The end of the Silver Era has come, and it’s been a great journey. I like a great deal of the Silver Age films, and they truly represent a bygone era of Disney animation that has never been recaptured since. But there is still one film left to cover, and it stands apart from the other Silver Age films for one key reason: musical numbers, and lots of them.
Bagheera (Sebastian Cabot) the panther comes across an abandoned man cub, Mowgli (Bruce Reitherman), whilst prowling the jungle one day. He passes the youngling on to a pack of wolves who have recently had cubs who raise him until he is ten years old.
It is here where world begins to spread throughout the jungle of the return of Shere Khan (George Sanders) the tiger, a vicious creature who hates man and will undoubtedly kill Mowgli. So Bagheera decides that it is best for Mowgli to be taken to the closest village to live with his own kind. Mowgli doesn’t want to leave the jungle though; it is the only home he’s ever known, and it is where he feels he belongs.
Throughout their journey, Mowgli and Bagheera encounter various denizens of the jungle, and the bear Baloo (Phil Harris) even joins them after taking Mowgli in as his adopted cub. But will they be able to deliver Mowgli to the humans before Shere Khan tracks them down?
Bagheera (Sebastian Cabot) the panther comes across an abandoned man cub, Mowgli (Bruce Reitherman), whilst prowling the jungle one day. He passes the youngling on to a pack of wolves who have recently had cubs who raise him until he is ten years old.
It is here where world begins to spread throughout the jungle of the return of Shere Khan (George Sanders) the tiger, a vicious creature who hates man and will undoubtedly kill Mowgli. So Bagheera decides that it is best for Mowgli to be taken to the closest village to live with his own kind. Mowgli doesn’t want to leave the jungle though; it is the only home he’s ever known, and it is where he feels he belongs.
Throughout their journey, Mowgli and Bagheera encounter various denizens of the jungle, and the bear Baloo (Phil Harris) even joins them after taking Mowgli in as his adopted cub. But will they be able to deliver Mowgli to the humans before Shere Khan tracks them down?
The Jungle Book actually more closely resembles a Renaissance Era film in terms of the way it is structured and its reliance on musical numbers to communicate the story. It’s the first Disney Animated Classic to really do musicals too, outside of some of the shorts found during the Wartime Era. Whilst Disney films have often had songs, they’ve usually only had one per film, The Jungle Book has many well-known classics to punctuate story progression and provide their own entertaining little sequences.
The trio of Mowgli, Bagheera, and Baloo are fantastic too, and it’s easy to see why these three characters have remained so iconic throughout Disney history. Even the side characters like Kaa (Sterling Holloway) the snake, and the orangutan King Louie (Louis Prima) are extremely memorable, and most of that does stem from the songs.
Shere-Khan can feel side-lined somewhat in comparison because he doesn’t appear until much later on in the film and has almost no real character other than wanting to kill Mowgli. But he is still a presence to fear as he is regularly mentioned throughout the story, about how much the other animals fear him.
The trio of Mowgli, Bagheera, and Baloo are fantastic too, and it’s easy to see why these three characters have remained so iconic throughout Disney history. Even the side characters like Kaa (Sterling Holloway) the snake, and the orangutan King Louie (Louis Prima) are extremely memorable, and most of that does stem from the songs.
Shere-Khan can feel side-lined somewhat in comparison because he doesn’t appear until much later on in the film and has almost no real character other than wanting to kill Mowgli. But he is still a presence to fear as he is regularly mentioned throughout the story, about how much the other animals fear him.
The film is richly coloured, and the environments pack a surprising amount of detail too. It would have been easy to just have a plain looking jungle but almost every frame is filled with life. This matched with the xerography animation makes for distinctive character and environment designs that won’t easily be forgotten. Even the score has a very distinctive feel and gives the film so much character, it’s one of the few times where I really notice the score of a Dinsey film.
The Jungle Book is an excellent way to end the Silver Age. It takes a similar narrative structure to The Sword in the Stone, but thanks to the addition of a goal introduced at the start of the film, and the musical numbers to keep the different scenarios interesting, it allows The Jungle Book to transcend its era and even inspire what was to come a little over twenty years later in the Renaissance. The Jungle Book is truly a fantastic film, and one of the best Disney Classics of its time.
The Jungle Book is an excellent way to end the Silver Age. It takes a similar narrative structure to The Sword in the Stone, but thanks to the addition of a goal introduced at the start of the film, and the musical numbers to keep the different scenarios interesting, it allows The Jungle Book to transcend its era and even inspire what was to come a little over twenty years later in the Renaissance. The Jungle Book is truly a fantastic film, and one of the best Disney Classics of its time.