Pinocchio (1940)

Movie
German title	Pinocchio
Original title	Pinocchio
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	1940
length	83 minutes
Age rating	FSK 0
Rod
Director	Hamilton Luske , Ben Sharpsteen
script	Carlo Collodi (story), Ted Sears , Otto Englander , Webb Smith , William Cottrell , Joseph Sabo , Erdman Penner , Aurelius Battaglia
production	Walt Disney
music	Leigh Harline , Paul J. Smith , Edward H. Plumb Songs: Leigh Harline Orchestration: Oliver Wallace
synchronization

Pinocchio [ pi'nɔk: jo ], originally published in Germany under the title Pinocchio, the wooden kid , was released in 1940 and is the second full-length cartoon from the Walt Disney Studios after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . It is based on the adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi .

In 1994 the film was included in the National Film Registry , a directory for US films that are considered particularly worth preserving. The film is one of the 100 most inspirational films in the United States according to the American Film Institute .

action

The story begins when the wandering cricket Jiminy moves into the workshop of the carpenter Gepetto (Italian: Geppetto) in search of a place to stay for the night. Gepetto, who is single and has no children, has just finished a new doll he calls Pinocchio , and expresses his ardent wish that she should become a real boy. Later that night, a fairy dressed in blue, who has heard his wish, comes into his workshop and brings the wooden doll to life; but to really fulfill Gepetto's wish, Pinocchio has to do his own part. Jiminy, who witnesses this miraculous event, is appointed by the fairy to be Pinocchio's "conscience", which is supposed to lead him on the right path to becoming human.

When Gepetto wakes up the next morning, he can hardly believe his eyes. He dutifully realizes that Pinocchio has to go to school, and together with Jiminy Grille, Pinocchio sets off. But the first dangers lurk, because two insidious figures, a fox and a cat, want to sell Pinocchio to the Stromboli puppet theater. Pinocchio is easily talked about and even with the courageous intervention of Jiminy Grille he cannot be stopped. He becomes the star of Stromboli's puppeteer theater. Pinocchio initially enjoys his engagement, but so that his new gold donkey doesn't slip away, Stromboli locks Pinocchio in a cage after the performance. He can only free himself with the help of the Blue Fairy. Meanwhile, Gepetto is very worried at home and tries in vain to find Pinocchio.

Meanwhile, Pinocchio has resolved to be good and go to school. But on the way to Gepetto he comes across the fox and the cat, who want to lure him to an amusement island with other children. He enthusiastically drives with the drift Lampwick to the island, where there are only children and everyone can do what they want. But after a single night of unbridled fun, all the children turn into donkeys and are sold by the coachman who brought them to the island. Only Pinocchio can escape, although he has already grown donkey ears and a tail, and together with Jiminy Grille he makes his way home.

At home they discover that Gepetto has disappeared. Pinocchio is desperate, but then he gets a note from the fairy, who informs him and Jiminy that Gepetto was swallowed by a whale . Immediately they set off and dive to the bottom of the ocean. Finally, Pinocchio also ends up in the belly of the whale and meets his foster father there again.

They make the whale sneeze and thus manage to leave the whale's belly on a raft. However, the whale chases them and the two try to escape through a gap in a rocky reef in front of him. In his rage, the whale also crashes into the rock and smashes the raft, and Pinocchio loses his life. But when Gepetto is still mourning the loss of his son, Pinocchio is brought back to life for his brave and selfless behavior and turned into a real boy. While Pinocchio and Gepetto happily celebrate this event, Jiminy is rewarded by the fairy with a first-class conscience award.

background

Cover picture by Pinocchio

• The making of Pinocchio was closely monitored by Walt Disney . He demanded extremely precise work from his employees, even when huge sums of money had been devoured halfway through production. Today one can hardly call a scene in the film that in which any error or inaccuracy could be discovered.

• It is the first film production that made extensive use of the Multiplan camera : Due to the staggered arrangement of foreground, middle and background, it is able to simulate an impressive amount of spatial depth, e.g. B. by parallax shift during tracking shots and the ability to focus on different image planes. Using this technique, Pinocchio became one of the most expensive films of the time. The budget (according to IMDb) was about 2.6 million US dollars, which corresponds to today's sum of about 47.3 million dollars.

• Bambi was originally supposed to be the second feature film. However, Disney wasn't entirely sure and didn't know how to proceed. Because they had more ideas for Pinocchio and this story offered more possibilities, it was decided to produce it as the successor to Snow White.

• Jiminy appears only once in the book as a nameless cricket. Pinocchio kills her with a hammer for giving him advice. Later she appears as a ghost. In this character, Disney saw the core of what could make this story work. Disney felt there wasn't enough warmth, love, and friendship in the story. So he built in Jiminy Grille. In the end, he was the heart of the story instead of being slain with a hammer. He begins to dominate the film more and more.

