Review: The Jungle Book (1967) (DMC #43)
“Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities. Forget about your worries and your strife.” Happy Friday! We hope you were able to join us last night as we watched the 1967 animated version of The Jungle Book. It’s the 43rd movie in the Disnerd Movie Challenge! If you need a refresher, our synopsis is below, as always. For the rest of you, feel free to skip ahead for our review.
Synopsis
Deep in the jungles of India, the panther Bagheera discovers an abandoned baby boy named Mowgli. He delivers the “man-cub” to a family of wolves that recently had a litter of pups, and the wolves adopt Mowgli as one of their own. Ten years later, however, the tiger Shere Khan is spotted in the jungle. The wolf pack, knowing Shere Khan will try to kill the man-cub before he grows into an adult man, decide that Mowgli must go to the Man Village to live with his own kind. Bagheera volunteers to take Mowgli to the Man Village, and so the two begin their journey, despite Mowgli’s protests that he’d rather stay in the jungle. On the first night of their journey, Mowgli is hypnotized and nearly eaten by the snake, Kaa, but Bagheera and Mowgli fend him off before falling asleep in a tree. The next morning, the marching of the elephants’ dawn patrol wakes Bagheera and Mowgli. Mowgli befriends the youngest elephant, Hathi Jr., and joins him in the elephants’ drills, but the elephants’ leader, Col. Hathi, angrily stops Mowgli. Bagheera intervenes and promises Col. Hathi he’s taking Mowgli to the Man Village. As Bagheera and Mowgli continue, Mowgli refuses to go any further and Bagheera gives up, leaving Mowgli alone.
A bear named Baloo is passing through when he finds Mowgli, and the boy picks a fight with him. Baloo good-naturedly starts teaching Mowgli how to fight and growl. The bear’s growls alert Bagheera who comes racing back in a panic, only to realize it’s Baloo. Mowgli and Baloo become fast friends as Baloo teaches Mowgli about the “bare necessities” and how to be a bear. Bagheera gives up and leaves Mowgli in Baloo’s care, but when a group of monkeys kidnap Mowgli, Baloo yells for Bagheera who again comes racing back. The monkeys take Mowgli to the orangutan, King Louie, who wants Mowgli to teach him how to make fire, but Mowgli doesn’t know how to make fire. Meanwhile, Baloo and Bagheera sneak into King Louie’s ruins to rescue Mowgli. After Baloo’s disguise falls apart, the monkeys and Mowgli’s friends fight over who gets to keep the boy. As the ruins crumble around King Louie, Baloo and Bagheera carry Mowgli to safety. That night, Bagheera tells Baloo they must bring Mowgli to the Man Village for his own safety, and he tells Baloo he must be the one to take Mowgli since Mowgli will listen to him. When morning breaks, Baloo reluctantly takes Mowgli with him, but when he reveals to Mowgli that he’s taking the boy to the Man Village, Mowgli protests and runs off on his own. Baloo again calls out for Bagheera and the two begin a frantic search for the boy.
Meanwhile, Shere Khan has been hunting in the jungle. He overhears Bagheera ask Col. Hathi and his herd for help locating Mowgli and begins an ill-intentioned search of his own. Mowgli, off on his own, again encounters Kaa, who hypnotizes the boy. The snake is about to eat Mowgli again when Shere Khan arrives. The tiger suspects Kaa is hiding someone up in his tree, but Kaa coyly shows off his coils to show he’s not hiding anyone. Shere Khan reluctantly moves on, and Mowgli, coming out of hypnosis, pushes Kaa out of the tree before running off on his own again. Mowgli comes across a stormy wasteland where a group of vultures lives. The vultures tease him, but after seeing they’ve hurt his feelings, they empathize with the boy’s plight and tell him they’ll be his friends. But when Shere Khan arrives, the vultures are quick to fly to the sidelines to protect themselves. When Shere Khan attacks Mowgli, Baloo shows up and thwarts the tiger. Together, Baloo and Mowgli fight Shere Khan, with Mowgli finally defeating Shere Khan by tying a flaming branch to the tiger’s tail. But Baloo was badly injured in the fight, and Mowgli and Bagheera believe him to be dead. It is only after Bagheera finishes eulogizing the bear that Baloo reveals he’s alive. As the friends celebrate, Mowgli hears someone singing. It’s a girl from the Man Village fetching water at a nearby stream. Mowgli, entranced, follows the girl back to the Man Village. Bagheera and Baloo go back into the jungle, their mission complete.
