Pinocchio (1940) Voices of Dickie Jones, Cliff
Edwards, Christian Rub, Walter Catlett. Directed by Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton
Luske, David Hand (Supervising Directors). Screenplay by Ted Sears, Webb Smith,
Joseph Sabo, Otto Englander, William Cottrell, Erdman Penner, Aurie Battaglia
(Story Adapted by). Based on the novel
L'avventure di Pinocchio by Carlo
Collodi (Rome, 1882). Produced by Walt Disney (Presented by). USA Run time: 87
min. Animated, Fantasy
Work on Disney's second animated feature began while Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs was being completed in 1937. But as soon as 1938,
there was talk that Bambi would be the second animated film released as
there were story difficulties with Pinocchio. Disney discarded 2300 feet
of the film, or what is believed to have been 5 months of work. This was
apparently footage supervised by David Hand, who would not receive onscreen
credit when the film was released.
Pinocchio’s look was probably part of the problem, as
according to Bob Jones, the supervisor of the department at Disney to design
and manufacture character models, “at least 12 Disney artists struggled over an
18-month period--each contributing their own ideas--before the design [for
Pinocchio] was finalized."
Jiminy Cricket was a bit of an afterthought. There is a
cricket in Collodi’s original story, but rather than being the puppet boy's conscience, the puppet kills the cricket. Naming him Jiminy, Disney asked his
artists to create a cricket who looked "like a human being" and
"talked and wore clothes."
All-in-all, a contemporary study guide for the picture
stated that 2,000,000 drawings were created, of which 300,000 were used in the
final film. The budget was $2.5 million, much of which went into the scenes
filmed by the multiplane camera, single sequences of which cost up to $48,000.
The film had its premiere in New York on February 7, 1940, and was in general release on February 23, 1940. While the film is now
considered a classic, when it was first released, the film was considered a
box-office bomb. Such were the times, when World War II cut off Europe and Asian
markets. The film didn’t turn a profit until its 1945 re-release.
