I'll be honest, for the most part I try to avoid reviewing movies I don't actually own copies of, there are exceptions of course, but generally if a blog has the "Review" tag, that typically means I own a copy. I can really only think of two instances where I decided to review something despite not owning a physical release of the movie. The first was "Duck Duck Goose" which was a Netflix original and then there was "The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Cut", which I don't think has a physical release. Well, I am going to add another film onto that list, and what a coincidence that I mention The Thief and the Cobbler because this movie was also directed by Richard Williams.
I think Richard Williams is in that grey zone where people know him and his work, but he isn't a big name like Chuck Jones, Hayao Miyazaki or even Ub Iwerks. He's done a lot of fantastic stuff and I really think all of his work is worth checking out just for the animation alone. However, I do have to look beyond the animation and see if the movies have more to offer, so, for no real reason whatsoever, I just felt like it, let's take a look at the 1977 box office flop that is Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure.
In a small room lives a group of dolls, which include Raggedy Ann and her brother Andy, owned by a young girl named Marcella. One day, Marcella's birthday, she gets a new doll from Paris named Babette. Unfortunately, one of the denizens of Marcella's playroom, a pirate in a snow globe named The Captain, kidnaps the French doll and Ann and Andy have to rescue her, coming across bizarre and nonsensical locations and characters along the way. So yeah, this is a pretty typical animated adventure flick, and much like Yellow Submarine, it's more focused on the locations than the plot. That being said, the plot is... not exactly very clean. They kind of just randomly appear in locations, literally one character pops out and chases them into a different place, and after that we find the Captain's ship and see that Babette is now the captain and... I guess in the long run it isn't a messy plot, it is easy enough to follow and is, at its core, easy enough to understand. I guess I'll give it a C grade for plot.
Animation wise, well it's a Richard Williams production, the animation is wonderful. Now, I watched a 35mm Film transfer from YouTube, so the quality may have been affected by that. That being said though, the animation is energetic, fluid and smooth. Raggedy Andy's movements during his song number, when he is twisting himself all over was almost hypnotic to watch, and The Greedy is just beautifully animated, always morphing and melting. In fact, the animation may be too energetic. There is always something moving and it can be a bit over-stimulating. There are times when it does slow down and keep everything subdued, but lots of the song sequences and The Greedys scene have lots of movements and while it kept me interested, it was also really exhausting. It's all amazing animation, but it really can be overstimulating.
The audio can be overstimulating too. Looney Land especially is over-stimulating to the nth degree. Everything is laughing, so many sounds play out and the music is going, and it gets too much too fast. In fact, most of the audio in this movie is mixed. On the one hand, it does have some nice songs, "No Girl's Toy" is fun and a lot of people seem to like "Blue" and "Rag Dolly", which aren't bad, but this movie has the same problem, the exact same problem as the Steven Universe movie and Arlo the Alligator Boy. Too many songs that aren't spaced out enough. At least the songs aren't too bad, though a lot of them are very unnecessary. It also doesn't help that the singing voices aren't always great. While Mark Baker does an excellent job as Raggedy Andy, a performance that lots of viewers have literally fallen in love with, Didi Conn's Raggedy Ann is... Well, she can't exactly hit a lot of the notes the songs require her to hit, which is probably why people remember "Rag Dolly" over her first song "What Do I See?".
The characters are for the most part, very simple. I don't know if that is really a criticism or not because most of these characters are not really major, The Greedy is gross and a big eater, the Camel with Wrinkled Knees is lonely and miserable, Leonard Looney is unforgivingly annoying, Looney Land's King is small and angry, no character really gets a lot of... well character. Even our leads, Raggedy Ann and Andy have rather basic character. They weren't completely boring to watch, they weren't ever unengaging, so for characters I'd give this movie half marks.
In fact, I'd say this movie as a whole deserves half-marks. It's not paced very well, its plot isn't very fleshed out, the songs are too numerous and too inconsistent in quality, the animation and audio can be over stimulating, the characters aren't very complex... But this movie is one of a kind.
I know I brought up Yellow Submarine, which I do think is a better movie, but Yellow Submarine did not have this level of animation, this level of bizarre stuff happening, this level of "I don't even know what to describe". It's like Yellow Submarine dialed up to twelve. So, on some level I can recommend this movie and can even see people enjoying it. It's definitely one of a kind, and worth seeing at least once. That being said, it still has plenty of problems that can make watching it a more negative experience, so if the problems sound too much for you, I don't think you're going to miss a whole lot. So I can't fully recommend it, but I thankfully have a rating for films like this. I think this may actually be the perfect example of a "Slight Recommendation".
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