Underplayed Gems
The whole movie catalogue

Films and series, searchable by what they are

← Back to the shop

Ben and Me (1953)

Ben and Me poster
Directed by
Hamilton Luske
Genre
animation, comedy, family
Country
United States
Runtime
25 min
Rated
NR
Rating
6.9 of 10 from 51 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb

How it feels

A mouse named Amos befriends Benjamin Franklin and helps him with his inventions. It shows how the mouse contributed to Franklin's famous achievements.

whimsicalgentleeducationallightheartednostalgicclever

What happens

Ben and Me is an American animated two-reel short subject produced by Walt Disney Productions and released theatrically on November 10, 1953. It was adapted from the book of the same name written by author/illustrator Robert Lawson, which was first published in 1939. Although both book and film deal with the relationship between a mouse and American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, the book, with illustrations by Lawson, focused more heavily on actual historical events and personages, and included incidents from Franklin's French career at Versailles. The short received an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject, Two-reel. This short was also notable for being the second release on the Buena Vista Distribution label, with the first being Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, released on the same day. On its release, Ben and Me was packaged with the feature-length True-Life Adventures nature documentary film The Living Desert. When Disney's regular distributor RKO Radio Pictures resisted Disney's idea of releasing a feature-length True-Life Adventures nature documentary film, Disney formed his own distribution company to handle future Disney releases. When aired on television as part of a Disneyland episode titled The Liberty Story, a prologue detailing Amos's family history was added to the film. A D-TV music video was developed in which the short was set to Stevie Wonder's For Once in My Life. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? Tell the Catbot what you feel like watching and it picks from the whole catalogue, or browse by genre, country and year.

Lists: Korean thrillers worth the evening · Anime films beyond Studio Ghibli · Slow films for a rainy night · Horror that unsettles instead of startling · Series you can finish in a weekend · Nordic crime worth the subtitles · Good films that end in under 90 minutes · Documentaries that play like thrillers

Loading movies…

What should I watch?