“The Jungle Book”: The Bare Necessities

“The Jungle Book” was the last animated film supervised by Walt Disney himself before passing away months before the release of this 1967 film.

Walt had acquired the rights to producing a film based on the book by Rudyard Kipling in which narrates the story of “Mowgli” and his adventures in the jungle of Seonee in India.

There are at least two versions of the film that were developed and the second one was what is now known as the current “The Jungle Book”. Bill Peet and Terry Gilkyson who were called by Walt to be the ones to write the film and also to compose the film’s songs and the ideas the Bill Peet had done for this film were kind of dark in tone and they looked amazing and had a sense of danger and adventure added to it and was likely closer to the original masterpiece.

Walt had a discussion with Bill Peet and he told him to follow Walt’s idea more closely and make it a more family orientated film as opposed to a dark adventure. Bill Peet left the development of the film and some elements were still there, yet some unknown and the only song left from Terry Gilkyson’s original compositions was “The Bare Necessities”.

The Sherman brothers came in and also there was a change of direction and from there on then came the movie we know currently.

The story you guys already know and it is loosely based on the Rudyard Kipling book. The story is around Mowgli and his journey from the jungle to the “Man Village” where he will be safe from the danger that comes from “Shere Khan” who has returned to those parts of the jungle and vows to kill the Man-cub and along the way he meets other jungle creatures like “Colonel Hathi”, “Kaa”, “King Louie”, “Baloo”, etc.

It’s Disney and you can’t expect a really close adaptation to the source material from them since they tend to keep the film to a more familiar tone to what it was meant to be before it. The film has some really funny moments and some of my favorite songs are from some great moments of the film.

The characters are really something and the most interesting and really well designed character was “Shere Khan”, he was designed to have features from his actor George Sander and the character is menacing as he is also charismatic and he seems to have a great time on screen and he is one of my favorite characters from the film and from the other Disney films he is my all-time favorite villains from all of the animated features.

The songs are great since they are written by the Sherman Brothers and I specially love the “I wanna be like you” sung by Louie Prima and his band and it really is my favorite song and I also hum to myself the last song on the film which is sung by the girl by the river which is called “My Own Home” and it really is a sweet melody and I love the particular scene and it features some of the most beautiful character design for the little girl and her facial expressions are just so beautiful to look at.

The Animation around the characters looks sketchy and look somehow unfinished but the way the move, they look so much as if they were really jungle creatures and specially in the way which “Bagheera” and “Shere Khan” move are so amazing to look at and also “Mowgli” looks as if it was a real boy walking among the vegetation of the jungles of India.

It was one of my first Disney films and one of my favorites since it featured aspects from the jungle as so forth and it made me laugh and sing with it and it still does. I owned the VHS and now I own it on “Blu-ray” which I bought about 2 years ago with “Tarzan” which was also released on “Blu-ray” that exact year in which I bought it.

I love the Mexican dub of the film and also I like the original dub for the film. The mythic “Tin Tan” was the voice for “Baloo” and Luis Manuel Pelayo was “Bagheera”, Carlos Petrel “Shere Khan”, etc. and for the English version it was George Sanders for “Shere Khan”, Sebastian Cabott was “Bagheera”, and Phil Harris as “Baloo”.

My only complaints are: It should have followed the original book from where it was inspired since it had interesting stories and characters and really deep and grand adventure at hand. It should have been longer and developed the other characters and that’s about it.

The film is enjoyable and you should look for it online and rent or even buy it if you want it for the kids or for yourself. Enjoy the bare necessities of life with this film.