The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

A Masterpiece!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Since the start of WWII, Disney's feature films were compilations of short films strung together, often unrelated to each other. Some of these were ideas for single narrative feature films. This would be the last of those package features, while gearing up for the return to the single narratives.The only thing that the two featured stories have in common is that they're both well known stories in literature; One British and one American. Although The Wind And The Willows was published within the lifetimes of Walt and his staff. The wrap arounds take place in a quaint live action Technicolor library.Both films have very strong character animation and excellent staging. Toad and Cyril are fun and entertaining characters. I love the dark and dramatic staging during Toad's escape from prison and they're sneak into Toad Hall to retrieve the Deed. Later generations will recognize virtually every character from this segment in MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL (1983). Sadly, by that time all the voice actors were long gone. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow seems like a curious choice for a Disney adaptation. Bing Crosby's smooth narration enhances the upbeat and suspenseful moments. While most of the action is pantomime, the character animation is still top notch. Most of the sequences revolve around the rivalry between Ichabod and Brom Bones over Katrina. The memorable scenes come toward the end during Ichabod's spooky journey through the woods late at night and his terrifying, but comical, encounter with the Headless Horseman. Both stories are condensed versions of the original stories but are otherwise faithful to their source material. One can imagine how these would have looked had Disney produced them as separate feature length films. The best time to watch this is during the Holidays.

Easily the best of Disney's efforts in the period of short segmented movies released during and shortly after WWII. As the other movies in this period, it consists in this case of two segments. "The Wind in the Willows" as the first and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" as the second. The first segment is centered around Mr. Toad, who has this mania of taking everything to the extreme. It is as I said fun and upbeat and thoroughly enjoyable. The second one follows Ichabod Crane as he enters the village of Sleepy Hollow. Here he is quite popular and he totally engulf himself in it. Almost the entire segment is narrated until he heads off in the dark of the night. From there on comes the greatest suspense in any Disney movie, ever. No doubt. The only thing I will say about that is that it is one of the most shocking and scary scenes I have seen in an animated movie. You should watch this movie if you like both the brighter and darker side of Disney, because this movie touches them both.

This is Walt Disney's 11th full-length animated feature film, and one of six package films that combines two short stories, The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hallow, into one movie.The animation is top-notch for its time and compliments the two tales of American folklore well. The voice actors also did a good job bringing the animated characters to life, especially the British-accented cast of The Wind in the Willows. That story, however, was somewhat ponderous and didn't have much suspense. Nothing really sticks out as unique in the story and it reminds me of just another cliché cartoon short. The ending, though, is a little funny to watch. The Legend of Sleepy Hallow, on the other hand, is a clever work of uniqueness and charm, where the confident and scuzzy professor Ichabod outwits handsome, scrapping town bully Bram Bones a number of times as the both chase after town beauty Katrina. However, his self-serving attitude might have gotten the best of him as he tangles with the legendary Headless Horseman while on his home through the foreboding woods after a party. This sequence only is fearsome enough to scare the kids, especially on Halloween! ***spoiler ahead*** The downside, though, is that The Legend of Sleepy Hallow left us with a hanging ending. The fate of Ichabod was left ambiguous and the marriage of Katrina and Bram Bones at the end shows Katrina's lack of concern for Ichabod, whom she has courted throughout the story. This revealed her true shallow personality. While I know the ending is more in line with the Irving's story, ending was still a little unsettling and anti-climatic. ***spoiler ends*** It's not too bad of movie to pass the time, but I prefer The Legend of Sleepy Hallow more than The Wind in the Willows for entertainment and suspense.Grade C+

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is the 65-year-old Disney approach to the famous tale, which was obviously done long before Tim Burton got his hands on the material. And it is a success, I believe, because several components were competently done and this resulted in a pretty good overall outcome. First of all, the animation is nice and it is a half-hour cartoon which is truly atmospheric. Secondly, Bing Crosby's narration worked from start to finish adding the right mixture of drama and comedy to the scenes we see. And most of all: The school teacher. Now, he is a pretty memorable character and it almost makes me sad to see that the other guy got the girl in the end because I felt that the one who wins was so colorless and forgettable really. Some time later this half hour was picked, mixed together with another relative long short film and so they had a feature film out of this. It even won a Golden Globe and that makes up for the short film from 1949 running empty on the awards front. Anyway, that's how it goes I guess. I had a good time watching this and I recommend it. Of course this should not come as a surprise as this half hour was directed by the makers of "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", "Alice in Wonderland", "Dumbo", "Pinocchio" etc. So from that perspective, it's more of a surprise that this did not turn out even better. But let's not be greedy here. Give it a watch."The Wind in the Willows" is a Disney animated short film, which runs for slightly over half an hour and was made over 65 years ago. I have to say from that duology I found the Ichabod part more interesting. This one here is basically about the adventures of a toad and it's again made in a way that it's not only for children, but also includes some more serious references here and there although not as many as Ichabod and also no horror references. I personally felt that this film here dragged on several occasions and did not really have too many memorable characters. For Ichabod they got Bing Crosby as the narrator and for this one here they got Basil Rathbone, a two-time Academy Award nominated actor who is today mostly known for his participation in the Robin Hood film and for his Sherlock Holmes performances of course. The rest of the cast here I am not familiar with. All in all, I must say the animation was okay, but the story just did not feel memorable at all to me this time. Not recommended.