The Wind in the Willows

Playing fast and loose with Kenneth Grahame's original novel, The Wind in the Willows is a solidly made morality story which plays like a primer for the 1950s output from the studio. It's not hard to see where the pastoral look of Lady and the Tramp, the manic energy of Alice in Wonderland and camera/animation tricks of Cinderella get their origins. It's all here in a compact thirty-five minute featurette.

The Wind in the Willows tells the story of Mr. Toad and his close friends who must constantly keep a close eye on him and clean up his many messes. Mr. Toad is also a bit of a bored upper class individual who must blindly and mindlessly buy the latest gadget to demonstrate his status and provide a few minutes entertainment before zipping off to his newest obsession. There's a timely and timeless element to a story of a crassly spending character, bankruptcy and foreclosure. It probably will go over the heads of many children, but for the adults there's something smarter going on in this one.

Having said that, the film does play out a little slowly and with a slightly dated feel. It was made in 1949, and unlike many of the feature films that Disney routinely polishes up both in visuals and audio, Willows could use a good cleanup. The colors frequently appear too dark and the audio sometimes sounds too low or muffled.

But it's still one of the better shorts to come out the 1940s package films that the studio turned out. I wish they had the resources to expand it into the feature length that it was planned on being originally. It has a great energy, a lot of fun and unique characters -- there's enough life in here to last for at least a solid 80 minutes. But it's a pretty perfect thirty-five minutes as is.