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.

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.

THE VAULT OF HORROR

THE VAULT OF HORROR (1973, directed by Roy Ward Baker) is a British horror anthology and is a follow-up to the original film version of TALES OF THE CRYPT. Both are based on classic stories from the notorious EC Comics series from the early 1950s.

The film starts out as five men meet in an elevator in a London office building. They are taken to the sub-basement level, despite that was no one's chosen destination. They enter a plush sitting room as the elevator door closes behind them. They are trapped. As they waiting for help, they pour some drinks and begin discussing their dreams of death. Sounds like a fun way to kill time, eh?

The first story is called "Midnight Mess" - and it tells the tale of a man who tracks down his missing sister, only to kill her so that he be the sole claim to their inheritance. After killing her, he dines at a restaurant where both the wine and the soup are blood!!! Then, in a strange twist of fate, his sister appears to be still alive - but she's a vampire! Her and her restaurant friends murder the brother and hang him up to drain his blood, so they can drink it. Midnight mess indeed!

The second and best of the five stories is titled "The Neat Job" and stars funnyman Terry Thomas as an Felix Unger-type neat freak who has just married Glynis Johns (Tony winner who originally sang "Send in the Clowns" on Broadway) - who turns out not to be up to his strict OCD standards. His eventually drives her mad with his bellyaching - so she hammers him to death (with a hammer) and then cuts him up and organizes his body parts in neatly labeled jars. Martha Stewart would be so proud.

Epiode 3 is "This Trick’ll Kill You" about a magician and his wife on vacation in India, where he obnoxiously exposes the local magicians as frauds. Sort of like Penn & Teller. Then he comes across a woman "rope charmer" who plays a flute that brings a rope to life! He lures this woman back to his room, where kills her and he attempts to make the trick work for him. The wife climbs the rope - then disappears, leaving only a patch of blood on the ceiling. Huh? Was Aunt Flo paying a visit? Then the rope comes to life and viciously attacks the magician. That'll show 'em for messing with someone else's trick! This was the second best story.

The next, "Bargain in Death" – was the worst and thankfully shortest. It has to do with being buried alive. My least favorite way to die. The bloody ending is the only good part.

The final tale, "Drawn and Quartered" stars DOCTOR WHO's Tom Baker as a starving artist living on Haiti. He visits a voodoo priest and soon his artwork has powers like a voodoo doll. Anything that happens to his paintings, then happens to it's subject. Unfortunately his self-portrait gets acid poured on it. Ouchie!

Epilogue (with apologies to Quinn Martin): After all five stories are told, the elevator door opens, to reveal a graveyard. Then the five drunk men walk out and vanish into the cemetery. The last remaining fellow explains that their souls are damned - and must tell their stories over and over, day after day till the end of time. That's just gotta suck - luckily I only had to live though it all once.

You would think this film would be more fun - but it's slow pace makes you want to hit the FFWD button quite often - it really drags starting with the fourth story. Overall, I'd give this one a 6 outta 10 - but mostly only worth seeing for the second and third story.