HOLIDAY 2019: Babes in Toyland (1961)
One of the wildest bad movies you could ever sit down and watch…
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CONTENT WARNING: The synopsis of this film contains a slur directed at the Romani community, used for a significant plot point in this film. As well, discussions of gaslighting, manipulation, and emotional abuse of women, and misogyny.
We were prepared for a good, old-fashioned family Disney musical this week as we ventured into our film. What we got instead was buck wild, convoluted, and really, really problematic. And not in a “gee, it was 1961 way,” but more in a “wow, they really decided to make that a significant plot point” way. It feels like people’s nostalgia of this movie is far more powerful than its storytelling and the acting from several of its leads. That’s not including Ray Bolger and Ed Wynn, who are absolutely perfect in creating incredible characters that are funny, interesting, and mischievous. They’re still not enough to save this wacky, weird musical that was kind of a disaster for Disney in its heyday. This week, we’re taking out the toy solders and watching 1961’s Babes in Toyland on Macintosh & Maud Haven’t Seen What?!
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Excerpt of “Mr. Lucky” written and composed by Karl Jenkins. Copyright 1980 Music De Wolfe, De Wolfe Ltd.
Intro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.
Typewriter effect taken from “typewriter18.ogg” created by user ‘tams_kp’ on the Freesound platform. Licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. To get additional information or download the sound, visit Freesound.
