THE DAYDREAMER Dreams Again

THE DAYDREAMER (1966) is a recently re-discovered obscure feature by *Animagic* inventors Rankin-Bass (of RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER fame). The film opens with a likable title song by recently deceased Las Vegas crooner Robert Goulet and some great Al Hirschfeld caricatures of the all-star cast.

After the song (in a live action segment), we discover it's 1801 Denmark and we meet pathetic Papa Andersen the shoemaker (commie "witch hunt" victim Jack Gilford) and his young son Chris (15 year old Paul O'Keefe of THE PATTY DUKE SHOW) - who we soon discover ALWAYS wears the same snug red polyester tights and suspenders, even underneath his nightshirt! Papa is visited by Elmira Gulch herself when Margaret Hamilton comes a knockin' looking for her shoes, only Papa's such a rotten shoemaker that they are not fixed yet. We also suspect that Chris' mom left Papa cause he's such a loser. Gilford, usually very charming, seems as though he's reading from cue cards here.

After Papa tells him of the legendary Garden of Paradise, narcoleptic Chris is visited by an animated version of the Sandman (voiced by Cyril Ritchard)- who tells him that in order to be happy and successful he MUST find the Garden of Paradise. So Chris falls asleep on a boat - and is transformed into an living, breathing Animagic character! Only it doesn't last too long because his boat crashes and he drowns. The End.

So Chris is dead, and The Little Mermaid (voiced by Disney sweetheart Hayley Mills) discovers his lifeless body. After her father (Burl Ives, phoning it in as Father Neptune) tells her that there's no hope for Chris, she makes a deal with the fabulously goth Sea Witch (Talullah Bankhead, giving Pat Caroll's Ursula a run for her money) who brings Chris back to life. They then swim around and the "Ariel" falls in love with the formerly dead boy. He tells her to fuck off cause he's just not into her, besides he's got a garden to find. So he breaks her heart and wakes up all wet in a boat.

Back in the real world, Chris next befriends an ugly duckling. But then he falls asleep again, this time falling in with two conniving tailors (voiced by Terry Thomas and Victor Borge) who are busy designing the Emperor's New Clothes. Chris and the tailors pull a fast one on the narcissistic king (Ed Wynn), but get exposed themselves when a little kid alerts the townsfolk to their scheme. Chris then awakens (in the real world) and gets arrested for poaching a duck!!!

In the most bizarre live action sequence in the film - Chris is tied up bondage style and dragged through town while singing a show tune about being unlucky while back-up dancers perform an elaborate Fosse-like routine around him. The scene MUST be seen to be believed!

So Chris falls asleep again, this time he meets up with Thumbelina (voiced by Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara). Thumby shrinks him down to her size and the two meet up with a Rat (Boris Karloff) who pimps her out to a Mole, who plans on marrying Thumby. Meanwhile, they find a dead sparrow and Thumby touches it and covers it with her sweater. Didn't she ever hear that children shouldn't play with dead things??? Disturbing. Following a musical number by bats - the dead sparrow comes back to life because of Thumby's sweater. Huh? Somehow the wedding doesn't happen and Chris learns the valuable lesson that "your size has nothing to do with your true happiness." Hmmm...that's not what all those emails in my in-box say...

So eventually Chris gets to his Garden of Paradise - where there are cotton candy trees, monotone peacocks, butterflies, blue marshmallows and the Tree of Knowledge!!! He is told (by an off-screen voice) that he must not eat EVER the blossoms from the tree. This story is starting to sound awfully familiar.

After pledging that he won't eat the blossoms, Chris does a little dance - and is visited by a horny and devilish version of himself. Of course Horny Chris convinces our hero to eat the thing. So he eats it and after a fiery apocalyptic finale - he's banished to The Land of Nothingness!!! Wakes then up in reality, where Papa is arrested and shackled to Chris. Papa saves them both by bribing the warden with his wife's wedding ring. Guess Mama Anderson's not coming back after all. We then learn that Chris grows up to become Hans Christian Andersen!!! Wow...I did not see that coming!

