The Small One

1978

Action / Animation / Drama / Family

7
IMDb Rating 7.5/10 10 2383 2.4K

holiday virgin mary nativity christmas jesus christ

Plot summary

Ordered by his father to sell an old mule called Small One, a Hebrew boy in the ancient Holy Land takes the donkey to the Jerusalem market. Finding no buyers there, the boy is about to give up when he meets a kind man named Joseph, who buys Small One and uses the steed to take his pregnant wife Mary to Bethlehem.

Director

Don Bluth Photo
Don Bluth

Top cast

Jack Angel Photo
Jack Angel as Various
Gordon Jump Photo
Gordon Jump as Joseph
Ken Sansom Photo
Ken Sansom as Baker
Clarence Nash Photo
Clarence Nash as Small One
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
233.72 MB
1280*766
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us   dk   es   it   no   pt   fi   sv  
23.976 fps
12 hr 25 min
Seeds 2
433.79 MB
1792*1072
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us   dk   es   it   no   pt   fi   sv  
23.976 fps
12 hr 25 min
Seeds 8

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by colleen-butcher 9 / 10

A story that has Christian themes, but is relevant to everyone

Reviewed by Atreyu_II 9 / 10

A small classic

The cover line «A new animation featurette destined to become a Disney Holiday Classic» suits perfectly on this Christmas tale. This short is considered an experiment, reuniting the talents of Don Bluth and the artists from the Walt Disney Company, as much as it is a quality Christian propaganda mini-film.It's a nice cartoon. The story is touching, the artwork is excellent, the animation is great and the whole thing runs on a perfect pace. But, back to the artwork, for those who are familiar with Disney's "Aladdin", the artwork here and even the sceneries give a certain "déjà vu" feeling.As for the characters, the boy looks almost identical to Mowgli from Disney's "The Jungle Book", but he's much better drawn and not as slim as Mowgli. Plus, this boy is kind and very humble, while Mowgli is stubborn and often challenging to deal with. Curiously, some of the animation of the boy is identical to Mowgli's.The donkey is precisely named Small One, which is ironic because he's such a large donkey. Big, yes, but as gentle as a lamb. The boy's father is a nice guy and Joseph (the donkey's buyer) is very kind.About the characters I don't like, they are obviously the guard, the tanner, the 3 merchants and the auctioneer. Curiously, the auctioneer almost looks like Stromboli from Disney's masterpiece "Pinocchio". But although I like Stromboli, I dislike the auctioneer.Our story takes place in Israel, outside of Nazareth. The story focus on the friendship between Small One and the boy, but also on the boy's attempt to sell the donkey for a piece of silver. They both live an awful day but the ending is happy. The donkey is sold to Joseph, who needs a gentle donkey to carry his wife Mary to Bethlehem. The ending has a strong magical feeling because of its excellent artwork and especially because of that sparkling big star.The voice cast does a good job, including Sean Marshall as the boy (which is obvious, because his laughter is very Pete-like). Sean Marshall was not only a very talented young actor, but also a wonderful singer. If there's any doubt about that, he is very good as Pete in "Pete's Dragon" and he sings beautifully in that movie. In "The Small One", he demonstrates again his acting skills (in this case, vocal) and sings very well either. I wonder what happened to him and where is he now.So, in conclusion, it's not an animated short without faults, but it's quite good and deserves more credit than it gets. It's really pitiful that such a trashy and gross movie like "Grease" has much more success, popularity and recognition than this nice little story (which came out in the same year of 1978).The number of animated shorts, animated films and even live-action films made by Walt Disney Company doesn't stop to surprise me. Anytime I think there won't be more or that even more would be impossible, I keep getting surprised.This should definitely be on Top 250.
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