Movie review - "Babes in Toyland" (1961) ** (re-viewing)

The idea of this film always intrigued me - I think I had a story version of it in a book of Disney stories or something and was attracted to the bright bold primary colours of its design. That remains striking - it's set in a fairytale never never land where everything is white, pink, blue, green, whatever. It has a little fairytale magic too.

But it's very juvenile. Annoyingly so. No one acts like a real person - everyone's in a pantomime. Annette Funicello is chirpy, Tommy Sands is bouncy, the villagers dance, the kids are noisy. The baddies have more human emotion but not much - the head baddy (Ray Bolder) twirls his moustache, the dudes based on Laurel and Hardy (Gene Sheldon, Henry Calvin) bumble.

Compare it to say The Wizard of Oz (which is surely what Disney had in mind) - Dorothy is very believable, she wants to leave, and her friends are very relatable - cowardly lion and so on.

It's only towards the end when Annette finds the toy maker (Ed Wynn), a wizard style figure, and his assistant played by Tommy Kirk the piece really comes alive - because Wynn and Kirk are more warm, relatable people. Wynn has flaws (he's pompous and jealous) and Kirk was always a very good "ordinary boy".

Kirk should have played Sands' role - he was simply more engaging. And I think Disney realised his mistake because he went on to put Kirk with Funicello in a number of films.

There's wonky story stuff - Funicello thinks Sands has abandoned her at the beginning but then he reveals it's all cool within 20 minutes and the film brings in these kids to get lost to kick off a whole new story. Really they should have just had Funicello get lost (run away or something) and Sands go looking for her. There's not enough threat or danger.

I liked the talking trees, and the soldiers at the end, and the opening dance number in the town.