(Not sure if the above photo of Danny Kaye has anything to do with this production, but I'm including it anyways).
I was really hoping to love this film. After recently watching MAD MONSTER PARTY? for Halloween and looking forward to my annual viewings of their Christmas TV classics, Rankin-Bass usually can do no wrong. But I think the uneven performances and choppy storytelling really make parts of this unwatchable. They probably thought they were making the next WIZARD OF OZ or MARY POPPINS - but ended up making something that would alternately bore and frighten little kids, their target audience. I'll give this one 6 outta 10 on my scale mostly for the awesome bondage musical number.

Two interesting notes: In another WIZARD OF OZ nod, Ray Bolger has a brief cameo as The Pie Man. Parts of THE DAYDREAMER were filmed on location at the Denmark Exhibit at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK

Time for another family-friendly holiday treat from Barry Mahon - the genius filmmaker who brought us THE WONDERFUL LAND OF OZ (previously reviewed by Danny). This time we have a wonderfully inept retelling of the storybook classic, JACK AND THE BEANSTALK from 1970.

The movie opens as we meet Jack and his poor white trash family: his mother who looks like a cross between Nannette Fabray and Jean Stapleton and dresses like an orange pilgrim and his greedy and trampy-looking sister Rosemary – who is complaining that no one will EVER want to marry her because she has no dowry. Mom reassures Rosemary that since she's pretty good at doing housework that eventually someone will want her. Thanks for the positive re-inforcement, Mom. Really, thanks.

Jack, meanwhile is a teenage gay-in-training, much like UGLY BETTY's nephew Justin - and he dresses in a plethora of snazzy outfits featuring wide brown stripes and suede with fringes. He's really working the "Peter Brady during puberty" look. The family is distraught cause Papa is dead and they've apparently squandered everything that he left them. Oh, not everything. There were some things that Jack's dad invented like a mechanical goose that can lay golden eggs, a talking golden harp and some other golden crap - but somehow someone stole these things, depriving Rosemary of her oft-mentioned dowry.

Mom then announces it's time to sell the family cow because it gives very little milk these days. So, rather than doing it herself, she enlists Jack to take the cow to town to sell it. Jack then sings a wretched song, looking as if he's as bored as I was.

In a town where the backdrop looks like it was painted by a junior high theater class, we meet Honest John - Used Cow Salesman. Honestly. For some reason Honest John (to be hereafter referred to as "HoJo") dresses like Little Lord Fauntleroy while all the townsfolk got their duds from the 1970 JC Penney catalog. Then HoJo "sings" some terrible song and gets Jack to accept a handful of "magic" beans instead of cash for the cow. HoJo then proceeds sells the cow to Cat Stevens for $30.

Meanwhile, back home, Rosemary is still complaining about NEVER getting married. Oh shut the FUCK up already! When Jack returns home he tells them about his great magic bean deal with HoJo and Mom and Rosemary basically call him a stupid asshole - which he is.

Next we see HoJo walking around some cave trying to decide where to hide his "Used Cow" sign. This goes on for about five minutes until Jack and his sister, obviously spelunking, come across the cave and his sign. Then they go home. Huh?

A cuckoo clock on fast-forward tells us that time has passed. Mom - still in her orange gown from yesterday - opens up the dining room shudders to reveal a bad oil-painting of a landscape! Rosemary then shows up in her same clothes from yesterday...eww. Mom's so pissed at Jack and the whole bean situation that she chucks them out the window- where they instantly sprout into a big vine made up of fake ivy from Joann's Fabrics. Jack of course decides to climb it while singing another dreadful song - not even noticing the painting of a castle behind him. Then he turns, sees it and decides to head towards it - in a manner that could be described as "a spastic shuffle". Was it a long distance to travel or was the cloud-cover ground all sticky? We'll never know. He repeats this odd way of "walking" several times throughout the movie. Making me scream "Huh?"!

