The Disney animators hit rock bottom with this 1973 feature, which cannibalizes sequences from earlier films and relies almost entirely on celebrity voices—Peter Ustinov, Terry-Thomas, Andy Devine, Pat Buttram—for characterization. The animation, though third-rate by Disney standards, is still more fluid and volumetrically vivid than anyone else's; what sinks this one is the utter lack of the childhood insight and sympathy that really give the Disney films their staying power. Wolfgang Reitherman directed.
By Dave Kehr