Thoughts Before Watching
Megan: I definitely saw this movie a lot as a kid, but I wouldn’t rank it as one of my favorites when it comes to animated Disney movies. For one thing, there are no female characters to really root for, so little kid me lost interest after a while. I also never liked the monkeys—they’re so mean! However, I will say that my siblings and I loved to quote the vultures in this movie! “What we gonna do?” “I dunno. What’cha wanna do?” “Now don’t start that again!” That and the songs are what I remember most enjoying in this film.
Kevin: I can probably count the number of times I’ve seen this movie on one hand, but I remember it well, mostly because the plot is really simple to follow. While the main goal is to get Mowgli to the Man Village, the memorable parts are anything to do with Baloo or King Louie thanks to catchy tunes like “The Bare Necessities” and “I Wan’na Be Like You”. Like Megan, I also used to enjoy quoting the vultures.
Thoughts After Watching
The music is memorable
Megan: The one element of this film that has truly stuck with me is the music. Even as the opening credits began, the iconic opening music immediately took me back to watching this movie as a kid. The songs throughout the movie are still catchy. We couldn’t help but sing along when “The Bare Necessities” began, and I found I remembered most of the lyrics to many of the songs (even the songs I found boring as a kid, like “Trust in Me”). I tip my imaginary hat to the Sherman Brothers—they knocked it out of the park with the music for Mary Poppins, and they managed to do a great job with The Jungle Book as well. One thing I noticed on this latest viewing is that Baloo’s philosophy is actually one of the keys to finding happiness. Take a look at the lyrics from his song, “The Bare Necessities”:
Don't spend your time lookin' around
For something you want that can't be found
When you find out you can live without it
And go along not thinkin' about it
I'll tell you something true
The bare necessities of life will come to you
I can’t remember which book I read this in, but part of what makes humans happier is, like Baloo says, being grateful for what you have and not concerning yourself as much about what you don’t have. As long as you have “the bare necessities” (i.e., your basic needs are all met), having more things won’t make you happier, but gratefulness and memorable experiences with people you care about will. While Baloo has his trials over the course of this movie, he is also the most carefree and happiest of all the characters, and it’s that happiness that draws Mowgli to enjoy “being a bear.” I think we could all take Baloo’s advice now and again.
Kevin: One of Megan’s and my favorite things to do, probably to the surprise of no one, is sing Disney songs together. Although the pandemic has prevented us from watching these movies together, it’s been a lot of fun to sync up our film watching and sing along to the music at the same time. It was no different with this movie. Like Megan, the music has always been incredibly memorable for me; honestly, if there’s anything about Disney films that almost always delivers, it’s the music. Also, to what Megan said about the lyrics of “The Bare Necessities,” I think you can apply this idea to current events. It’s easy to get caught up in how tiring the quarantine is, and it’s good to allow ourselves to feel the frustration. Still, if we’re able to say that we have all our basic needs met, then that matters a lot more than what we can’t (yet) have. We can still make memories and cultivate fun experiences for ourselves and with our loved ones (such as singing along to Disney music) in spite of what’s currently going on. If our basic needs are met, these experiences just enrich our lives further.