Meanwhile, Mom beats herself up for scolding Jack and letting him go up the beanstalk. Too late, Mom.

So Jack makes his way to the castle, opens the door and sees a kindly woman cleaning up. Then we see the "giant" - who's really just a Silver Lake Bear - a chubby, hairy guy who shouts a lot to get attention. The giant (to be hereafter referred to as "The Bear") sits in an oversized chair, and uses oversize utensils - making him seem rather small. Wait... shouldn't his hand props be SMALL to make him look BIG? Oh never mind. Another big "Huh?" Oh then he sings a horrendous version of "Fee Fi Fo Fum" for the first of three times.

So after he eats his meal, his "wife" brings The Bear his golden goose (a papier-mâché blob about the size of a chicken). It then lays him a golden egg! Jack decides this must be his father's invention and steals it as The Bear takes a nap. When Jack carries the goose it's suddenly a turkey-size papier-mâché blob, meaning that the giant isn't really that much bigger than Jack. Jack slowly climbs down the stalk in the first of several long uncomfortable shots that seem to linger on his very tight, form-fitting trousers. When The Bear awakes he announces that "if I find him - I'll crush his balls" - or at least that's what I heard.

The family welcomes Jack home and the goose lays a golden egg for them. Yippee! It's like winning Lotto...with a stolen ticket. Meanwhile, HoJo tells Rosemary he's starting a new business - selling Magic Beans. She tells him to get lost cause she's now engaged to be married. Huh? Then a couple who look like Joan Collins and Sonny Bono refuse to buy HoJo's beans. We then learn that HoJo gets his beans cheaply and upsells 'em! Boo! Hiss!

We next meet Rosemary's hunky boyfriend, who first tells her that her lack of a dowry doesn't matter - but it would help if she were rich because then they could buy an inn and run it together. So they send Jack back up to steal more gold shit from The Bear.

This time The Bear is eating fried "Creepy Crawlers". After his meal, his poor wife brings him his magic harp, which sings to him as he counts his gold. What the heck does he spend his gold on anyway? Are there any other people up in giant land? Where does his wife shop? Costco? Big Lots? Giant Depot?

Jack makes it back home with The Bear's gold in time for a party - Mom's gone all Martha - serving finger sandwiches, punch and a Red Velvet wedding cake. Everyone is dressed in fancy pajamas and nightgowns, as all the townsfolk dance to accordian music. It's like THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW meets the birthday party scene from PINK FLAMINGOS. Meanwhile, The Bear is rigging a trap for Jack, in case he ever comes back to steal something else!

Time passes and Rosemary and her husband (?) are discussing whether or not to serve liquor at their bar. Huh? Meanwhile, HoJo continues to piss off the townsfolk - so they decide to have a meeting about getting rid of him. It's about time, people. More time passes, and we learn that the Inn isn't doing well because there's no "live entertainment". So Rosemary and this other girl get a plastic cup and fill it with - oh wait. Wrong video.

So, finally Jack decides to grab the damn singing harp to help out his miserable thankless bitch of a sister once more. Then HoJo gives a boring soliloquy about something and that's the last we see of him. Jack manages to grab the harp, but The Bear wakes up and starts climbing down the vine...oh no!!! Will the townfolks meet The Bear face-to-face?

No way - cause Jack runs out, chops the vine down and The Bear falls to his death. Then the entire cast crawls out of the woodwork for a song about "happy endings"...and Jack mentions that he fells bad for the wife because she happened to "hook up with the wrong guy". Huh?

Wow - did I mention this was only 63 minutes long? Worth watching if only to see how misguided an attempt at modernizing a classic fairy tale with no budget, painfully bad songs and first-time non-actors could turn out. It's THAT bad. 5 out of 10 "Huhs?"

