So Dear to My Heart (1948)
…………………………………………………
So Dear to My Heart Movie Review
So Dear to My Heart is a 1948 family film produced by Walt Disney. It’s one of the studio’s lesser live-action/animated outputs.
………………………………………………….
“I ain’t a traipsin’ woman in the first place
and I don’t make my kippers for the sake
of blue ribbons and cash awards.
I make ‘em ‘cause they pleasure me“
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
A young boy adopts an abandoned black-wool lamb and starts training it to enter it into a county fair contest. It’s a perfectly fine, though slim, storyline that works for animal lovers at heart, but for all others it should prove rather exhausting.
I did like how the movie honestly portrayed what happens to animal outcasts and how tough life truly is for those animals, and the message of kindness it preaches still rings powerful in this era. But overall it lacked any bigger momentum to its story, in particular in terms of plot points as they are all predictable and the movie is mostly rather uneventful and boring.
Yes, it really bored me more than a couple of times which is a huge problem having in mind its very short runtime. The movie basically lacked any staying power and it was overly redneck in both its musical numbers and its characters.
Yes, the boy and his grandma are both stereotypical characters and the others are all entirely forgettable by failing to leave any impression at all. I did like the performances which are fine across the board, but the characterization itself is weak.
So Dear to My Heart does have a very weak soundtrack. Lavender Blue was actually nominated for an Oscar and I don’t know why because to me it’s such a standard number. But the rest are even worse as they’re all highly forgettable and just weak as they reminded me of the package films from the forties.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
And that’s the overall quality of this picture – the one of most of the package films. It’s not bad at all, but it isn’t particularly good either. It’s just serviceable and only kids could really love it. I did really like its animated segments, but they came so few and far in-between that they did not leave a bigger impact on the overall flick. I was just underwhelmed, especially when compared to much better ‘Song of the South’.
So Dear to My Heart is an underwhelming Disney flick with an effective message for children, good animated segments and some sweet moments here and there, but overall it’s rather slow in pace, quite dull, thinly plotted and pretty forgettable in its typical characters and quite inferior musical numbers.