A fun movie with fun animation
Kevin: As we mentioned above, the music is memorable. However, it’s one of the few things this movie has going for it. For me, the other positive is the design. What’s really missing are character-driven moments, which I’ll get into shortly. There are some beautifully rendered shots, with one particular standout being a shot of a waterfall. The mist effects on this shot are so good they look real. The animation and effects have come a long way since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which is saying something because even the animation from that movie still looks great after 83 years. With The Jungle Book, we can see the advances in technology and animation techniques. It’s funny to mention it because the animation itself is still obviously using the Xerox method from the previous two animated films, but after a few years of using the technology it looks like the animators are starting to find their groove. Sure, there are still moments where you can see unfinished, sketchy linework in certain moments, but it’s not as noticeable. At one moment during our viewing, I actually wrote down in my notes how much better the animation looked, only for one of those sketchy lines to show up a second later as the frames changed, so it’s obviously not perfect, but it doesn’t detract from the viewing experience. I have to say this comes off as a welcome contrast to The Sword in the Stone. In that movie, I had the sense the animators wanted to go for an “epic” sort of feel given the time period and subject matter, but the animation didn’t match that impression. The Jungle Book, on the other hand, comes off far more relaxed thanks to its adventure theme. I said in our review of One Hundred and One Dalmatians that the animation style works because it’s more laid-back and grounded. It’s the same in this movie. Also, the character animation is so much fun. Sure, it does recycle bits from earlier movies (Megan: Did anyone else catch Bambi’s mother?), but just look at the way Baloo and King Louie dance during “I Wan’na Be Like You.” Those are some great moves! There are lots of examples of this great character animation scattered throughout the film. In fact, much of the animation was in turn recycled in later films like The Aristocats and Robin Hood. Again, this was not due to an attempt at cost-cutting, but because of director Wolfgang Reitherman’s belief in reusing animation that already worked instead of coming up with something new.
However, it’s missing true character development
Kevin: There’s nothing wrong with a fun adventure film, but it’s also hard to be engaged with what’s going on when there’s no one to really root for. That’s not to say we’re rooting against Mowgli, just that he’s not interesting enough to care about. The plot is driving him forward rather than him driving the plot, and he lacks agency. Most of the things that happen to him are outside his control (for example: being forced to return to the Man Village, only able to free himself from Kaa’s hypnosis after the snake is distracted, or being helplessly carried off by monkeys). Really, one of the only things we see Mowgli take into his own hands is fighting Shere Khan. I will say that it’s interesting how brave Mowgli is. He says several times throughout the film that he’s not afraid, whether of Shere Khan, Kaa, man, or anything really at all. Mowgli proves his lack of fear every time, culminating in his encounter with Shere Khan. Everyone in the jungle is afraid of the tiger, and Shere Khan is used to this. But Mowgli refuses to give him the satisfaction of being afraid, much to Khan’s frustration. While it is intriguing that Mowgli is this brave, his bravery is never challenged once during the movie. And while Mowgli does decide to go to the Man Village after all, it’s done as the result of a “love at first sight” trope and not at all to do with Mowgli growing and changing as a person. Perhaps if we had met the young girl carrying the water jug earlier, or if Mowgli had some interactions with the Man Village prior to this, the ending might have paid off. The lack of a real arc for Mowgli is why we don’t root for him.
Megan: The one thing I kept asking myself throughout this movie is “whose story is this?” As a kid I might have thought it’s Mowgli’s story. After all, he is the kid character, and the film is based off the “Mowgli stories” of Rudyard Kipling. However, as Kevin pointed out, Mowgli’s “transformation” from refusing to go to the Man Village to willingly (almost hypnotically) walking into the village without protest is hard to credit to Mowgli having any real change of character. It’s quite possible he would still want to live in the jungle after satisfying his curiosity (lust?) over the girl. However, one could make the argument that this is meant to be a buddy comedy about Bagheera and Baloo more than it is a coming-of-age story about Mowgli. Unlike Mowgli and Bagheera, Baloo is one of the few characters who must confront experiences that challenge his worldview. The happy-go-lucky bear realizes again and again that he cannot protect Mowgli from the dangers of the jungle—and if he keeps trying to, it could cost him his life. However, the lesson doesn’t seem to sink in because at the end of the film Baloo is still telling Mowgli to “come back” and forget about the Man Village. Bagheera, on the other hand, has a slight character change at the end of the film. Once Mowgli is delivered to the Man Village, the uptight, mission-driven panther who’s been a no-nonsense companion throughout the journey is finally able to have a little fun as he sings with Baloo. It’s the most we’ve seen the panther smile since he first laid eyes on Mowgli as a baby. While these are slight changes in character over the course of the film, they’re pretty weak changes compared to what today’s audiences are used to seeing in films. It’s not hard to see why the modern CGI/live-action remake made so many changes (to my mind, improvements) over the original animated tale.
