Man, it's just barely day three and I've missed the movie for day three and the review for day two. Luckily I watched two movies on Day 2 so that it evens out.
I watched Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, which was originally released as one of Disney's packaged films in 1949 The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. And Immediately after I Saw Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow on HD-DVD.
Part of the reason this review is late is that I wanted to read the original short story written by Washington Irving and compare it to the feature films. Along with his other classic Rip Van Winkle, Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of our only few American fairy tales.
Growing up I must have watched the Disney Classic at least once every single Halloween. The early Disney animation was polished enough to hold up today's standard. The songs sung By Bing Crosby are quaint but still catchy and mellow. Like the short story, the Disney has a lot of buildup before it gets to what we've all been waiting to see. The Headless Horseman.
What all this buildup led into was one of the most harrowing, intense chases in films. At least when I was 5. Poor blundering Ichabod was barely 1 step ahead of death by the Headless Horseman. Now as an adult I see it for the comical adventure that it is. But for years the ending featuring a flying flaming jack-o-lantern was a frightening site. Disney ran a yearly Halloween special show you only Ichabod's Last ride, which never showed the happy endings and left Ichabod for dead. If Disney had made an action figure of the Headless Horseman, I would've clamored for it. Cause he was bad ass.
Whether or not, Ichabod is dead at the end of the cartoon, mourn him not. For he is probably one of Disney's least likeable leading men. He is odd, ugly, lanky, nerdy superstitious and intrusive. But worst of all he is a glutton and a gold digger. He cared not for Katrina van Tassel, just for the fortune her rich farmer father would leave to her, that would pass to him by marriage. All he cared about was that wonderful green green cabbage that we call cash.
Maybe in the 40's he was just a flawed humorous caricature of a man. But in today's world we call him a bastard. Go to hell Ichabod, Ichabod, Ichabod Crane. The real tragedy of this movie where the Dutch schoolchildren, as the short story elaborates without a schoolmaster to teach, the schoolhouse closed down.
Thanks to the glory of youtube you can watch the film here in four parts.
Exactly 50 years later in 1999 came Sleepy Hollow, Tim Burton's first horror movie. And quite possibly his most accessible film and one of the most profitable. Because of the success of this film, the studios let him make that mess we call Planet of the Apes. Tim Burton is no longer a fringe director by any means. He's garnered enough respect and a fan following to make most of his films profitable. The accusations hurled at him by studio big wigs are that he doesn't make them profitable enough, because of his weirdness. Batman Returns should have been one of the most successful sequels ever, and it was at the time. But It needed to be BIGGER. It should have been bigger. But it featured a weird looking Danny Devito in disgusting fat suit, eating raw fish. How many times are you really gonna want to watch that?
Planet of the Apes made 400 million worldwide. That is by no means a flop. But the studio felt Burton killed the possibility of the franchise and any more films are a financial risk.
So whenever the studios take a big money risk on Tim Burton they like to keep him on a leash. when I first heard of Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, I thought my god, what obvious yet inspired casting. Yet the studios forced him to audition even though he was Burton's first choice. A different film it might have been indeed if Brad Pitt whom the studio was clamoring for, had accepted the role.
Many people who cared criticized this film from straying so far from the source material. They turned Sleepy Hollow from a fairy tale prank into a bloody, horror murder-mystery full of the fantastique. But the truth is after reading the short story, is is definitely grounded in that era and the mythology of Washington Irving's words. It owes just as much to the Disney version as well. Not only paying it a great homage when Caper van Diem's Brom Bones chases down Johnny Depp as a faux headless horseman. It's an almost shot for shot remake, It almost feels as they used the original Disney film as a storyboard for that sequence. Later on when Ichabod is being chased by the real headless horseman some of the same gags from the Disney film are used. Like when accidentally Ichabod finds himself on the Horsemans' steed. it's just as funny as it was 50 years earlier in 1949.
This time around the characters have more than simple naivete and superstitions fueling their fears of the horseman. They are involved in a major conspiracy and scandal that leads to murder most foul. Ichabod the founder of CSI: New York comes to Sleepy Hollow to use his forensic skills to detect the identity of the murderer. What we get is a tale about faith vs. superstition and Science Vs. the Supernatural.
And audiences ate that shit up. it made 200 million worldwide, and at the time I considered it to be Tim Burton's finest picture. But that was 1999. It's is now 2008.
What do I think of it now? The movie is still fresh, and I had forgotten most of the plot to enjoy it once again with enough suspense as I did the first two times I saw it. While I still think its great picture, I know longer consider it his masterpiece. I enjoy Beetlejuice, Batman, and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure far too much to bestow that honor on this film.
But I recommend this not only for first time viewers, but a repeated viewing if its been awhile since you last saw it. This is a great film.
A word about the Sleep Hollow HD-DVD
The sound is great but this is merely a port of the DVD that came out in 2000. With great sound. The picture is beyond awful for HD. This is the first HD-DVD film I've been utterly disappointed in. I think they Just blew up the 2000 DVD and the result is a hot grainy mess.
BONUS VIDEO: The Headless Horseman 1934
Check out this animated short directed by Ub Iwerks during his sabbatical from Disney. He would later return to and serve as Chief Animator for Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It's cool to watch the parallels in animation between both versions. Particularly Ichabod and the movements of the horses.
Check it out, it's 8 minutes with no dialogue but still manages to convey the heated love triangle, and comedy of the original short story. Also of note is the racist depiction of the Negro servants, which are portrayed exactly as described by Washington Irving.
And it's got a great twist ending. Check it out below.
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