ALL SCI-FI

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Wikipedia and IMDB, and The Disney Films by Leonard Maltin.

Babes in Toyland was produced by the Walt Disney Company and first released on December 14, 1961.

It was directed by Jack Donohue. Screenplay by Lowell S. Hawley, Ward Kimball, and Joe Rinaldi. Based upon the Victor Herbert and Glenn MacDonough operetta.

Budget: $3,000,000.

Synopsis: Mary Contrary (Annette Funicello) and Tom Piper (Tommy Sands) are about to be married. Miserly and villainous Barnaby hires (Ray Bolger) two crooks, dimwitted Gonzargo (Henry Calvin) and silent Roderigo (Gene Sheldon), to help him force Mary to wed him instead.

Babes in Toyland is filled to the brim with gimmicks, an endless procession of songs, staged in a variety of fashions to avoid repetition from one to the next, and a large cast performing in the most colorful settings ever devised for a Disney film.

Unfortunately, all these elements combined cannot overcome some basic and serious flaws that hamper the picture.

First, there is no heart to the film. The viewer feels no emotion for any character on the screen, and when there is no empathy for the hero or heroine, a film is off to a bad start.

Besides a lack of charisma on the part of the main characters, there is no menace to the villains.

The whole film is played in an opera comique style that keeps everything at the most superficial level.

Barnaby is simply not a villain; there is never any feeling of danger in any of his schemes, and the tone of the picture is such that even the supposedly scary sequence, with the living trees, is sugarcoated to keep it from ever getting too frightening.

For older viewers there is an air of contrivance about the film.

Every movement, every gag, every gimmick has a preplanned mechanical look about it that in its calculatedness leaves the viewer cold.

That the film has these shortcomings is a shame, because it also has the kind of imagination and potential that indicates what it could have been.

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Wiki & IMDB.

Babes in Toyland was Annette Funicello's favorite of all her films. She had a passion for dancing and this was one of the rare movies she starred in that let her do dancing.

The stop-motion wooden soldiers sequence required six-months to shoot.

First live-action musical ever produced by Disney Studios.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy starred in the 1930s version of Babes in Toyland. The casting of Henry Calvin and Gene Sheldon for the Disney movie was purposely done with the idea of them somewhat resembling Stan and Ollie.
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Note: Henry Calvin (1918~1975) would imitate Oliver Hardy to Dick Van Dyke's Stan Laurel on The Dick Van Dyke show episode "The Sam Pomerantz Scandals" from March 6, 1963.
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Only Disney produced film based on a hit Broadway musical instead of original material by Disney.

First Disney musical using mostly songs not specifically written by the studio for the film.

Voice of Sylvester J. Goose was that of the film's director Jack Donohue.

Costliest prop was the gigantic toy making machine.

In the credits Annette Funicello is listed only by her first name of Annette.

Tommy Kirk loved making the film because he got to work with Ed Wynn (The Toymaker).

[Bud Brewster]

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Famed "voice man" Art Gilmore (the narrator of so many great trailers, including the one below) is, of course, the gentleman we hear at the beginning of the Disneyland TV series.

___ BABES IN TOYLAND Original Theatrical Trailer


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The audio on the video below is a bit low, but it seems to be the best version of the classic "Disneyland" series opening.

_______________________ Disneyland Intro


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)