The Black Cauldron

Walt Disney. Director Ted Berman, Richard Rich; Producer Joe Hale; Screenplay David Jonas, Vance Gerry, Ted Berman, Richard Rich, Al Wilson, Roy Morita, Peter Young, Art Stevens, Joe Hale, Rosemary Anne Sisson, Roy Edward Disney; Editor James Melton, Kim Koford, Armetta Jackson; Music Elmer Bernstein

By any hard measure, the $25 million animated Cauldron is not very original. The characters, though cute and cuddly and sweet and mean and ugly and simply awful, don't really have much to do that would remain of interest to any but the youngest minds.

Storyline [based on The Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander] is fairly stock sword-and-sorcery, with a band of likable youngsters, animals and creatures forced to tackle an evil mob of monsters to keep them from using a magic cauldron to raise an army of the dead. No need to guess who wins. [Prolog is narrated by John Huston.]

(Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1985. Running time: 80 MIN.

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