In all my time watching Disney films, I had never seen So Dear To My Heart before. For that and other reasons I sat down to watch it with great interest. After all, here was a film that was produced in 1948, the very early days of live action at the Disney studio. It had some animated pieces as well as live action, but for such an early film in the Disney live action canon, I had heard very little about it.
That’s a real shame, because So Dear To My Heart is not only an important film in Disney history, it’s a great one as well. This is a movie that tugs at your heartstrings; it makes you cry, laugh and smile – sometimes all in the same sequence. Sure, it’s not original or very inventive, but watching this movie will show you where all the fun Disney sentimentality of future films came from.