Saturday, April 24, 2021

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

IMDb plot summary: An animated adaptation of "The Wind in the Willows" followed by an adaptation of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".
Directed by James Algar and Clyde Geronimi. Starring Bing Crosby, Basil Rathbone, Eric Blore, and J. Pat O'Malley.

As Disney's 1940s package films go, this is almost certainly the most engaging throughout. The stories are classics for a reason and are interesting enough to quickly catch the viewer's interest during their short runtime. But what pushed it above the others for me most decisively was the music. The film contains two pretty great songs, one in each segment, that I think could easily hold their own in the Disney song canon were they included more often: "Merrily on Our Way" and "The Headless Horseman." I had maybe heard each of these songs once but I was really struck by how delightfully they capture the tone of their segments. While I haven't fully completed the package films of the decade, this is the only one thus far I could see myself watching again sometime.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad > The Beach
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad < The Black Cat
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad < Ramona and Beezus
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad < Holiday Inn
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad > 21
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad < 300
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad > The Diary of Anne Frank (2009)
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad > Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad > Gold Diggers of 1933
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad > The Wrestler
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad > Heaven Knows What
Final spot: #1518 out of 3347, or 55%.

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