiced by Evelyn Venable. She is the beautiful fairy who brings Pinocchio to life and turns him into a real boy at the end.
*The Coachman, voiced by Charles Judels. A corrupt coachman who owns and operates Pleasure Island. He speaks in a Cockney accent.
*Lampwick, voiced by Frankie Darro. Lampwick is a naughty boy Pinocchio meets on his way to Pleasure Island. He turns into a donkey while the boys are hanging out.
*Monstro is the whale that swallows Geppetto, Figaro, and Cleo during their search for Pinocchio.
History
Production
The plan for the original film was considerably different from what was released. Numerous characters and plot points, many of which came from the original novel, were used in early drafts. Producer Walt Disney was displeased with the work that was being done and called a halt to the project midway into production so that the concept could be rethought and the characters redesigned.
Originally, Pinocchio was to be depicted as a Charlie McCarthy-esque wise guy, equally as rambunctious and sarcastic as the puppet in the original novel. He looked exactly like a real wooden puppet with, among other things, a long pointed nose, a peaked cap, and bare wooden hands. But Walt found that no one could really sympathize with such a character and so the designers had to redesign the puppet as much as possible. Eventually, they revised the puppet to make him look more like a real boy, with, among other things, a button nose, a child's Tyrolean hat, and standard cartoon character 4-fingered (or 3 and a thumb) hands with Mickey Mouse-type gloves on them. The only parts of him that still looked more or less like a puppet were his arms and legs.
Additionally, it was at this stage that the character of the cricket was expanded. Jiminy Cricket (voiced by Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Edwards) became central to the story. Originally the cricket wasn't even in the film. Once added, he was depicted as an actual (that is, less anthropomorphized) cricket with toothed legs and waving anntenae. But again Walt wanted someone more likable, so Ward Kimball conjured up "a little man with no ears. That was the only thing about him that was like an insect."
Mel Blanc (most famous for voicing many of the characters in Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' cartoons), was hired to perform the voice of Gideon the Cat, who was Foulfellow the Fox's sidekick. However, it was eventually decided for Gideon to be mute (just like Dopey, whose whimsical, Harpo Marx-style persona made him one of ''Snow White'''s most comic and popular characters). All of Blanc's recorded dialogue in this film was subsequently deleted, save for a solitary hiccup, which was heard three times in the film.
Many of these ideas were later used in Geppetto (2000)
The influential abstract animator Oskar Fischinger contributed to the effects animation of the Blue Fairy's wand.
Film critic Leonard Maltin would later write that "with ''Pinocchio'', Disney reached not only the height of his powers, but the apex of what many critics consider to be the realm of the animated cartoon."
Reception
''Pinocchio'' was not commercially successful when first released, and Disney only recouped $1.9 million against a $2.6 million budget. The film achieved some success at the American box office, but was not able to profit, due to its poor performance in Europe[[http://disney.go.com/disneyatoz/familymuseum/exhibits/articles/pinocchio/index.html A Disney Classic: "Pinocchio"]]. The timing of the film's release was a factor, with World War II cutting off European markets. Although the United States had not yet entered the war, the mood of the times may have meant less interest among Americans in seeing fantasy stories as they were in the days of ''Snow White''. It also lacked the romance element that had proven popular in ''Snow White''. To add insult to injury, Paolo Lorenzini, nephew of the original story's author, had beseeched the Italian Ministry of Popular Culture to charge Disney with slander for portraying the Italian puppet "so he easily could be mistaken for an American."
Nevertheless, there were positive reactions to the movie as well. Archer Winsten, who had criticized ''Snow White'', wrote: "The faults that were in ''Snow White'' no longer exist. In writing of ''Pinocchio'', you are limited only by your own power of expressing enthusiasm." Also, despite the poor timing of the release, the film did do well both critically and at the box office in the United States. Jiminy Cricket's song, "When You Wish Upon a Star," became a major hit and is still identified with the film, and later as a fanfare for The Walt Disney Company itself. ''Pinocchio'' also won the Academy Award for Best Song and the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. In 1994, ''Pinocchio'' was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." In 2001 Terry Gilliam selected it as one of the ten best animated films of all time[[http://disney.go.com/vault/archives/movies/pinocchio/pinocchio.html Disney Archives | "Pinocchio" Movie History]]
Pinocchio earned $84,254,167 at the box office. [[http://www.ldsfilm.com/box/box.html Movie Box Office Figures]]
In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. ''Pinocchio'' was acknowledged as the second best film in the animation genre, after ''Snow White''.
