Jungle Book, The [Platinum Edition]

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With outstanding voice talents, memorable songs, and excellent artwork, this 1967 adaptation of Kipling's "The Jungle Book," inspired by the Mowgli stories, long ago took its place as one of Disney's minor animated-musical classics. It didn't hurt that Uncle Walt himself supervised the project, the last, completed animation on which he would work. If your only acquaintance with "The Jungle Book" is through Disney's dreary 2003 sequel, you owe it to yourself to watch the original, especially in this newly remastered, two-disc Platinum Edition.

You probably remember the plot: A panther named Bagheera finds a human child, Mowgli, left in the jungles of India and gets a family of wolves to rear him. Then, when Mowgli becomes older, Bagheera decides he needs to get the boy (or "Man Cub," as the animals know him) to a human village. It's for his own protection against the return of Shere Khan, an evil tiger who hates humans and would kill the child. On the way to a village, Mowgli befriends a warmhearted bear named Baloo, meets various other rain-forest critters, and then eventually reaches the village, although not without resistance, since he would prefer to live his life unrestrained.

Basically, as Disney conceives it, it's a trek story that tries to create a thread that will tie the many Kipling stories together. Mowgli goes from one place to another, and we get to see his adventures along the way. I wish I could say that it was an entirely successful trek story, but, alas, it doesn't always grab you and pull you in as it should. Instead, it tends to lose some energy along the way by being too disjointed and never having much of a central conflict to link everything together. It is also a bit too glib, too happy-go-lucky, to develop much tension, even with the menacing presence of Shere Khan lurking in the shadows. Then, too, while the peripheral characters are wonderful, the main character of Mowgli is a rather flat, prosaic little fellow. Not that it's Mowgli's fault, mind you; he's a pretty normal little kid. But being surrounded as he is by so many much-more vivid personalities only serves to point up how ordinary he can be. Yes, the movie touches upon the inner turmoil in Mowgli's wanting to live free in the jungle and his animal friends wanting him to return to civilization, but the film really doesn't play up that psychological angle as much as you'd think.

Fortunately, the strengths outweigh the faults in "The Jungle Book." First, there's the look of the film, which includes some of the best, most-detailed watercolor backgrounds the Disney animators ever devised. The actual animals and Mowgli may be drawn a bit simplistically, but one hardly notices.

Second, there are the character voices--a cast to die for. Young Bruce Reitherman, the son of the film's director, Wolfgang Reitherman, plays Mowgli, and he's fine in the role. But he's upstaged by the old pros who surround him. Sebastian Cabot plays the panther Bagheera; jazz great Louis Prima plays King Louie of the Apes; George Sanders is suavely supreme as the nefarious tiger Shere Khan; Sterling Holloway is all sweet hisses as the devious snake Kaa; J. Pat O'Malley is hearty as Col. Hathi, the elephant, and Buzzie, a cockney vulture (part of a quartet of buzzards patterned clearly on the Beatles); Clint Howard is appropriately juvenile-sounding as a young elephant; and Verna Felton is appropriately commanding as the Colonel's wife, Winifred.

But it is Phil Harris as Baloo, the big, dumb, lovable doofus of a bear who steals the show. He is exactly what Disney wanted to give the movie heart. Harris's Baloo is a delightful loafer who takes an instant liking to Mowgli and wants more than anything to adopt him and raise him as a bear. He's really quite sweet and will do anything to protect the boy.

Third, there are the songs and music by Robert and Richard Sherman (who did so many of the famous tunes in Disney pictures) and Terry Gilkyson (who did the Oscar-nominated "Bare Necessities"). In order of their appearance, we hear "Col. Hathi's March," sung by a jungle patrol of elephants; "The Bare Necessities" mentioned above, sung by Baloo; "I Want to Be Like You," sung by King Louie; "Trust in Me," sung by Kaa; "That's What Friends Are For," sung by the Buzzard quartet in barbershop style; and the concluding "My Own Home," which speaks for itself.

Disney's "The Jungle Book" is an amiable, easygoing tale, long on charm if short on edge, excitement, or suspense. However, the characters, music, and animation more than make up for any shortcomings, and the result is pleasant entertainment for everyone in the family.

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