The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh 720p - (1977 Lang: English)

For many people, the adventures of Winnie the Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Woods represent a pinnacle of childhood. Disney's adaptation has immortalised the best of the classic Milne stories and provided the world with an animated film that remains unsurpassed for its good nature and unadulterated joy.

Three stories have been synthesised for this feature: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too. The featurettes are linked by a narrator who nicely blends the lines in this episodic movie. The vocal performances are all excellent, with Sterling Holloway as the tubby bear of the title and Paul Winchell as his bouncy pal, Tigger. Also a standout in the small cast of characters is Eeyore - voiced by Ralph Wright - whose many one liners cater for even the grouchiest of grown ups in the audience.

Disney has added a few neat little touches to Milne's source material, including the Gopher who runs around proclaiming "I'm not in the book, you know!". But the studio has stayed true to the skew logic that is at the heart of these classic stories - and that is why this film works. Watch this one whether you're looking for some good, clean entertainment for the kids or if you just want to return to the happiness of your childhood: it's a great film for everyone.

The film's content is derived from three previously released animated featurettes Disney produced based upon the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974). Extra material used to link the three featurettes together was added to allow the stories to merge into each other.

A fourth, shorter featurette was added to bring the film to a close. The sequence was based on the final chapter of The House at Pooh Corner, where Christopher Robin must leave the Hundred Acre Wood behind as he is starting school. In it, Christopher Robin and Pooh discuss what they liked doing together and the boy asks his bear to promise to remember him and to keep some of the memories of their time together alive. Pooh agrees to do so, and the film closes with The Narrator saying that wherever Christopher Robin goes, Pooh will always be waiting for him whenever he returns.

This film is like a childhood memory, I love it, and I'm 16. The animation is beautiful, especially in Blustery Day, one of the three vignettes that make up the film. On this subject, I think this is the only Disney movie, that makes outstanding use of the vignettes, which were tied together by a very thoughtful narrative by Sebastian Cabot, who sadly died the year the film it was released. The songs by the Sherman brothers, are amusing and memorable actually. The Heffalumps and Woozles song was my favourite. What impressed me most was that the vignettes, while simple but innocent and cute, were very faithful to the equally charming stories by A.A.Milne. The characters were really inspiring, helped by a very spirited voice cast, Sterling Holloway and Paul Winchell as standouts. John Fiedler and Junius Matthews were also amusing as Piglet and Rabbit, and Bruce Reitherman was also good as Christopher Robin. My ONLY criticism of this movie, is that I felt it was a bit too short. Watch this film, and maybe the other Winnie the Pooh films, but they do lack the charm of this innocent little gem.

Like the Rescuers, immensely charming!