THE DAYDREAMER

THE DAYDREAMER (1966) is a recently re-discovered obscure feature by *Animagic* inventors Rankin-Bass (of RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER fame). The film opens with a likable title song by recently deceased Las Vegas crooner Robert Goulet and some great Al Hirschfeld caricatures of the all-star cast.

After the song (in a live action segment), we discover it's 1801 Denmark and we meet pathetic Papa Andersen the shoemaker (commie "witch hunt" victim Jack Gilford) and his young son Chris (15 year old Paul O'Keefe of THE PATTY DUKE SHOW) - who we soon discover ALWAYS wears the same snug red polyester tights and suspenders, even underneath his nightshirt! Papa is visited by Elmira Gulch herself when Margaret Hamilton comes a knockin' looking for her shoes, only Papa's such a rotten shoemaker that they are not fixed yet. We also suspect that Chris' mom left Papa cause he's such a loser. Gilford, usually very charming, seems as though he's reading from cue cards here.

After Papa tells him of the legendary Garden of Paradise, narcoleptic Chris is visited by an animated version of the Sandman (voiced by Cyril Ritchard)- who tells him that in order to be happy and successful he MUST find the Garden of Paradise. So Chris falls asleep on a boat - and is transformed into an living, breathing Animagic character! Only it doesn't last too long because his boat crashes and he drowns. The End.

So Chris is dead, and The Little Mermaid (voiced by Disney sweetheart Hayley Mills) discovers his lifeless body. After her father (Burl Ives, phoning it in as Father Neptune) tells her that there's no hope for Chris, she makes a deal with the fabulously goth Sea Witch (Talullah Bankhead, giving Pat Caroll's Ursula a run for her money) who brings Chris back to life. They then swim around and the "Ariel" falls in love with the formerly dead boy. He tells her to fuck off cause he's just not into her, besides he's got a garden to find. So he breaks her heart and wakes up all wet in a boat.

Back in the real world, Chris next befriends an ugly duckling. But then he falls asleep again, this time falling in with two conniving tailors (voiced by Terry Thomas and Victor Borge) who are busy designing the Emperor's New Clothes. Chris and the tailors pull a fast one on the narcissistic king (Ed Wynn), but get exposed themselves when a little kid alerts the townsfolk to their scheme. Chris then awakens (in the real world) and gets arrested for poaching a duck!!!

In the most bizarre live action sequence in the film - Chris is tied up bondage style and dragged through town while singing a showtune about being unlucky while back-up dancers perform an elaborate Fosse-like routine around him. The scene MUST be seen to be believed!

So Chris falls asleep again, this time he meets up with Thumbelina (voiced by Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara). Thumby shrinks him down to her size and the two meet up with a Rat (Boris Karloff) who pimps her out to a Mole, who plans on marrying Thumby. Meanwhile, they find a dead sparrow and Thumby touches it and covers it with her sweater. Didn't she ever hear that children shouldn't play with dead things??? Disturbing. Following a musical number by bats - the dead sparrow comes back to life because of Thumby's sweater. Huh? Somehow the wedding doesn't happen and Chris learns the valuable lesson that "your size has nothing to do with your true happiness." Hmmm...that's not what all those emails in my inbox say...

So eventually Chris gets to his Garden of Paradise - where there are cotton candy trees, monotone peacocks, butterflies, blue marshmallows and the Tree of Knowledge!!! He is told(by an offscreen voice) that he must not eat EVER the blossoms from the tree. This story is starting to sound awfully familiar.

After pledging that he won't eat the blossoms, Chris does a little dance - and is visited by a horny and devilish version of himself. Of course Horny Chris convinces our hero to eat the thing. So he eats it and after a fiery apocalyptic finale - he's banished to The Land of Nothingness!!! Wakes then up in reality, where Papa is arrested and shackled to Chris. Papa saves them both by bribing the warden with his wife's wedding ring. Guess Mama Anderson's not coming back after all. We then learn that Chris grows up to become Hans Christian Andersen!!! Wow...I did not see that coming!

