The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

Two stories: one good, one less so.

<em>'The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad'</em> is another Disney package film. It's probably one of the better ones to be fair, though still fails to truly entertain. The first story featuring Mr. Toad is fairly enjoyable, while the one with Ichabod starts off solidly but by its end I found myself less interested.

Bing Crosby and Basil Rathbone do well as narrators, while the animation is more than passable. Again, like 1948's <em>'So Dear to My Heart'</em> from Disney, it's nothing to hate on but I wouldn't class it as anything other than average though.

/copied directly from my Letterboxd review\

Basil Rathbone starts this double feature off with his engaging narration of a very much shortened version of "The Wind in the Willows". "Toad" is a bit of an adventurer. Indeed, he might even be the world's first faddist! Running amok the countryside with his new equine friend "Cyril" pulling a great yellow wagon, he is causing no end of stress for his friends "Angus MacBadger", "Ratty" and "Moley". Finally , they apprehend him and confine him to his room - but nope, that's no good. He shimmies down from his window and is soon in the possession of a shiny new motor car. How did he get it? Well that's soon a matter for the law and things are going to ge even messier for the friends and he is imprisoned and they have to get to the bottom of a dastardly plot involving some weasels and Toad Hall itself. Then, we morph seamlessly onto the equally mellifluous tones of Bing Crosby who takes us through a not so enjoyable interpretation of "Sleepy Hollow". We follow the almost vulture-like "Ichabod Crane" as he arrives in the village as the school teacher and who then sets about wooing local heiress "Katriona" - much to the chagrin of local beefcake "Bron". "Crane" seems to have the upper hand at every turn until the younger man hits on a idea to, quite literally, resurrect a creature from the depths of the graveyard to finally remove this obstacle from his path to true love (and a decent sized fortune too). The animations are old style Disney with plenty of vivid colours and, certainly for "Toad, characterful animations. The second story features just a little too much music - our renowned crooner manages at least two songs, and the characterisations rely much more on their physical attributes and less on their "acting" if you will. It's still an enjoyable hour that showcases two enduring stories well, and it's not just for the children either.

I'm watching all the Disney movies I haven't seen. The blockbuster ones are well known but ones like this I thought were a Saturday afternoon TV show. Didn't know it was a movie! Was fun, interesting was learning about the multi-layer machine they developed in Bambi to create the effect of realism they used in the Ichabod portion but they don't use it in many of the films probably because it would take far too long to make the film.