The DVD Archive: March of the Wooden Soldiers

 

Babes in Toyland (1934). AKA March of the Wooden Soldiers

I was going over several Christmas movies in my head, and I was surprised that I hadn’t listed March of the Wooden Soldiers among my DVDs. I was further surprised when I found out I hadn’t listed it anywhere on the blog. So here it is. It is almost by courtesy a holiday movie, played around both Thanksgiving and Christmas. It has gone by many titles. It is both a Laurel and Hardy film and a children’s film, and it doesn’t quite succeed as either. Oh, it’s not terrible. It’s a strange, fever-dream of a movie, almost odder than the old black-and-white Alice in Wonderland of the year before.

          The story takes place in Toyland, a realm of nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and children’s games. Ollie Dee and Stanley Dum work for the Toymaker, a man who supplies all of Santa’s toys. They must try to save their landlady Mother Peep (the Old Woman in the Shoe) from being booted out of her house by Silas Barnaby (the Crooked Man), who wants to marry Bo-peep, who prefers Tom Tom the Piper’s Son. After the duo foil Barnaby’s plots, the villain tries to lead an invasion of Toyland by the Bogeymen from the dark side of children’s imagination. But that fails when Laurel and Hardy activate a life-size troop of wooden soldiers that they have accidentally produced at the Toy Factory and drive the Bogeymen and Barnaby away.

“Based on Victor Herbert's popular 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland,” Walt Disney personally approved the appearance of Mickey Mouse (the Mouse Who Ran Up the Clock) in the film along with the use of the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" for the especially nightmare-inducing Three Pigs. There are some songs that do not seem aimed at a child audience which stop the action dead and seem to last forever.

The libretto was developed into at least three other productions,  by Disney in 1961 (with Ray Bolger as Silas Barnaby; we had a song from it on a record, a story in the big Storyland anthology, and a comic in the Walt Disney Digests, though I don’t remember ever watching the film), another a TV movie by Disney in 1986 (with Drew Barrymore and Keanu Reeves), and an animated MGM one in 1997 (some voices by Charles Nelson Reilley, Jim Belushi, and Christopher Plummer – how’s that for eclectic?). Characters, events, and relationships vary for each one as the libretto is adapted. Perhaps one day, someone will do it really right.

 

From Babes in Toyland (1934)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtUQIfa9byM

 

From Babes in Toyland (1961)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDP0TWJSgDI

 

Castle in Spain by Buster Poindexter

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3idwH42hQk

 

The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t But Then Was, Simpsons Parody

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mug1B1hBt5k