1951 – Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske – Lewis Carroll's Victorian classic of the little girl who falls down the Rabbit Hole is one of the most frequently adapted children's stories. It has been made into live-action movies, stage plays, television features, and animated shorts. Walt Disney considered the story as early as 1933, shelving it to make the …
1989 – Tim Burton – Unlike the Superman films, in which Christopher Reeve's gift for light comedy as mild-mannered Clark Kent turned out to be unexpectedly appealing, the Batman films have shuffled around the casting of the hero and made their psycho-villains the biggest draw. This emphasis, of course, is also reflected in Anton Furst's boiler-room production design, w…
1946 – Jean Cocteau – Diary of a Film, the book that director Jean Cocteau wrote about the making of Beauty and the Beast, describes the string of problems that beset the production, ranging from the difficulty of finding high-grade film stock, reliable equipment, and electrical sources in postwar France to the freak injuries and illnesses that befell the cast and director. More rel…
1982 – Steven Spielberg – Steven Spielberg's E.T., which for many years was the highest grossing film of all time, tells the story of a 10-year-old boy (Henry Thomas) who befriends an alien accidently left behind on Earth when his ship takes off without him. After meeting the alien, whom he names “E.T.,” young Elliot sneaks the extraterrestrial being into his ho…
1996 – Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise – The Disney version of Victor Hugo's 1831 novel may owe as much to RKO's 1939 film with Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara as to its literary source. The early scenes follow the development of the previous one with surprising faithfulness. The contrast between Esmeralda's unselfish prayer in the cathedral and the chorus …
1953 – Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske – James M. Barrie's story of the boy who refuses to grow up has been told in a variety of forms, from his own exceptionally popular stage play to his novelization, then later to a successful television musical with Mary Martin and Walt Disney's animated version. Barrie loyalists prefer the live stage version, but m…
1940 – Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske – Audiences were surprised when Walt Disney did not follow the smashing success of Snow White with another romantic fairy tale. But for his second feature-length animated film, Walt didn't want more of the same—he broke ground again by choosing the classic Italian tale by Carlo Collodi of the puppet who wanted to become a real boy.…
1937 – David Hand (supervising director) – It is hard for the modern viewer to believe that one of the world's landmark films was called “Disney's Folly” as it was being produced and that most cynics predicted that the costly venture would sink the fledgling studio and all its investors. But the idea was so new, so different—an animated film that w…
1978 – Richard Donner – The seriousness director Richard Donner brought to the legendary comic-book story starts in the precredit sequence. Set in June 1938 (the year Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster's hero appeared in Action Comics), the introduction shows a parting curtain and a child's voice seriously reading from the pages of a comic about the hope the Daily Planet ga…
1939 – Victor Fleming – In one of the most beloved children's classics, a little Kansas girl named Dorothy (Judy Garland) is transported to the magical land of Oz when her farmhouse is whirled away by a tornado and lands over the rainbow, far away from friends, family, and mean old Elmira Gulch (Margaret Hamilton). But is Dorothy really away at all? As she and her new friends…
Many children's films, both animated and live-action, fall into the epic category. The viewer might also consider the following animated classics: Charlotte's Web (1972), the story of the runt of the litter whose life is saved by a spider who can write; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1993), the story of four children's trip to enchanted Narnia with the great lion Aslan…