Babes in Toyland (1934) (aka March of the Wooden Soldiers)
Retro Review #9: Laurel and Hardy rescue Mother Goose and friends in more ways than one.
Babes in Toyland (1934) (aka March of the Wooden Soldiers)
+ Feature film, bw, 1h 19m
+ Based on operetta Babes in Toyland (1903) ‼️ 🔜⭐ by Victor Herbert, Glen MacDonough
+ Based on literature (children’s book) Babes in Toyland (1904) ‼️ 🔜⭐ by Glen MacDonough, Anna Alice Chapin
B+>
Grade: B+> (5.0) / HOF: 0
EQ 👍? | 📖? 👥? 📽️? 🎼? (Coming soon upon re-review)
DW 😎🕶️🚫?.? | 🌚? 🌝? (Coming soon upon re-review)
POPCAP 💯n/a 🍿n/a 🧢n/a
L-R 💻⬆️⬇️? 👀⬆️⬇️? 🛐⬆️⬇️? (Coming soon upon re-review)
Base a film on an operetta that’s a mash-up comprised mostly of nursery rhyme characters, then take out most, not all, of the musical numbers, add in the great comedic duo Laurel and Hardy, as Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee, and you produce this offbeat, but not bad, film, which registers well on my Dark Whimsy Meter.
Santa makes a brief cameo, and as expected there are lots of toys, but this is more of a Wizard of Oz knock-off than a Christmas movie.
Still if you’ve always wanted to see Little Bo Peep get hit on by a creepy old landlord, who’s also trying to foreclose on the Old Woman’s Shoe, this is the film for you!
It’s kinda hard to blame landlord Barnaby. After all, according to the modern usage of the word, Little Bo seems to be the only “babe” in Toyland. Never fear! Stannie and Ollie devise a cunning plan to rescue Bo from Barnaby’s clutches and unite her with her true love Tom-Tom.
Seriously, the Laurel and Hardy scenes are of A+ grade, and well worth watching. But they are too few, the plot is thin and eventually disappears, and you’ll be glad when the movie is over.
Someday, I’ll probably watch and review the colorized version, but that’s not part of our current tour. If done well, colorizing would most likely help this film quite a bit.
Onwards!
+ viewed 2024-12-02, sd7, 1.37, 1D
+ 👨👩👧👦🎈🎄🍌🎶🦄🧚🥰💘🥸🤪🐾🐑
+ ✅❌? NR (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ 😡? 😵💫+? 🤬+? 🤭+? 🫣+? (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ 👀 (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ ✝️ (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ ✡️ (Coming soon upon re-review)
+ 🗽 (Coming soon upon re-review)
Originally posted to text group 2024-12-03
Last updated 2025-04-04
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