Film music

Leigh Harline composed five songs in collaboration with lyricist Ned Washington and, with the support of Paul J. Smith, also designed large parts of the film music. When You Wish upon a Star was one of the songs - this song forms an important leitmotif and over time has developed into a kind of Disney anthem . With it, Pinocchio is also the first Disney film to win Academy Awards in the categories "Best Music" and "Best Song". Only Mary Poppins (1964) could join this success. In 2004, the American Film Institute voted When You Wish upon a Star at number 7 in their list AFI's 100 Years ... 100 songs of the 100 best American film songs.

In Pinocchio, a particularly pronounced symphonic design in the form of thematic-motivic work can be felt. In addition, there is a very colorful instrumentation, and besides the song-like there are also traces of jazz. The sequence with the whale chasing Pinocchio and Gepetto on their raft even turns into a symphony-like piece - composed by Edward Plumb using thematic material Harline . Plumb (1907-1958) was one of those who often remained unnamed at Disney Studios and whose musical contributions are easily assigned to other artists.

An instrumental version of "When you wish upon a Star" was used in the closing sequence of the science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) by Steven Spielberg . Furthermore, the string motif that sounds when fleeing from the whale served the composer John Williams as a template for the main motif in the film Jaws .

The following songs can be heard in the film Pinocchio:

• When You Wish Upon a Star - Jiminy Grille
• Little Wooden Head - Geppetto
• Give a Little Whistle - Jiminy Grille & Pinocchio
• Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee - Honest John
• I've Got No Strings - Pinocchio

synchronization

role	Original speaker	Voice actor (1951)	Voice actor (1973)
Pinocchio	Dickie Jones	Wilfried Schaelicke	Oliver Rohrbeck
Jiminy Cricket	Cliff Edwards	Georg Thomalla	Georg Thomalla
Geppetto	Christian Rub	Walter Werner	Klaus W. Krause
Honorable John	Walter Catlett	Alfred Balthoff	Harald Juhnke
Stromboli	Charles Judels	Georg Thomalla	Fritz Tillmann
The blue fairy	Evelyn Venable	Friedel Schuster	Almut Eggert
Lampwick	Frankie Darro	Horst Buchholz	Abelardo Decamilli
coachman	Charles Judels	Konrad Wagner	Franz Nicklisch

There are two German dubbed versions: The German original version was created on the occasion of the German premiere in 1951 by the German RKO, Frankfurt am Main. The second synchronization was created for the re-performance in 1973 by Fox-MGM distribution at Simoton Film GmbH, Berlin (direction, script and lyrics: Heinrich Riethmüller ). In the second synchronization, the dark and frightening character of the film was significantly weakened, watered down and made more “child-friendly”. Georg Thomalla spoke “Jiminy Grille” both in the dubbing from 1951 and in the new version from 1973 - so the two versions are often confused with one another.

The translation of the first version by the theater man Friedrich Luft sticks exactly to the English original and was highly praised by Disney. In this version Georg Thomalla spoke both "Jiminy Grille" as well as "Stromboli" in a maliciously disguised voice. The opening and closing song When you wish upon a star was sung in German ("When a star falls from the sky") by a hitherto unknown tenor, although the choirs were not translated. Wilfried Schaelicke , who lent “Pinocchio” both the speaking voice and the singing voice in 1951, was also the German voice of “Klopfer” in the first German Bambi synchronization (1950). There are rumors that Zarah Leander has a cameo as a Russian puppet. There is no evidence for this. Alexa von Porembsky can be heard as a French puppet.

Oliver Rohrbeck lent “Pinocchio” only the speaking voice in the 1973 re-dubbing; a previously unknown child took over the vocal part. The second German version allows itself numerous liberties to weaken the dark tone of the original: The outbursts of rage Stromboli with sound effects, the thunderstorm during Gepetto's search and the waves during the chase on the sea are clearly reduced. The opening song is sung exclusively by a choir. The new translation also avoids lyrical passages.

The version from 1951 was officially withdrawn from circulation in the 1970s and may no longer be used. All VHS and DVD releases only contain the second synchronization from 1973. However, excerpts from the first version exist on old records and in radio plays. Requests to Disney to republish the first version have so far gone unnoticed.

reception

When Pinocchio hit the cinemas, he was eagerly awaited. At the first reviews after the premiere on February 7, 1940, the critics outdid each other in finding new superlatives to convey that this film was even better than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . However, unlike its predecessor, Pinocchio didn't have nearly as much success at the box office. One explanation could be that Europe was cut off because of the Second World War .

