Babes in Toyland (1934 film)

Babes in Toyland
Theatrical poster (1934)
Directed by	Gus Meins Charley Rogers
Written by	Frank Butler Nick Grinde Victor Herbert (operetta) Glen MacDonough (operetta) Hal Roach
Produced by	Hal Roach
Starring	Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy
Edited by	Bert Jordan William H. Terhune
Music by	Frank Churchill Ann Ronell
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates	December 14, 1934; re-released 1948
Running time	77 min.
Language	English

Babes in Toyland (re-released in 1948 as March of the Wooden Soldiers, alternative titles Laurel and Hardy in Toyland, Revenge Is Sweet, Wooden Soldiers) is a 1934 musical comedy film starring Laurel and Hardy. Based on Victor Herbert's popular 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland, the film was produced by Hal Roach, directed by Charley Rogers and Gus Meins, and released to theatres on November 12, 1934 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was later remade into a Technicolor version in 1961 by Walt Disney, but with an entirely different plot, although it featured most of the same characters.

Two decades after its original 1934 release, the 79-minute Babes in Toyland was edited down for television into a 73-minute version entitled March of the Wooden Soldiers. The complete print (minus the M-G-M lion) was restored and colorized for TV showings and video release in 1991. In 2006, the film was colorized again by Legend Films, using the latest technology. Although the Legend Films release was advertised under its reissue title, both the color and black and white prints featured the original title and opening credits.

Plot

Template:Spoiler Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee (played by Laurel and Hardy, respectively), almost get themselves banished to Bogeyland on a burglary charge, but the "victim" of the crime, the villanous Silas Barnaby, agrees to drop the charges if Little Bo Peep will marry him. She reluctantly assents, but not before Ollie suffers the humiliation of the ducking stool (Stannie was to undergo this too, then both were going to be banished to Bogeyland, before Bo Peep agreed to the nuptials).

But the wedding never takes place, because Stannie foils it by engaging in act of cross-dressing, impersonating Bo Peep by wearing her wedding gown to the ceremony. Enraged, Mr. Barnaby plots his revenge, eventually hitting on the idea of framing Bo Peep's true love, Tom-Tom The Piper's Son, on a trumped-up charge of "pignapping" and getting him banished to Bogeyland. A lackey in Barnaby's employ proceeds to abduct one of the Three Little Pigs, then plants items including what appeared to be some sausage links, in Tom-Tom's house to incriminate him; Tom-Tom is put on trial, convicted, and banished to Bogeyland. A distraught Bo Peep then voluntarily follows him there herself.

Tom-Tom and Bo Peep desperately seek a way out of Bogeyland ; and actually find one, in the form of a secret passageway that leads to the bottom of a wishing well in Toyland. Meanwhile, Ollie and Stannie find evidence implicating Barnaby in the pignapping, including the fact that the alleged sausage links presented as evidence at Tom-Tom's trial were made of beef instead. They later find the kidnapped pig Little Elmer; alive, in Barnaby's cellar.

A manhunt commences for Barnaby, who flees to Bogeyland, commands an army of Bogeymen, and invades Toyland. Ollie and Stannie then wind up the wooden soldiers (of which there were 100 at six feet tall, instead of 600 at one foot tall as the toymaker had originally ordered - a blunder which caused Ollie and Stanny, who had heretofore worked for the toymaker, to be fired earlier in the movie) and the "march" alluded to in the film's title begins as the soldiers themselves march (in very primitive stop-motion animation), and then attack the Bogeymen by simply walking into them with their bayonets pointed. Barnaby and the Bogeymen are routed, and the kingdom of Toyland is saved. It is never clear whether or not Barnaby is actually done away with (he dies in the stage production, though under totally different circumstances), but he is covered by some falling toy blocks, three of which spell out the word "RAT", and is never seen in the film again. Template:Endspoiler

Songs

The film featured only five musical numbers from the enormous stage score, though that was plenty for a musical with only a 78-minute running time. Included in the film, in the order in which they were performed, were "Toyland", "Never Mind Bo-Peep", "Castle in Spain", "Go To Sleep (Slumber Deep)", and "March of the Toys", an instrumental piece and perhaps the most famous number in the score. None of the songs were performed by Laurel and Hardy.

Alternate versions

In some prints of the film, the entire musical number Go To Sleep (the most beautifully photographed song in the movie) is entirely cut, leaving the film at an even shorter 73 minutes.

Trivia

1948 re-release poster for Babes in Toyland (1934)

• Some television stations in the US show this film every year around Thanksgiving time, as a staple piece of entertainment. In more recent years, it is shown on Christmas Day instead in some markets.

• Referenced by name in a deleted scene of Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy. When Banky Edwards is referred to paying 50 dollars for a supposed bootleg copy of March of the Wooden Soldiers with a deleted scene of Stan Laurel wearing a French tickler.

• There is a reference to "the march of the wooden soldiers" in The Velvet Underground's song Sweet Jane.

See also

• List of United States comedy films
• List of stop-motion films

External link

• Babes in Toyland (1934) at IMDb