Review by Guido Henkel

Pinocchio  (1940)
Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Length:        88 mins.
Rated:          G
Languages:English, French
Subtitles:    English
Format:       Fullframe
Extras:        Theatrical Trailer

Step by step, DVD is taking one hurdle after the other. As early adopters we have been waiting and seeing Buena Vista, Paramount and Fox come around to release DVD titles after a long time of trepidation. We have seen Dreamworks enter the market and even releasing films by Steven Spielberg, and although there are still a number hurdles to be taken by the format, DVD has just made one major step ahead with the release of Disney’s “Pinocchio”. For the longest time, Disney was unwilling to commit their animated feature films to the DVD format, and finally here is their first classic animation release.

It all starts one night when woodcarver Gepetto is finishing is latest puppet, the marionette of a little boy. Lonely, despite the company of his cat and his goldfish, the old Gepetto dreams of having a real boy for company. Then, the same night he observes a falling star and wishes upon it for Pinocchio to come to life. While the old man falls back to sleep his wish is indeed coming true. A fairy appears and breathes the spark of life into the wooden puppet. She tells him to be a good boy and if he remains honest and upright, one day he will become a real boy. She also makes Jiminy Cricket, a small but wise fellow, his conscience, for Pinocchio to draw upon when he is in doubt.

When Gepetto awakes and finds Pinocchio alive, he is ecstatic. He sends him off to

In the meanwhile, Gepetto is desperate over the loss of his boy who vanished on that morning without a sign, and starts searching all over for Pinocchio. But before Pinocchio can return home from his first adventure, the two spivs cross his path another time, and this time they sell the little boy off to a wretched and evil businessman who turns children into more sell-able donkeys by the dozen. Jiminy can save Pinocchio within a hair’s breadth, but when they return home to Gepetto’s workshop, the house is empty and Gepetto missing, still searching the world for his lost little boy. When Pinocchio learns that his father is trapped inside Monstro the Whale, he immediately sets out to rescue him and begins yet another fantastic adventure.

“Pinocchio” was Disney’s second animated feature and it carries all the trademarks that made Disney the phenomenon they are. It is a charming tale with a moralistic and educational approach, well wrapped up in a singing and dancing whimsical fantasy world that pleases adults as much as it captivates children. The lessons about honesty, obedience to your parents, loyalty and bravery are key examples why practically all Disney animated features have become instant classics, and why their timeless glory never ceases to shine. Combined with the subtle human inaccuracies that can be found throughout these films, due to the nature that they were all entirely hand-drawn, films like “Pinocchio” are simply gems of the visual animation arts and milestones of movie history.

The first thing I noticed when opening the packaging for “Pinocchio”was the fact that this is a dual layer disc, which is slightly surprising given the rather film’s short running length of only 88 minutes. However, remembering that for the longest time, Disney seemed to have issues regarding DVD’s video capabilities, it only made sense that they would use an extremely high bitrate for the best possible image quality on their animated feature releases. The dual layer gives them plenty of additional storage that allows for high quality video and audio, and I believe the increase in price for those animated releases can in part be attributed to the additional manufacturing costs over single-layer discs that may have been anticipated at first. As expected then, the image quality of “Pinocchio” is

looked like this before, probably not even during its original theatrical run 59 years ago, given the technical limitations of that time. The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 fullframe aspect ratio on this THX certified disc, and the color delineation is simply superb. From the deepest black to the bright highlights, the colors run the entire gamut without over-saturation, creating a bold and colorful image. Edges are sharp and don’t show any signs of over-emphasizing.

“Pinocchio” contains the film’s original monaural soundtrack, presented in a surround channel mix in English and French. The soundtrack is not a typical surround mix

“Pinocchio” also contains the movie’s original theatrical trailer from 1940, but the full-color character artwork that is advertised on the packaging is sadly nowhere to be found on the disc. If there is one thing Buena Vista has to be scolded for lately, it has to be their rather lax attitude towards incorrectly labeling their releases with features that are not part of the disc. [Editor: I have been informed by now however, that the phrase “Full-Color Character Artwork On Disc” has to be taken quite literal and that Disney is referring to the full-color print that graces the physical disc with this phrase. Although these discs are commonly known as picture discs I am not sure why Disney decided to coin a new phrase for it, but I suspect it just makes a nice sell-sheet bullet point this way.]