I have been watching the Disney animated full length features in chronological order. For most films, this is a revisit to childhood memories, but for two or three of them, which came out in the years between boyhood and fatherhood, this is a first viewing.
As with all Disney films, even the worst of them is someone’s favorite film of all time, for he saw it on that golden afternoon in golden childhood when only the most precious memories are formed. Those who encounter the film only with the cold eyes of adulthood cannot see it as it was meant to be seen, alas.
THE FOX AND THE HOUND (1981) is one such film previously unviewed. I have no young memory of it, and had never heard it discussed by any reviewer. As much as any Disney classic can be, it is obscure. But since it fell in the Dry Spell after Walt Disney’s passing and before the advent of the Disney Renaissance inspired by Howard Ashman, I had a low expectation.
Frankly, I feared, like ARISTOCATS (1970) and ROBIN HOOD (1973) and RESCUERS (1977), the film would be plagued by lax plotting, flat characters, poor animation, dull music, and dumb slapstick which plague the Dry Spell of Disney.
I am very pleased to say that THE FOX AND THE HOUND (1981) that such fear was misplaced. The film does not disappoint, and merits being ranked among the better of Disney offerings. The ending is powerful if sad, and brought a tear to the eye of this cynical old reviewer.
This is perhaps the best film in the Dry Spell.
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