BABES IN TOYLAND(1934)Original script written by Hal Roach, December, 1933. Final script completed July, 1934. Filmed February, August - October, 1934. Produced by Hal Roach. Directed by Charles Rogers and Gus Meins. 79 minutes. Better known by its latterday rerelease title March of the Wooden Soldiers. Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charlotte Henry, Felix Knight, Henry Brandon, Florence Roberts, William Burress, Kewpie Morgan. STORY: Evil Silas Barnaby wants to evict poor Widow Peep from her giant shoe, marry her lovely and innocent daughter Bo-Peep, and, ultimately, destroy Toyland. He is thwarted at every turn by the efforts of toy-factory employees Ollie Dee and Stannie Dum, culminating in a battle between Barnaby's Bogeymen and an army of six-foot-tall wooden soldiers. |
BABES IN TOYLAND is a film that almost wasn't. Hal Roach bought the rights to Victor Herbert's plotless operetta in late 1933, and penned his own screenplay with the intention of turning it into a big-budget, all-star production. Laurel rejected Roach's script, the project was shelved for months, and a permanent wedge was driven between Stan and The Boss; things were never the same between the two of them thereafter. Fifty years later, Roach was still expressing sour grapes over the whole affair. See the "But Wait - There's More" button at the bottom of this page
for more information about Babes in Toyland. |
JB: BABES
IN TOYLAND, known as MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS on American
television, was once a Thanksgiving Day or Christmas treat. Like THE WIZARD OF
OZ, BABES was shown once a year and was not just a movie but an
event. It was as much a part of the Holiday season as turkey and
cranberries, the Advent calendar that hung in our kitchen and Bing
Crosby singing "White Christmas". It is hard for me to be
objective about BABES, since criticizing it would be like calling Santa
Claus fat or placing a Stan Laurel finger puppet in The Nativity
Manger. (Okay, I'm guilty of that second offense, but I never made fun
of Santa Claus's weight.) So forgive me if I only say nice things
about this movie.
There are no real setpieces like the finger
games in FRA DIAVOLO or the pickpocket scene in THE BOHEMIAN GIRL,
little that you could take out of the film and show by itself as a
five minute diversion. Laurel and Hardy's comedy is always tied
to the plot in some way. Even the peewee scene, which comes the
closest to being a stand alone scene, serves the purpose of
foreshadowing one of the methods The Boys will use to antagonize and
eventually vanquish the dreaded Bogeymen. Most of Laurel and
Hardy's scenes push or at least nudge the story along in some
way. For instance, Stan and Ollie wreck the Toymaker's shop,
which leads to them being fired. Therefore, they can no longer
ask the Toymaker for the money for the mortgage. So they develop
a scheme to get into Barnaby's home and steal the deed to the property
from Barnaby. The scheme fails, which leads to Stan and Ollie
being ducked (or dunked) and banished to Bogeyland. While Ollie
is being punished, Bo Peep agrees to marry Barnaby, who drops the
charges against The Boys and also agrees to absolve Mrs. Peep from all
debt. Stan and Ollie devise another scheme to trick Barnaby into
marrying Stan instead, which in turns leads to Barnaby framing Tom-Tom
the Piper's son. Without belaboring the point, each Laurel and
Hardy scene sets off a chain of events that moves the story along to
the final battle between the Bogeymen and the Wooden Soldiers.
This is not to say that Laurel and Hardy's
scenes are disappointing, only that there are no major comedy scenes
to be found here. The Boys are content to forgo pie fights,
finger games and recipricol destruction and instead fill their scenes
with all the little things that make Laurel and Hardy films so
rewarding. Because they have to come up with so many plans and
schemes to thwart Barnaby, Ollie-Dee and Stannie-Dum are always talking
to each other, and their converations are delightful. Ollie is
always using phrases like "So far so good" and "Barnaby has a hand in
this", figures of speech which Stan can't help but take literally,
while a good running gag is based on the common phrase "He and I are
just like that". Simple events like Stan and Ollie coming down
the stairs, or Stan exiting the warehouse wth his "Christmas gift" to
Barnaby are made amusing by the little gags and touches Laurel and
Hardy bring to these scenes. Randy Skretvedt quotes actor Henry
Brandon as saying that Stan would come to the set, toss the script
aside and start thinking of gags he and Ollie could do. It
certainly feels as if all the plot scenes were written straight, and
Stan and Ollie worked out the comedy during the filming.
There is lots of music in BABES, and some of
it is very good, at least to my ears. I've always been a sucker
for the song "Toyland" and the "March of the Toys" and am even fond of
"Don't Cry, Bo Peep", the biggest production number in the film.
Victor Herbert's "I Can't Do the Sum", which might have made a nice
song for Stan and Ollie to sing, is instead used as The Boys' theme,
playing in the background when they are on screen.
None of Laurel and Hardy's long time enemies
are in the cast, no Fin, no Charlie Hall, no Mae Busch. This
helps set BABES in a different world than the one The Boys usually
inhabit. Finn might have made a fine Toymaker or even a good
Barnaby, but who can complain about his absence when there is Henry
Brandon playing that most dreaded villain of all, Silas Barnaby?
Brandon's performance is delightfully and purposefully over the
top. His florid gestures and melodramatic voice play perfectly
against the lowkey antics of Laurel and Hardy. Charlotte Henry
and Felix Knight, as Bo Peep and Tom Tom, make for a pleasant
pair of young lovers. (Henry had played Alice in Paramount's
all-star version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND the year before.)
The final few minutes of BABES, in which
Barnaby unleashes the Bogeymen on Toyland, where they go about
snatching kids out of their beds, is often said to be too graphic for
kids. Perhaps, perhaps not. I was always more frightened by
Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West in THE WIZARD OF OZ than I
was by a bunch of Hal Roach extras in goofy costumes. Even at the
age of seven, I could see the stuffing on the backs of the Bogeymen
costumes, stuffing which protected the Bogey-actors from those darts
thrown by The Boys.
NOTE: BABES IN TOYLAND is widely
available in colorized versions. Even though I am
anti-colorization, I don't mind it this one time.
Follow the graphic above to read about the
history of Victor Herbert's BABES IN TOYLAND