“They’ll ruin him. They’ll make a man out of him.”
Megan: That quote is from Baloo, and he has good reason to fear what might happen to Mowgli as he grows from a boy into a man. In fact, the entire movie really is a commentary on what manhood truly is, and in some ways it draws conventional masculinity into question. For one thing, there is “man”—not “humans” but “man.” The Man Village. Man’s red fire. Man’s gun. Even Mowgli is a man-cub. Much as we talked about how “man” was the lurking danger in the forest in our review of Bambi, “man” is feared here in the jungle of India, too. “Woman” doesn’t seem to exist and so is not feared in the same way that “man” is. Mowgli, though he is human, is not immediately feared because he’s a baby, and then a young boy. But when he reaches the age of ten, the male wolves and the male panther, Bagheera, recognize that Mowgli will one day grow to be a man. This makes him a threat to Shere Khan, who fears man’s fire and man’s gun—the only things more powerful than a tiger. Shere Khan will do anything to destroy a perceived threat to his power (and, by extension, his masculinity). While the wolf pack may have strength in numbers, they are not willing to risk their pack to save “man”—even if Mowgli has been raised like a wolf—and so Mowgli must leave the only family he has known because he will one day become “man.” Is it any wonder that Mowgli fears going to the Man Village?
Megan: King Louie, on the other hand, doesn’t fear man—he wants to be one. Take a look at the lyrics from his song “I Wan’na Be Like You”:
Now I'm the king of the swingers
Oh, the jungle VIP
I've reached the top and had to stop
And that's what botherin' meI wanna be a man, man-cub
And stroll right into town
And be just like the other men
I'm tired of monkeyin' around!
Here’s a character who is already a king, but he’s “reached the top and had to stop” so now he’s unsatisfied. He needs more power. He can’t make himself into a tiger like Shere Khan, but if he can emulate man, the creature so feared by every animal including tigers, then he’ll truly be powerful. As the lyrics continue:
What I desire is man's red fire
To make my dream come true
Give me the secret, man-cub
Clue me what to do
Give me the power
of man's red flower
So I can be like you
For King Louie, being a man means wielding the most powerful, destructive weapon: fire. He doesn’t want to learn how to make fire so he can cook his bananas. No, he wants the “power” that comes with knowing how to make fire so he will be feared by the other animals of the jungle. (Toxic masculinity, much?) Mowgli, however, doesn’t have this power. Raised by wolves, he has no knowledge of how to make fire, and he’s survived ten years without it. He also doesn’t show any desire to learn how to make fire. It is only when he finds himself up against a tiger that he uses fire as a weapon to defend himself and his friends (and then it’s an incidental lightning strike fire, not a fire he made himself). This in itself is a powerful message—being a man is not about having the bigger stick, so to speak, but rather how one uses the tools they’re given.
It’s a man’s world and a man’s story
Megan: I called it from the beginning—this movie fails the Bechdel test. For one thing, we don’t even have two named female characters. Technically, if you look at the opening credits, we don’t even get one named female character. While the female elephant, Winifred, is named in dialogue, she is only credited as “elephant.” The only other female characters are the wolf mother, who doesn’t speak, and “the girl.” Yup. In the credits she’s just called “the girl.” No two female characters are ever in the same scene together, so they never have the chance to speak with each other, let alone have a conversation about something other than a man. I think this might be why I found it so hard to connect with this movie as a kid. Beyond the humor, this really is a male story, and we get the sense that women aren’t invited. The female wolf is a silent mother who’s only on screen for a short blip. She’s a good mother, who willingly raised a human child alongside her wolf pups, but that’s all she gets to be—silent and mother. She doesn’t even have a say when the wolf pack decides to exile her human son. “The Girl” at the end of the film is equally pigeon-holed. The lyrics of her song, “My Own Home,” lay out what little she has to aspire to in her future:
Father's hunting in the forest
Mother's cooking in the home
I must go to fetch the water
'Til the day that I'm grown
'Til I'm grown, 'til I'm grown
I must go to fetch the water
'Til the day that I'm grown
Then I will have a handsome husband
And a daughter of my own
And I'll send her to fetch the water
I'll be cooking in the home
Then I'll send her to fetch the water
I'll be cooking in the home
Father, the man, gets to leave the home to hunt in the forest and see more of their world. Mother is expected to cook in the home (a task which, given the time period, likely would have taken most of the day and required lots of hard work near a hot fire). The Girl is expected to fetch water—equally strenuous work (honestly, I felt the animation of this task made that jug of water look far lighter than it would be in reality). When she’s grown, The Girl can look forward to having a husband who will leave her for most of the day to hunt, and she’ll send her daughter to fetch water, while she’s the one cooking at home. That’s it. The cycle continues. No aspirations beyond that. No hopes of exploring the jungle or what might exist beyond it. It makes for an incredibly boring character, especially when there are far more exciting female characters in other Disney films for young girls to emulate.