I was really hoping to love this film. After recently watching MAD MONSTER PARTY? for Halloween and looking forward to my annual viewings of their Christmas TV classics, Rankin-Bass usually can do no wrong. But I think the uneven performances and choppy storytelling really make parts of this unwatchable. They probably thought they were making the next WIZARD OF OZ or MARY POPPINS - but ended up making something that would alternately bore and frighten little kids, their target audience. I'll give this one 6 outta 10 "Huhs?" mostly for the awesome bondage musical number.

Two interesting notes: In another WIZARD OF OZ nod, Ray Bolger has a brief cameo as The Pie Man. Parts of THE DAYDREAMER were filmed on location at the Denmark Exhibit at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

DIE, MONSTER, DIE!!!

DIE, MONSTER, DIE! (1965) opens as an obnoxious American named Steven Reinhardt (Nick Adams) arrives in an quaint English town named Arkham. Fans of the BBC TV series LEAGUE OF GENTLEMAN will notice more than a passing resemblance to Royston Vasey. The locals do not welcome him with open arms, especially when he mentions that he is looking for the Witley house. As soon as he mentions the Witleys, everyone treats him with such disdain that you'd think he was wearing an "I Love George Bush" tee shirt. He can't get a taxi, he can't rent a bicycle and nobody will even give him directions! "What will it cost me to get to the Witley place?" he asks the bike shop gent. "More than you'd imagine!" the fellow replies. Whatever the Witleys have done - it must be pretty darn awful.

Steven sets out on foot to find the dreaded house, barely noticing the dead plants and trees along the way. He arrives at the mansion, but when his knock goes unanswered, the doors fly open - as if to invite him in. Spooky! Once inside, he snoops around a bit until he is startled by Nahum Witley (the great Boris Karloff), who appears to be disabled and is bound to a wheelchair. Witley is not very welcoming to Steven - until he tells Witney that his wife Leticia had invited him to visit, in order to "help" their daughter Susan, who Steven met back in college. Susan has been having a difficult time since returning home. Old man Witley wants Steven to leave at once, but Susan then appears and insists on him staying. Dad reluctantly agrees let him stay for a few days - and then he proceeds to spy on the two lovebirds.

We next meet the mysterious Leticia, who is bedridden with a mysterious illness. Mrs. Witley is hidden behind black lace, and she tells Steven that she wants him to take Susan as far away from the Whitley house as he can! She also mentions that her maid Helga has disappeared. It's so hard to find good help these days.

We also meet Merwyn the Butler, who looks like Frankie Valli in a gray wig with mod sunglasses. Whitley and Merwyn pay a visit to the cellar to give us a clue to what Whitley's father was up to that might have made the townsfolk hate him so much. Whitley exclaims "If there is evil… it's buried with him!" I predict it had something to do with selling Amway products...or Satan...or both.

Whitley has a chat with his wife and promises "Whatever happened to my father will not happen to me!" "It is already happening" she replies. What could that be all about??? After Merwyn the butler collapses at the dinner table, Steve and Susan take a tour of the house. Susan tells him that she wants to leave the house. Steven tells her they can go right now. Susan says she can't leave her mother - but maybe in the morning. Like she's gonna be all better in the morning? Meanwhile, we learn that Merwyn has taken a turn for the worse - he's died. So Witley buries him. Oh - I thought Whitley was disabled...

Steven spies on Witley, and notices that he can walk - and that the family greenhouse has a unworldly green glow. The next day Steven visits the town doctor, who tells him that he was the last person to see Whitley's dad alive - he died in the doc's arms - but his body disappeared! Okay...I guess that's reason enough for everyone to loathe the family. Not really.

