The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD (1949) Three-and-a-half stars

Walt Disney favored package films after the release of BAMBI (1942) and released about one every year to close out the 1940s.

THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD runs at 68 minutes, split at just the right length between the opening Mr. Toad segment based on “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame and the closing Ichabod Crane segment based on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving. We have narration duties split between Basil Rathbone (MR. TOAD) and Bing Crosby (ICHABOD), plus Crosby handles voice duties for both Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones and sings a few songs. Crosby sings “The Headless Horseman” tale Brom Bones tells at the campfire that sticks in Ichabod Crane’s imagination on that famous long ride home.

Since we’re on a month of horror movie reviews, I will be focusing on the ICHABOD segment for the purpose of these few hundred words.

I must have first read “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in eighth grade and it’s long been one of my favorite stories. It’s compulsively readable (an engrossing yarn as the publicists said in 1820) and I’m looking around for that damn Irving anthology I bought several years ago. It must be hiding, of course, probably somewhere right around that Edgar Allen Poe anthology that could squish a spider the size of a Buick.

Just take a prose sample:

“As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle; he thought his whistle was answered: it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches,” Irving wrote. “As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hanging in the midst of the tree: he paused and ceased whistling; but on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan—his teeth chattered, and his knees smote against the saddle: it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.

“About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley’s Swamp. On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeoman concealed who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark.”

As much as I like the Johnny Depp and Tim Burton SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999), it only appropriates the title and a few character names from Irving’s short story. It’s laughable when you read “Based on ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ by Washington Irving” in the credits, because Ichabod Crane’s transformed into a horror movie hero who’s rather normal even by Burton and Depp standards and he’s no longer a gold digger like in Irving’s story, where Ichabod schemes after Katrina Van Tassel more for her money than her looks and personality. Ichabod becomes the standard issue lovable movie eccentric and he’s also a constable and not a schoolteacher. Of course, that plays into a murder mystery that manufactures more twists than a year’s worth of production at a pretzel factory.

I have to stifle laughter at this very instant after reading the Wikipedia entry for the 1999 version, which starts “SLEEPY HOLLOW is a 1999 American gothic supernatural horror film directed by Tim Burton. It is a film adaptation loosely based on Washington Irving’s 1820 short story ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.’”

How loosely? Very loosely. Maybe as loosely as the Demi Moore version of SCARLET LETTER.

Burton’s film seems more heavily influenced by Hammer Films (none other than Christopher Lee plays a small role) than the original story, which plays on legends, superstitions, and Ichabod’s overactive imagination for its horrors. SLEEPY HOLLOW makes one feel that it’s merely exploiting the Washington Irving name and literary reputation to give class to what would otherwise be another gory horror movie with a rather convoluted plot.

Take away the slapstick and Crosby’s songs about Ichabod and Katrina, the Walt Disney version sticks closer to the spirit and letter of Washington Irving and the final dozen minutes of ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD are a vivid reminder of Disney films’ ability to scare audiences in classics like SNOW WHITE, PINOCCHIO, and BAMBI.

Ultimately, though, with the Burton film, I accept it for what it is rather than what it is not. Cue to “Seinfeld” and “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” It does have a lot of virtues and I’ve enjoyed it every time seeing it since that first time in a theater in late 1999. Hey, that reminds me, I need to grab my VHS copy and put the damn thing on.