Brian Sibley gives a retrospective view of Pinocchio as the film goes on release once more.
In writing of Pinocchio, you are limited only by your own power of expressing enthusiasm. To put it in the simplest possible terms, this film is fantastically delightful, absolutely perfect, and a work of pure, unadulterated genius…
Not my verdict on Pinocchio, but that of American critic, Archer Win-stein, writing in 1940. And, forty-six years on, I see no reason to disagree with his judgement. Pinocchio is the most wondrous animated film ever made, and Walt Disney’s greatest masterpiece – his Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Lavish, vibrant, beautiful and charged with emotion, Pinocchio shows the Disney magic at its most powerfully potent. From its opening sequence – in which Jimmy Cricket, lit by a spotlight, croons the song which was to become Disney’s personal anthem, ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ – the film seizes the imagination and holds it a willing captive for an hour and a half.
In 1938, Walt Disney and his artists were still elated by the phenomenal success of their first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. There had been seep-tics who had doubted if a cinema audience would sit through a 90-minute cartoon film, but Disney had proved them wrong. As the studio began work on Pinocchio, the aim now was to produce the finest animated film money and talent would allow.
[…]