Later at the Witley place, Susan shows Steven how to break into the greenhouse - and we learn that Whitley has been genetically modifying vegetables by placing glowing green stones in their soil. There are also some odd mutant animals in cages - "It looks like a zoo in hell!" Oh yeah - then Susan gets attacked by a living vine. What I guess is that a radioactive meteorite crashed near to the house and Whitley hid it in the greenhouse, and it made his veggies grow big. Not only that, but it made everyone in the house sick - including turning their pets into the "menagerie of horrors!"

Steven visits the cellar and is attacked by a crazed faceless Leticia, who then dies and is buried. As Steven and Susan prepare to leave, Helga (remember her?) attacks Witley who then turns into the Silver Surfer! Steven and Susan must then fight off her father and escape the mansion before the end credits. Wow. What the fuck did I just watch?

I have no idea what the Satanic Whitley family history and the glowing meteorite have to do with each other, if anything... and most of all - why the Arkham townfolk hate the Whitley family so much. I feel like that maybe a half-hour of plot that explained all this was cut out of the film, because none of it makes any sense. It really feels like a jigsaw with about ten big pieces missing.

And what exactly does DIE, MONSTER, DIE! refer to? I guess any movie with Boris Karloff had to have some sort of Frankenstein reference in order to sell tickets. Maybe the title of the original HP Lovecraft story that this is based on makes more sense. Oh wait - it's called "The Color Out of Space". Nevermind.

But you know what - even if all the "Huhs?" don't add up, I still found the film quite atmospheric and gorgeous to look at. Karloff is always fun to watch - and here he's at his Grinch-y best, I'll give him - 7 outta 10. Directed by THE DUNWICH HORROR's Daniel Haller .

THE GARDENER

Imagine if LADY CHATTERLY'S LOVER had superpowers much like the Batman villain Poison Ivy - and there you have the premise of 1973's THE GARDENER (Released in 1975 as SEEDS OF EVIL). I came across this oddity last year during the Tower Records' 'Going Out of Business Sale' and finally decided to pop it into the DVD player. It was worth the wait...and the three dollar price!!!

Set in Costa Rica, Andy Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro and Katherine Houghton (Katherine Hepburn's neice) co-star in this gothic horror/D.H. Lawrence/STEPFORD WIVES mash-up. Joe plays Carl, a mysterious and constantly shirtless gardener named Carl, who Ellen (Houghton) hires to bring her lackluster garden to life. He immediately plots to get rid of her elderly greensman- who mysterioiusly starts bleeding from his nose and needs to be hospitalized! Within weeks, Carl makes the plants bloom and everyone seems to love it - except Ellen's superstitious maids, and eventually her often absent plant-hating husband (lets just call him "Darren"). I figurde out that Darren gets jealous when he discovers that Carl does not own any shirts and that his workpants appear to be painted on his perfect body. Ellen's Bloody Mary-chugging socialite friends all think hunky Carl is a dream come true. So do we.

A couple of cocktail and costume parties later, Ellen starts to get freaked out by Carl. Especially after an erotic dream about him skinnydipping in her pool. Later Ellen's visiting neice disappears while she's out shopping with her fabulous, but lonely, friend Helena (played by Rita Gam) - and Helena convinces her that Carl should work for her now. No mention is ever made of her neice again. Hmmm. Outta sight, outta mind.

Ellen decides to investigate Carl's past - and it turns out that almost all his former clients are now either dead or insane. Stage and soap actress Anne Meacham (she played the Cory housekeeper Louise on ANOTHER WORLD for 10 years) almost steals the whole movie with her one scene as a former employee. There's an epic grande finale that I won't spoil, but suffice to say - Ellen flips out.

Acting wise, Houghton (primarily known for GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER) is highly watchable, but other than Gam and Meacham - the rest of the cast seems to be phoning it in long-distance from Costa Rica. Dallesandro has about five whole lines, which he delivers with his usual wooden style. Gotta love that Joe! The sound quality is miserable, but score is quite magnificent. The DVD has some great grindhouse trailers as well as a few fun featurettes and interviews, including director James H. Kay.

We rate this one 6 outta 10 "huhs".