Disney Movie Reviews #7: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (Part Two)

Ichabod Crane! Explicitly not titled "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," for some reason! I liked this one. At the same time, it's very strange.

Sleepy Hollow, a cheerful and charming New York town.

It's better than Mr. Toad in every respect, but it still shares some of the tonal clashes that plagued its forerunner. 90% of Ichabod's tale is just him bouncing around a quaint Mid-Atlantic countryside, hitting on chicks and eating a lot. Then the final 10% is SHEER TERROR.

Always a bad sign, a bindle.

Sleepy Hollow is an unassuming yet lovely little town nestled next to the Hudson River. Its people are simple, but pleasant, and the entire place exists in want of only one thing: a schoolteacher! So Ichabod Crane follows his vocation to their step. At first, this ostrich-inspired fellow seems like little more than a lazy, lettered anorexic. But that's wrong! He's actually a very skinny glutton.

Manhattan is just twenty miles down the river, but Disney wants you to think this is the middle of nowhere.

The town is nice to look at, and the populace is fairly interesting, in a gallery-of-American-archetypes way, but nothing about the place comes together in the way even Mr. Toad's neighborhood managed to evoke a sense of placeness. Even though we see its layout from above, Sleepy Hollow feels less like a lived-in town, and more like a series of backdrops for vignettes. Which is a shame, because the foreground stuff is really pretty good!

Brom Bones, ladies and gentleman. The complete package. Gaston, but with a keg instead of a chip on his shoulder.

Brom in particular leaps about town with the easy confidence of the big fish in the little pond. He's exciting and fun and generous, sure of himself without crossing the line into arrogance. He doesn't need his fun to come at anyone's expense. And see, that's the thing about this story:  Ichabod is just the opposite.

Ladies with pies ought beware the purported helpfulness of bone-gaunt gentlemen. Also, what's wrong with her face?

Although the whole town seems fooled, with all the eligible women throwing themselves at his feet (and their cooking at his mouth), it's clear to the viewer that Ichabod is essentially selfish. He has no interest in others beyond the good they can do for him, and outside of that, he keeps to himself. He quickly ingratiates himself with the local ladies, pretending to give them piano lessons, but it's pretty obvious he's in it for the vittles.

If you were wondering why he's so dreamy, it's because he's voiced by Bing Crosby.

As a schoolteacher, Ichabod leaves much to be desired, occasionally wandering away and only pretending to teach, or confiscating his students' lunches so he can have a mid-morning snack. He's the worst! Only the students come to know the terrible truth about him.

This emperor has no clothes, indeed.

But Mr. Crane has a weakness, and it is the charms of one Katrina Van Tassel, presumed heiress to her father's vast tassel empire. She's rich and hot, and has no personality to speak of, which gets full marks on the early American man's Chick Rubric.

Hey, her eyes are up...wait. What's wrong with her eyes?

Seeing Katrina in the park finally reveals to Ichabod that there's more to life than bilking desperate women out of pot roast and loaves of bread. At first, he's perplexed and put off by her aggressive flirting:

Then, he starts to realize he may have bitten off more than he can chew:

In the end, Ichabod realizes that she offers him something precious and irreplaceable. A life with Katrina would mean he would at last have access to that most beautiful resource, the stuff which nourishes the human spirit like none other. After all, what is the one thing money can't buy?

That's right:  more money.

These scenes are a little perplexing, because it's never quite clear what Katrina sees in Ichabod. She's got her pick of the fellas, unlike every other woman in town, who've got to content themselves with Katrina's leavings. And Brom spends every day falling all over himself to woo her. Nevertheless, she allows Ichabod to dream of a wonderful future with her.

He's beside himself with joy.

This leaves Brom a bit put out. He's used to being the big man on commons, and finds himself playing second fiddle to a nerd. So when there's a huge Halloween party at the van Tassels', Brom decides to take his revenge, in the form of telling Ichabod a very scary story!

BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!!

Ichabod is completely terrified by Brom's story, and freaks out at every errant sound on the dark ride home. But he's so relieved to discover it's just his own superstitions alarming him.

Nothing supports a man like a solidly built horse.

But wait, there's more! You know the story, the Headless Horseman attacks, yada yada yada.

This horse has probably not received the same degree of sensitivity training as Ichabod's.

My goodness this is terrifying.

Horse bearing down on me, yes very scary. Man with sword, upsetting to say the least. Performing the above post-decapitation? Absolutely bonechilling.

The Horseman throws his head at Ichabod, and the scene fades to black. When we see it again, there are just bits of pumpkin, no Ichabod in view. Did he explode? Was he taken by the H.H. to hell? The townspeople don't really care. Brom marries Katrina and everyone is better off.

Almost everyone was better off.

But just in case you felt bad, the narration assures you that Ichabod did survive, and went on to spawn seven terrifying dopplegangers with an absolutely PRODIGIOUS lady. The end!

So, here's the deal:  the sonorous beauty of the narration, the good-natured Americana of the animation, and the ubiquity of the plot (which gives Disney the chance to take their time with the build-up) work together to give this one staying power greater than the sum of its parts. It's extremely silly, but in a harmless way. And Bing Crosby really is amazing! Compared to Mr. Toad, this is a work of absolute genius. Not so much compared to everything else -- it's essentially on the level of anything from "Make Mine Music."

Any other day, "simply enjoyable" would have been faint praise indeed for Disney. Today, though, in a package of the execrable "Mr. Toad," it's hard to see Ichabod as anything but a sign that the light still shone somewhere in the Disney workshops, late into the night.

THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD

1949

RATING: D+

REASONING: It's hard to imagine a lower point for Disney storytelling than Mr. Toad, but Ichabod manages to spin the straw of American stories into something almost resembling gold.