Fun & Fancy Free

More early Disney almost-feature animation for your viewing...pleasure? Yeah, mostly. As with other company outings form this time period—mid to late 40s—this work combines animation and live action, something that was at one time Disney’s signature trait, and does so to good effect. That happens in the second half of the film, in a story vignette that is told by Edgar Bergen (whose personal wit and cheeky, slightly subversive viewpoint shines through even in this setting) and features Mickey, Donald and Goofy as protagonists in a retelling of "Jack and the Beanstalk." All that works well. The first part of the movie, a story that is fully animated and tells of an escaped circus bear (shades of Dumbo) who falls in love, is less effective, mostly due to the insipid nature of the presentation. Despite that, there's value in the first part of the film—and the interstitial stuff featuring Jiminy Cricket—which display the other standard Disney production characteristic: beautifully rendered visuals that are worth watching for their own sake. Overall, this film is an interesting transitional piece, not as bad as the Latin American shows previously viewed, but not quite the triumph that Snow White once was and that future films would be. It was a process to build the brand into what it eventually came, and this work exemplifies that. (Note: I’m trying to view unwatched parts of the canon in order, but the film prior to this one—Make Mine Music—seems unavailable on the Mouse's streaming service. Hence, this flick is out of chronological order here.)