Category: Fantasy

March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934)

March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934; also known as Babes in Toyland). 77 minutes. Directed by Gus Meins and Charles Rogers. Starring Stan Laurel (as Stannie Dum), Oliver Hardy (as Ollie Dee), Charlotte Henry (as Bo Peep), Henry Brandon (as Silas Barnaby), Felix Knight (as Tom-Tom, the Piper’s Son), Florence Roberts (as Widow Peep), Virginia Karns (as Mother Goose), and Kewpie Morgan (as Old King Cole). Music by Victor Herbert, Frank Churchill, and Ann Ronnell. Produced by Hal Roach.

This 1934 comedy, based on the Mother Goose stories and starring Laurel and Hardy, is known alternately as March of the Wooden Soldiers, Wooden Soldiers, Babes in Toyland, Laurel and Hardy in Toyland, and Revenge Is Sweet. I have a general feeling when I watch a movie that the more titles it has, the worse it is going to be (I think, for example, of 1962’s deliciously awful The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, which … Read the rest

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). 83 minutes. Directed by David Hand (supervising director). Starring Adriana Caselotti (as Snow White), Lucille La Verne (as Evil Queen Grimhilde), Harry Stockwell (as the Prince), Roy Atwell (as Doc), Pinto Colvig (as Grumpy and Sleepy), Otis Harlan (as Happy), Scotty Mattraw (as Bashful), Billy Gilbert (as Sneezy), Moroni Olsen (as the Magic Mirror), and Stuart Buchanan (as Humbert the Huntsman). Songs by Frank Churchill and Larry Morey. Produced by Walt Disney.

The story of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is probably familiar to most: the young and beautiful princess Snow White lives in a castle and is governed by her evil stepmother the Queen, who forces her to wear ragged peasants’ clothes and perform menial tasks. Snow White encounters a prince one day while cleaning and is smitten. Meanwhile, the Queen asks her magic mirror who the most beautiful woman in the land is. When the mirror tells her … Read the rest

I Married a Witch (1942)

I Married a Witch (1942). 77 minutes. Directed by René Clair.  Starring Fredric March (as Wallace Wooley), Veronica Lake (as Jennifer), Cecil Kellaway (as Daniel), Susan Hayward (as Estelle Masterson), and Robert Warwick (as J. B. Masterson).

As a supernatural comedy that also has a political subplot, I Married a Witch is both a good Halloween movie and a good election-year movie.  Possibly it is familiar to you as one of the inspirations for the television series Bewitched.  The movie tells the story of the witches Daniel and Jennifer, a father and daughter pair who were found guilty of sorcery and burned in seventeenth-century New England at the instigation of Puritan Jonathan Wooley.  Just before her execution, Jennifer curses the Wooley men, condemning them all to unsatisfying love lives until the end of time.  Daniel and Jennifer’s ashes are buried under an old tree, where their spirits remain until 1942, at which point, thanks to some stray lightning, their … Read the rest

Alice in Wonderland (1933)

Alice in Wonderland (1933). 77 minutes. Directed by Norman Z. McLeod. Starring Charlotte Henry (as Alice), W. C. Fields (as Humpty Dumpty), Cary Grant (as the Mock Turtle), Gary Cooper (as the White Knight), Edna May Oliver (as the Red Queen), Edward Everett Horton (as the Hatter), and Charles Ruggles (as the March Hare). Screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and William Cameron Menzies.

The 1933 Alice in Wonderland is an important early sound attempt at transforming a fantasy children’s novel into a live-action full-length feature film.  It conflates Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass to bring us a sprawling tale of a girl’s fantastic journey through the strange landscape of her dreams.  The screenplay was adapted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and the visually inventive William Cameron Menzies, and the cast features some of the brightest stars of Golden Age cinema. The film was, however, considered a flop at the time of its release and has never … Read the rest