ALDOUS HUXLEY is now in Hollywood (of all places) training himself to accept life without passion, rancor, heroic impulses, and exalted idealism. One day he met Mr. Walt Disney.
"Mr. Disney," said Aldous Huxley, "what do you think of Picasso?"
"Who," Mr. Disney is reported to have answered, "is Picasso?"
There is no need for anyone to ask who Walt Disney is. The jitterbugs, quibbling intellectuals, dyspeptic bishops, and congressmen all meet on common ground. All know him.
The motion picture "Pinocchio" is the masterwork of an artist and a literary force who grew up in the American Middle West, who never traveled far or read much, who studied on the fringe of art, and who developed an art form in which he stands high and alone. He is a man sure of his touch —simple, direct, earthy—and for all his world-wide acclaim, an American who will lower his head when you call him genius; almost ducking defensively—as if to say—‘it ain"t true, pal."
Do not expect his "Pinocchio" to recapture the pathos, the sad sweetness of the original Italian fairy tale you read in childhood. Disney has discarded the tall, shabby, sadfaced, ugly-nosed, heart-filling character. That tipsily distracted wooden face is not for Disney. In his place there is a sweet-faced little creature, a human doll of a little boy, alert, alive with his own emotions; Disney"s idea of youth.
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