March 1, 1973
Hanna-Barbera
Children's, Fantasy, Musical
VHS
B
Some of what I feel about this movie is mentioned in my review of the E.B. White book-- http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/06/charlottes-web.html-- but I want to add some things. It is a very 1970s-televisiony movie, but I don't consider that a bad thing. The Hanna-Barbera animation is "limited" but there are some lovely images, and I like how they captured Charlotte's personality in a few simple facial details. The voice cast includes performers from The Partridge Family (Danny Bonaduce, Dave Madden) and Bewitched (Agnes Moorehead, the incomparable Paul Lynde as Templeton), as well as you'll-know-them-when-you-hear-them voices (Herb Vigran, Pamelyn Ferdin). Debbie Reynolds is perfect as Charlotte-- warm, smart, loyal, but also with an edge. (You can believe she'd suck blood out of flies, or inflict minor revenge on Templeton.) The script by Earl Hamner, Jr. is both more slapsticky and more sentimental than White's book, but the focus stays mostly on the cycle of life and the importance of friendship. There are perhaps too many songs by the Sherman brothers, and some of them sound like previous music of theirs, but there are some stand-outs, slow almost mournful tunes like "Deep in the Dark" and "Mother Earth and Father Time," as well as jaunty songs like "Zuckerman's Famous Pig" and the smorgasbord tune. What chokes me up is not Charlotte's death, which is subtly led up to, but Wilbur's fear that her children will all abandon him, and that line from the book, "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer." And it's not often that you find a film adaptation equal to the book.
Of the singers, Jackie Ward sang Linda Evans's songs in Beach Blanket Bingo; and Dick Bolks, Paul DeKorte, Susie McCune, Gene Merlino, Paul Sandberg, and Bob Tebow would all be part of the chorus in Heidi's Song.
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