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Been watching the 1958 “Tom Thumb”, directed by Puppetoons’ animator, George Pal. Arrived today from Netflix. I’d assumed I’d probably seen it on television as a child but none of it strikes me as familiar.
It’s not the traditional story. The movie is a combo of Puppetoons, slapstick, Hollywood Saturday matinée adventure…and a vehicle for showing off Russ Tamblyn doing gymnastics to jazz (weird). A man and a woman wish for the child they’d never had. Russ Tamblyn, done up with peroxide blonde-red hair, shows up at the door in some fabric leaves. A pair of villains take notice of him and think he’d be a perfect accomplice in crime (slipping through keyholes) but his father refuses to sell him. In a subplot. an irresponsible musician has fallen in love with a Wood Spirit who will only become real when he kisses her. The musician takes Tom Thumb to the fair where Tom entertains the locals, dancing in a pair of “talented” shoes that will keep the dancer moving until the music stops.
“Everybody seems to know who Tom Thumb is,” H.op. observed.
Which I happened to be concurrently wondering about, that everyone knew Tom Thumb though this was his first appearance at the village.
The musician promptly loses Tom Thumb, and his new job in the military band. Tom Thumb is captured by the villains and innocently assists them in thievery. They send him into the swamp with a gold coin, expecting him to be gobbled up, but Tom is found by the musician and taken home where he accidentally loses the gold coin. The next morning, looking for the thieves, the law stops at the house of Tom’s parents, finds the coin, and arrests them. The rest of the film involves Tom and the musician attempting to corral the villains and bring them to justice and the musician becoming man enough to gently kiss (the big he-man kiss doesn’t do the job right) the Wood Spirit and make her real.
Not quite what I’d expected. But the scene in which Russ Tamblyn does his jazz acrobatics, the toys in his room all having come to life and welcoming him with a celebration, is pretty incredible. Seriously bizarre, considering this is a supposedly Grimm’s era Bavarian home, but incredible. Well, I guess Bavarian. Hollywood sound stage Bavarian.
The role took tremendous strength and agility, Tom making his way around in a big person’s world, always heaving himself up on top of this and that, must have been exhausting. I had to make some big leaps as well to accepting 24-year-old Russ Tamblyn as the couple’s new baby boy, until this scene, peculiarly, which is the liveliest and best in the film, Pal reminding adults that their magically-minded child remains present, inspiring creativity.
“Is that Peter Sellers?” I wondered, watching the secondary villain, Antony. “Certainly looks like Peter Sellers. Kind of. No, it looks more like a second-string character actor Peter Sellers later mimicked and polished up.”
It was Peter Sellers though.
“He looks grouchy,” H.o.p. said.
He did. Grouchy through and through, and like it wasn’t just acting grouchy. More like he was having troubles with feeling out his villainy-comedic parameters in a film geared for children. Either he never got it or the drab cinematography and editing let slip what he got. It’s hard to tell.
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