criticism

source	rating
Rotten tomatoes
critic
audience
IMDb

“After Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , Walt Disney was able to create his second full-length cartoon according to his own ideas. Collodi's moral initiation story of the “wooden kid” is told with visual imagination, wit and musicality. In a cascade of rhythms, tones and colors that change with the mood, one successful surprise follows another. One of the loveliest creations of the genre of great formal unity. Even the opening sequence, which seems to lead to the inside of a picture, determines the suggestive power of the film, which at times reaches an oppressive intensity. "

- Lexicon of international film

“Animated by the success of his first cartoon Snow White (1937), Walt Disney meticulously and enthusiastically set about his fascinating and technically brilliant masterpiece Pinocchio, which was unlucky enough to come to the cinemas in the midst of the din of World War II - it was a gem worth seeing thereby initially only granted a modest public interest. With the newly developed " Multiplan " recording process (...) Pinocchio achieved an optical quality that was previously unattainable in animated films, which was successfully complemented by a colorful variety of colors and atmospheric musical accompaniment. "

- The great TV feature film film dictionary, 2006.

Awards

• 1941: Oscar for best film music for Leigh Harline, Paul J. Smith and Ned Washington
• 1941: Oscar for Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for the best song ("When You Wish Upon a Star")
• 1989: ASCAP Film and Television Music Award for Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for Best Song ("When You Wish Upon a Star")
• 1994: Entry into the National Film Registry
• 1998: The song (When You Wish Upon a Star ...) made it to number 7 in the list of the 100 best movie songs compiled by the American Film Institute .
• 2008: In the American Film Institute 's list of the 10 best animated films of all time, the film made it to number 2.

Publications

DVD

• Pinocchio (Special Collection) . Walt Disney Home Video 2003.
• Pinocchio. 2-Disc Limited Platinum Edition . Blu-ray Disc , Buena Vista Home Entertainment 2009
• Pinocchio (Disney Classics 2) . Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment 2017

Blu-ray

• Pinocchio (Disney Classics 2) . Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment 2017

Soundtrack

• Walt Disney's Pinocchio. Original motion picture soundtrack . Walt Disney Records , Burbank 1995, no.N 7023900
• Walt Disney's Pinocchio. German original recording . Walt Disney Records 2002, No. 0927443652

Remake

Disney is currently working on a live version of Pinocchio with Paul King as director, based on a script by Chris Weitz . Filming for the film is scheduled to begin in England and Italy in 2019 .

literature

• Carlo Collodi: Pinocchio's Adventure. The story of a wooden doll (OT: Le avventure di Pinocchio ). Insel, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 2003, ISBN 3-458-34579-5 .
• Leonard Maltin : The Disney Films. 3. Edition. Hyperion, New York 1995, ISBN 0-7868-8137-2 .
• Christopher Finch : Walt Disney. His life - his art (Original title: The Art of Walt Disney. From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms ). German by Renate Witting. Ehapa-Verlag, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-7704-0171-9 . (Current English edition: The Art of Walt Disney. From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms . Abrams, New York 2004, ISBN 0-8109-4964-4 ).
• Elmar Biebl, Dirk Manthey, Jörg Altendorf and others: The films of Walt Disney. The magical world of animation. 2nd Edition. Milchstraße, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-89324-117-5 .
• Frank Thomas , Ollie Johnston : Disney Animation. The Illusion of Life . Abbeville Press, New York 1981, ISBN 0-89659-698-2 .

Web links

• Pinocchio in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Pinocchio in the online film database
• Extensive review of the DVD and soundtrack by Michael Boldhaus on Cinemusic
• Overview of the film music publications at Soundtrack-Collector (English)
• Sound carrier with the film music

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pinocchio at Duckfilm.de
2. ↑ imdb.de
3. ↑ AFI's 100 Years… 100 songs. (PDF; 134 kB) In: afi.com. American Film Institute (AFI), June 22, 2005, accessed August 28, 2015 . 
4. ^ IQ Hunter: Cult Film as a Guide to Life: Fandom, Adaptation, and Identity . Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2016, ISBN 978-1-62356-381-3 ( google.de [accessed October 30, 2019]).
5. ↑ REVIEW / AIR: Same place, same wave . In: Spiegel Online . tape 41 , October 11, 1950 ( spiegel.de [accessed October 28, 2019]).
6. ^ RE: Tarzan and His Son (1939) - 2. Accessed October 29, 2019 . 
7. ^ The Disney dubbing in comparison. Retrieved October 28, 2019 . 
8. ↑ ^{a b} rottentomatoes.com at Rotten Tomatoes , accessed December 6, 2014.
9. ↑ Pinocchio in the Internet Movie Database (English)
10. ↑ Pinocchio. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 11, 2017 .  
11. ↑ -sk- in: The great TV feature film film lexicon . Digital library special volume (CD-ROM edition). Directmedia, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89853-036-1 , pp. 9756-9757.
12. ↑ Disney's live-action 'Pinocchio' to Film Next Year , August 23, 2018, accessed August 23, 2018