Dumbo (1941): The First Disney Film to Fall Short
Beautiful animation complements a pretty bare story about proving yourself even when you have nothing to prove. Not the studio’s best.
1940s
Films released between 1940-1949
His Girl Friday
The Grant/Russell pair could have made a hundred movies if this one didn’t count as all of them.
The Bishop’s Wife
There isn’t a moment of romantic energy behind the interaction of Niven and Young in The Bishop’s Wife, and not one time that Cary Grant makes us happy to be on his side. Capra used to invite us to wonderful sleepy towns. Henry Koster takes us to one we’d rather sleep off.
Bambi
The world of Bambi is so beautiful and passively hostile that you can’t help but love it a lot. And grow up a little.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
In Spade we find the perennial dark hero, the guy with toughness stitching up all the broken promises and empty bottles. Here’s the lusty dame with her own agenda. Here’s the story-less plot of dialogic violence. A villain like a plaster figure of deadly sins. A night capped by the hardest goodbye of the movies.