February 17, 2021
So Dear to My Heart (1949) ** 1/2
Google Play
$3.99
Disney other
“Lavender blue, dilly dilly, lavender green/If I were king, dilly dilly, I’d need a queen.”
This film was the last of the myriad of hybrid live action/animated Disney films until Mary Poppins fifteen years later.
It’s the story of Jeremiah and his extremely naughty black lamb, Danny, named after Dan Patch, the racehorse, who visits their small town in the first scene, and where my nerds at who know exactly who Dan Patch is solely because he is in the song Trouble from The Music Man? And that he is a trotting horse and no stuck up jockey boy will be sitting on him? I can name at least five people amongst my acquaintance without even stopping to think, who can raise their hands at that challenge!
This was the last film that Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten would be paired together, and the last for Luana until Johnny Tremain when she was 19. They were the first two Disney kids, which brought them no luck, as they both had tragic early ends, Bobby’s both earlier and more tragic.
Also starring were Beulah Bondi, aka Ma Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life, and a terribly young and beardless Burl Ives (I mean, he was 39, but that was pretty young for Burl Ives, and it’s only his fourth film!). He sings Lavender Blue, Dilly Dilly, a song I had on a Disney record album, but didn’t realize it was from this film.
It is a slight, but charming film, and I resent having to rent it. Why does Disney + exist but to show me every single Disney movie at any moment of the day or night when I want to see it. But we are getting into the live action films, and there are a ridiculous number of those that I will be complaining about how they are missing.
365 Films in 365 Days 