Search - Disney Animation Collection 5: Wind in the Willows on DVD

GREAT Film - BAD Transfer

Hank Zangara | Washington DC | 07/27/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

""The Wind in the Willows" is a terrific piece of animation -- one of the best of the Disney Studio from the 1940s. Originally released as the front half of the 1949 theatrical feature "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad," I always felt that Wind in the Willows could have easily stood as a full feature length film on it's own. It has a gentle comforting style of humor not unlike the '60s' Winnie the Pooh featurettes, but then climaxes in a thrilling train chase and the mayhem-in-the-manor fight with the weasels, one of the masterpieces of action staging. If you ever wondered where those weasel characters in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" were originally from, they are from this great film. This new DVD contains the "featurette" version, with it's own opening title sequence as re-released theatrically, and as seen on the Wonderful World of Disney TV series.



However, this DVD edition suffers from a VERY bad transfer. "Wind in the Willows" is extremely dark, making even the daytime scenes look as dark as night, and much of the background details are lost in shadow. This is especially evident if you compare it to the Disney DVD release of "Adventures of Ichabod an Mr. Toad." Just spot-check a few scenes from that disc, observe it's bright color, and then play this new one. You will be shocked at how the quality control has slipped under the usual high standards of Disney.



Disney should certainly offer a remastered replacement for this DVD.



The other 5 cartoons all look fine on this disc, and can also be found on the Walt Disney Treasures tin box set "Silly Symhonies.""

Great content, horrible print

Byron | Fort Lauderdale, FL | 05/21/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"While the other five shorts in this collection are in decent condition with fairly bright color and delineation, the state of the centerpiece cartoon "Wind in the Willows" is unbelievably poor. Without exaggeration, it looks like a print you might find on a public domain bargain bin collection. I could have handled a fair amount of speckling and such (which this cartoon also has in abundance) but the picture itself is so fuzzy and murky it's almost impossible to make out details in any of the darker scenes even with the contrast turned all the way up. The sound quality is pretty substandard as well. Is this really the best print Disney has in its archives? I know that none of these shorts are restored but the other five look infinitely better and they are all from the 1930s while "Wind in the Willows" is from 1949. I haven't seen any of the previous DVD collections that included it so I don't know if this is the same print they've been using all along but Disney should really be embarrassed for releasing something this appallingly shoddy. It's an insult to both the customer and the original animators."

Worst transfer ever.

M. Mundell | Benton IL USA | 08/13/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"First of all I really enjoy this film. Although the story uses a basic outline of the original story, it is very entertaining. However, I have a better copy of this on a VHS recording from the late 1980's. The Disney channel broadcast this in its original format of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Wind In the Willows" on cable and C-Band satellite. In that copy it is crisp, clean and very colorful.



This is not! To me it looks like a bad copy of a copy of a copy etc.... The packaging is nice, the included lithograph(picture) is better looking than the movie, and the included extras are great. But I expected better when I bought this to have a high grade, almost permanent and quality DVD copy for my collection. Whoever at Disney selected this horrible copy and considered it worthy to label as a "Disney Classic Short" should find a new job.



If they need a better copy maybe I should loan them my VHS copy. Surely someone at Disney could of got off their duff and walked to the great "Disney Vault" and picked up the quality copy that has been shown on their own channel several times in the past.

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