Kevin: I haven’t seen the 2003 sequel, but I understand that “The Girl” plays a larger role. Not only is she given a name (“Shanti”), she also leaves the Man Village and participates in the actual story going on. This was surely a change resulting from the time period. The sequel apparently received negative reviews towards the animation and plot, but I didn’t see anything suggesting the negativity was towards the characters, so hopefully once we get around to watching it we may see Shanti being a more active character. A fun fact I learned while looking this up is that Shanti is voiced by Mae Whitman, who also voiced characters such as Rose/Huntsgirl on American Dragon: Jake Long, Katara in Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Tinker Bell in the Disney Fairies film franchise. All of these female characters are given more agency, abilities, and aspirations within their stories than many female characters of older movies and TV series.
Megan: Back to the original The Jungle Book, the only other female character in the film is the elephant, Winifred, and honestly, she’s the best of the bunch. (On a side note, what’s with all these Disney wives being named Winifred?) For one thing, she’s the only female character who has real dialogue since The Girl only sings. And let me say, Winifred’s dialogue is not wasted! Though her early complaints about her husband’s military ramblings are meant as comedic relief, they also show a woman questioning male leadership and full on confronting it when she thinks her husband is leading them in the wrong direction (literally and figuratively). My favorite exchange happens when Bagheera asks the elephants to help him look for Mowgli. Col. Hathi initially doesn’t want to help, but Winifred intervenes:
WINIFRED: That does it! This has gone far enough! Far enough! Now, wait just a minute, you pompous old windbag!
COL. HATHI: Winifred! What are you doing out of ranks?
WINIFRED: Never mind! How would you like to have our boy lost and alone in the jungle?
COL. HATHI: Our son.... alone? But, Winifred, old girl, this is an entirely different matter!
WINIFRED: Hmph!
COL. HATHI: Different, entirely.
WINIFRED: That little boy is no different than our own son. Now, you help find him, or I'm taking over command!
COL. HATHI: WHAT?! A female leading my herd?! Seriously?! Utterly preposterous!
HATHI JR.: Pop, the man-cub and I are friends. He'll get hurt if we don't find him. Please, Pop? Sir? Please?
COL. HATHI: Now, don't you worry, son. Your father had a plan in mind all the time.
WINIFRED: Sure you did.
While Winifred is still placed firmly in the role of mother, she uses that to fight for another mother’s child: Mowgli. She may not know Mowgli’s wolf mother (heck, she doesn’t even know that Mowgli has a mother figure in this instance), but she knows that a child is alone in the jungle with a tiger and other predators lurking around, and she knows the right thing to do is to help find him to keep him safe. She even goes as far as threatening to take over command of their herd. While Col. Hathi finds it “utterly preposterous” for a woman to hold a leadership position, I don’t think today’s audience finds it all that surprising given Col. Hathi’s forgetful nature and Winifred’s strength in speaking her mind. Honestly, she might make a far better leader. While it is Hathi Jr.’s pleas, not Winifred’s, that finally get Col. Hathi to cave and commit to finding Mowgli, it’s Winifred who gets Col. Hathi to do the social/emotional work of putting himself in Bagheera’s position and thinking of how he would feel if his own son was lost.
