Suspended Animation

By Christopher Porterfield

RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY

Directed by RICHARD WILLIAMS Screenplay by PATRICIA THACKRAY and MAX WILK

As the little girl leaves her playroom, the camera dwells on the dolls left behind: Raggedy Ann, Barney Beanbag, Susie Pincushion and the rest. There is a shimmer of music, the photography dissolves to animation, the dolls come alive and begin talking to one another--surely a child's fantasy about what dolls do behind closed doors. Later, when the little girl returns, the dolls resume their still-life poses, and the animation dissolves back to reality.

Unfortunately for Raggedy Ann & Andy, nothing else can match the magic of these metamorphoses. Except for its realistic frame, the film is a full-length animated feature. But its format betrays the fact that it started out to be something else: a musical intended as a TV special. When the producers switched to animated film, they made the dubious decision to use the conventions of Broadway staging. Hence solo turns and production numbers are dutifully reproduced cartoon-style. The songs by Joe Raposo, composer of TV's Sesame Street, are deft, pleasant and numerous (16 in all). Songs may be the heart of a musical; but when they start and stop this often, the show goes into what might be called suspended animation.

Like so many musicals, Raggedy Ann & Andy also has trouble with its book. The script--based on the original half-century-old stories and drawings by Indianapolis Newspaper Cartoonist Johnny Gruelle--plops Raggedy Ann and her brother into an all-engulfing taffy monster called the Greedy, and pits them against a pygmy king who levies jokes from his subjects the way other kings levy taxes.

Most of their adventures are like the weak-kneed camel that accompanies the pair: too tame. Even the sunniest tale needs an undertone of true menace to capture a child's imagination, as Disney in his early years rarely forgot. Here, in the movie's signature tune, Raggedy Ann sings that she's "just a rag dollie, happy and smiling all day." Fond, foot-tapping parents may tell themselves that this is enough. Kids know better.

Christopher Porterfield

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.