Theatrical releases and home video
With the re-release of ''Snow White'' in 1944 came the tradition of re-releasing Disney films every seven to ten years. ''Pinocchio'' has been theatrically re-released in 1945, 1954, 1962, 1971, 1978, 1984, and 1992. The 1992 re-issue was digitally restored by cleaning and removing scratches from the original negatives one frame at a time, eliminating soundtrack distortions, and revitalizing the color. The film also received four video releases (and two DVD releases), being a hot-seller in 1985 (this print was re-mastered and re-issued in 1986). Then the more comprehensive digital restoration that was done for the 1992 re-issue was released on VHS,followed by the final VHS release(which was also the film's first release on Disney DVD as well as the first in the Walt Disney Gold Classics Collection VHS/DVD line) in 1999. The second Disney DVD release premiered the following year in 2000. The third DVD release and only the second Disney Blu-ray Disc release, following ''Sleeping Beautys October 2008 release (a Platinum Editon), are scheduled for March 10, 2009.
United States theatrical release history
*February 7, 1940 (World premiere, Center Theatre, New York City)
*February 9, 1940 (Los Angeles opening)
*February 23, 1940 (General release)
*July 4, 1944
*October 17, 1945
*July 4, 1949
*February 18, 1954
*January 18, 1962
*July 7, 1971
*December 16, 1978 (with ''The Small One''''' featurette)
*December 21, 1984
*June 26, 1992
Worldwide release dates
''Pinocchio'' home video release history
*July 16, 1985 (VHS, Betamax and Laserdisc, Classics edition)
*October 14, 1986 (VHS and Betamax, remastered Classics edition)
*March 26, 1993 (VHS and Laserdisc, restored Classics edition)
*April 16, 1995 (VHS, Spanish-dubbed Clásicos edition)
*October 26, 1999 (60th Anniversary Edition, as well as a Limited Issue DVD)
*March 10, 2009 (Platinum Edition DVD and Blu-Ray)
Crew
Directing animators
* Fred Moore (Lampwick)
* Frank Thomas (Pinocchio on strings and at the puppet show)
* Ollie Johnston (Pinocchio)
* Milt Kahl (Pinocchio as a real boy)
* Bill Tytla (Stromboli)
* Ward Kimball (Jiminy Cricket)
* Art Babbitt (Geppetto)
* Wolfgang Reitherman (Monstro)
* Eric Larson (Figaro)
* John Lounsbery (J. Worthington Foulfellow and Gideon)
* Charles Nichols (Coachman)
Sequence Directors
* Bill Roberts (Monstro)
* Norman Ferguson (Foulfellow and Gideon)
* Jack Kinney (Lampwick)
* Wilfred Jackson (Stromboli)
* T. Hee (Geppetto and Figaro)
Songs
Songs in film
The songs in ''Pinocchio'' were composed by Leigh Harline, Ned Washington and Frank Churchill. Paul J. Smith composed the incidental music score.
*"When You Wish upon a Star" - Jiminy Cricket; Chorus
*"Little Wooden Head" - Geppetto
*"Give a Little Whistle" - Jiminy Cricket; Pinocchio
*"Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (An Actor's Life for Me)" - J. Worthington Foulfellow
*"I've Got No Strings" - Pinocchio
*"Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (reprise)" - J. Worthington Foulfellow
*"When You Wish upon a Star (reprise)" - Jiminy Cricket; Chorus
On Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic, this includes ''When You Wish upon a Star'' on the blue disc, ''Give a Little Whistle'' on the purple disc, and ''I've Got No Strings'' on the orange disc.
And on Disney's Greatest Hits, this also includes ''When You Wish upon a Star'' on another blue disc, ''I've Got No Strings'' on the green disc, and ''Give a Little Whistle'' on the red disc.
:Little Wooden Head and Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee are not included on Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic or Disney's Greatest Hits.
Songs written for film but not used
*"I'm a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow" - Jiminy Cricket (this song eventually showed up in ''Fun and Fancy Free'')
*"As I Was Saying To the Duchess" - J. Worthington Foulfellow (this line is spoken briefly by Foulfellow in the film, however)
*"Three Cheers For Anything" - Lampwick; Pinocchio; Alexander; Other Boys
*"Monstro the Whale" - Chorus
Awards and honors
American Film Institute recognition
*2004 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs:
** "When You Wish Upon a Star" #7
*2006 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers #38
*2008 AFI's 10 Top 10 #2 Animated film
Media and merchandise
Theme Parks
* Pinocchio's Daring Journey is a popular ride at Disneyland Park (Anaheim), Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Park (Paris).
* Pinocchio Village Haus is a quick service restaurant at Walt Disney World that serves pizza and macaroni and cheese
Ice Show
Disney on Ice ''starring'' Pinocchio, toured nationally and internationally from 1987 to 1992. A shorter version of the story is also presented in the current Disney on ice production "100 Years of Magic"
Video Games
Pinocchio ,Geppetto and Cleo (the fish) appear as characters in the game Kingdom Hearts. Monstro is also featured as one of the worlds. Jiminy Cricket appears as well, acting as a recorder, keeping a journal of the game’s progress in both Kingdom Hearts and its sequel, Kingdom Hearts II.
Source: Wikipedia