So Dear to My Heart is one of the forgotten movies from Disney’s classic era, and as we’re about to find out, it was for good reason. The closest analog to another film from this era is the slightly-more-remembered Song of the South. Much like Song, So Dear to My Heart is a blend of live-action and animation. We don’t so much see live-action actors acting along animated characters like in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but rather the movie has some animated sequences that are interspersed into an otherwise live-action movie.

The movie is about a little kid named Jeremiah, who lives with his grandma. One night, their sheep are giving birth, and there’s a little black sheep that catches Jeremiah’s eye. He immediately takes to the sheep, and decides that he wants to raise it as his pet. From here, he learns a lot of valuable life lessons and yadda yadda yadda. You get it. If you think it doesn’t sound like there’s a whole lot of meat on the bones here, you would be correct. There’s not a whole lot of substance, so there’s not a whole lot to grab onto here in a review.

In case it isn’t already obvious, my main problem with So Dear to My Heart is that it’s just so boring. I never found myself caring about what was going on in the movie. It’s the kind of movie where I found myself looking at my phone a lot, which is never a good sign. However, speaking of this, while watching the movie, I actually looked into actor Bobby Driscoll, who plays the main character of Jeremiah. His story is actually way more interesting than anything in this movie is, so I want to bring some attention to it quickly. Apparently, Bobby was a really successful child actor, and he appeared in a few Disney movies, including Song of the South and voicing Peter Pan in their animated feature in 1953. However, when he turned 16 his voice started going through puberty and he developed a lot of acne, so he was no longer able to find work in movies. He ended up becoming a major drug addict and went to jail for a little bit. When he got out, he couldn’t find work because of being a former convict, and so he also ended up losing all of his money. Some little kids ended up finding him dead at the age of 31, but he was mistaken for a homeless man and buried in an unmarked grave. No joke! It’s crazy to know that these things happened when you see a child actor onscreen, but it was a pretty depressing life for him after his childhood.

Anyway, back to So Dear to My Heart. What else to say…what…else…to..say. I mean…the movie has its moments, don’t get me wrong. It’s not all terrible. It’s not that kind of bad movie where no one tried or everyone was terrible at their job. It has that heartwarming vibe that Disney is known for. They just put it into a truly uninteresting movie. Upon recently discovering the movie, I was surprised I had never heard of it, but now I completely understand after watching it. The reason I had never heard of it is because no one cares about it, and so no one talks about it. Even though the movie has redeeming qualities on a technical level, I still find this to be the worst kind of bad movie. Usually when a movie is so godawful it’s sometimes fun to at least watch and laugh at, but with a movie like this there’s not really anything to be entertained by. Part of what I try to do with reviewing old movies is to shed some light on movies that people might not otherwise watch, but with So Dear to My Heart I think it’s better for it to stay in the dark.

2/5