"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is the 65-year-old Disney approach to the famous tale, which was obviously done long before Tim Burton got his hands on the material. And it is a success, I believe, because several components were competently done and this resulted in a pretty good overall outcome. First of all, the animation is nice and it is a half-hour cartoon which is truly atmospheric. Secondly, Bing Crosby's narration worked from start to finish adding the right mixture of drama and comedy to the scenes we see. And most of all: The school teacher. Now, he is a pretty memorable character and it almost makes me sad to see that the other guy got the girl in the end because I felt that the one who wins was so colorless and forgettable really. Some time later this half hour was picked, mixed together with another relative long short film and so they had a feature film out of this. It even won a Golden Globe and that makes up for the short film from 1949 running empty on the awards front. Anyway, that's how it goes I guess. I had a good time watching this and I recommend it. Of course this should not come as a surprise as this half hour was directed by the makers of "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", "Alice in Wonderland", "Dumbo", "Pinocchio" etc. So from that perspective, it's more of a surprise that this did not turn out even better. But let's not be greedy here. Give it a watch.