A lack of representation
Megan: Women weren’t the only ones seemingly uninvited from this film. Even though this is a story set in India, featuring an Indian human boy, one look at the cast list shows a severe lack of diversity or representation. Every character is voiced by a white male (and the two female voice actors are also white). Sure, the story collection The Jungle Book was written by Rudyard Kipling, a white English man who lived in India for part of his life, but it would appear no one in the cast of this film ever set foot in India, let alone lived there. While I don’t believe in the cancel-culture practice of invalidating any story not written by someone who’s had the exact lived experience of their fictional protagonist, I do think it’s important for filmmakers to seek out diverse talent for on- and off-camera roles. Do I think every character in The Jungle Book had to be voiced by an Indian actor? It would’ve been cool, but I don’t think it’s necessary. At the very least I would’ve liked to see the human characters voiced by Indian actors. It’s nice to see that the most recent remake of this film included a far more diverse cast, including an Indian-American actor playing Mowgli.
An enduring legacy
Kevin: Though this may not be one of my favorites, The Jungle Book has undoubtedly had a very strong legacy. I’ve known for years that it’s often considered the last “good” Disney film until the Disney Renaissance came along, but what I recently learned is that it’s lauded by several prominent Disney animators. Wikipedia cites the documentary The Lure of The Jungle Book from the bonus disc of the platinum version of the movie. In the documentary, Eric Goldberg (director of Pocahontas and Fantasia 2000, and animator on Aladdin and Hercules, among other films) said the movie had “possibly the best character animation a studio has ever done.” Also, the animators working on Aladdin, The Lion King, and Lilo & Stitch were inspired by the film’s animation and design. Further, director Brad Bird and animators Andreas Deja, Glen Keane, and Sergio Pablos have all cited The Jungle Book as their major inspiration for getting into the industry. The film credits of each of these people is too extensive to even begin listing them here, so I have linked their IMDb pages for your viewing. The short answer is that they are responsible for many of the Disney characters and films from the ‘90s and early 2000s, as well as some other popular movies from other renowned animation studios (such as Pablos, who created Despicable Me, produced by Illumination). The fact that this movie had such a huge influence on the development of many of the highly successful Disney Renaissance films and beyond is a mark of the film’s enduring legacy.
On a side note, it’s interesting how all of the above people are men, and the citation doesn’t mention any women. I’m curious to know how much of this was rooted in the documentary’s filmmakers just not asking any women, or if there are perhaps very few women animators, directors, filmmakers, etc. who enjoyed The Jungle Book as well as men did growing up. Based on what Megan said above, I think both could be true. This movie was definitely not made with girls in mind.
Kevin: The Jungle Book was also one of the earliest Disney films (perhaps even the first?) to have spun-off a franchise, or at least something close to one. Earlier films such as Cinderella and Peter Pan had sequels, but they didn’t come until the early 2000s. Later films such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules would eventually have their own TV series in the mid to late ‘90s, but with The Jungle Book, spin-offs occurred as early as 1990. It was the inspiration behind the animated television series TaleSpin (which featured more anthropomorphized versions of characters such as Baloo and Shere Khan—it’s on Disney Plus if you want to check it out) and Jungle Cubs (which featured all the major animal characters from The Jungle Book as children). It’s worth mentioning how these series were focused on the animals and nothing to do with Mowgli—because, let’s face it, the animals are far more interesting than Mowgli. Anyway, this again is an example of how much influence the film had on animators at the time, who were evidently exploring alternative stories and ideas that could branch off from this one source. Throw in the fact that Disney produced not one, but three live-action/CGI versions of the movie (a 1994 adaptation with more adult themes, a 1998 version centered on Mowgli’s early jungle adventures, and the 2016 remake), and the lasting impact of this movie is clear.
Verdict
Megan: 4
Kevin: 5
Final Score: 4.5
What did you think of The Jungle Book? Do you prefer the original animated version or the newer CGI/live action version? Tell us in the comments below!
