Babes in Toyland (March of the Wooden Soldiers) (1934)

In the last few years, with the rise of Netflix and other streaming services, the local TV stations have essentially dropped movies from their schedules to focus more on television series.  As a result, many Christmas classics that were in heavy rotation during the 1980s and 1990s have been dropped to the wayside to make room for more contemporary programming.  This is the fate that has, unfortunately, befallen the Laurel and Hardy classic Babes in Toyland (March of the Wooden Soldiers).

I first saw Babes in Toyland in third grade; our principal owned a 16 mm print and screened it for the entire school. This came shortly after I had discovered Laurel and Hardy, so naturally I was elated when I saw their names in the opening credits. The rest of the students were indifferent at first, but eventually got into the movie. Imagine my joy a few years later when, while browsing through the (then) brand new Wal-Mart, I found it to buy on VHS (in color) for the low prices of 12.99. WHAT A DEAL!!!  I just recently purchased the DVD for five dollars, so I guess it wasn’t much of deal after all. 

The first thing that immediately stands out about Babes in Toyland is that it fully embraces its theatrical roots (it’s based off a 1903 operetta by Victor Herbert).  For instance, most of the sets are two dimensional mocks ups, and the costumes look like something you might find at Target during the Halloween season.   The idea is to give it the feel of a storybook come to life. This is actually confirmed in the opening song number (“Toyland”) when Mother Goose emerges from a storybook and sings about the setting of the story. Midway through the number, she opens the book, and with each turn of the page, we are introduced to each of the principle characters (Little Bo Peep, Tom Tom, Little Old Lady That Lived in a Shoe, Barnaby, and Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee). 

 This is actually a really clever way of introducing the characters and allows the filmmakers to do away with stilted exposition that might impede the plot.  When Little Bo Peep is looking for her sheep, Tom Tom appears and the movie can immediately jump into song because we know who Tom Tom is. A lesser movie would have some awkward dialogue exchange between the two:  “Don’t worry, Bo Beep. I, Tom Tom the Piper’s son, will help you find your sheep.”  I also have to wonder, given the way this scene is set up; did Walt Disney use it as a template for “Some Day My Prince Will Come” scene in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Hal Roach and Walt Disney were friends; Disney gave Roach permission to use the song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” in this movie.  There is also a mouse that looks suspiciously Mickey who appears sporadically throughout the movie. It seems likely Walt Disney saw the movie, so was it a source of inspiration, or just a mere coincidence?

This story book setting also pays dividends in the movie’s climax when Toyland is under siege by Barnaby and the Boogeymen.  In a more “realistic” fairy tale, the Boogeymen would be absolutely laughable and embarrassing. They are essentially stuntmen in furry body suits, grass skirts, and weird rubber masks with Troll-like hair. They are less than convincing, but work extremely well in the context of this movie. These are the type of monsters you would find in a classic children’s storybook.  The fact that they are genuinely menacing (especially in the scene where they emerge from hiding to terrorize Little Bo Beep and Tom Tom) speaks volumes about the skill of the filmmakers.  Gus Meins and Charley Rogers will never be considered cinematic geniuses, but they keep things moving at a nice pace; even the “slow” musical numbers are the right length.  I would also like to point out that Babes in Toyland is one of those rare instances where I prefer the colorized version to the original black and white. The gaudy colorization process actually adds to the overall storybook feel of the movie. 

The weakest aspect of Babes in Toyland (at least from a child’s point of view) is the romance between Little Bo Peep and Tom Tom. This is largely due to the fact that neither character is particularly interesting; though, Charlotte Henry has an appealing screen presence as Little Bo Peep. Felix Knight, as Tom Tom, doesn’t fare quite as well, but at least he can sing.  What separates this romance from other Laurel and Hardy comedies of the era is that it actually plays a significant part in the movie’s plot.  There was tendency among many comedies (starring famous comedy teams) of the era to shoe horn in a romantic subplot that had nothing to with the actual story (see Bonnie Scotland as example).  While the Little Bo Peep/Tom Tom story might be a tad bit boring at least it has a point and isn’t overly obnoxious. 

Henry Brandon, appropriately, chews the scenery as the villainous Barnaby – he is wonderfully loathsome. Brandon’s performance is even more impressive when you realize that he was only twenty one years-old when the movie was made. He is very convincing as a miserly old man – he constantly walks in a stooped manner, sneers at everyone around him, and leers at the much younger Little Bo Peep. He also brings a physicality to the role that would be far too demanding of an older actor – he gets into fist fight with Tom Tom and later on carries off the screaming Little Bo Peep (who, in a bad piece of continuity, disappears from Barnaby’s arms when he is hit by a giant cork shot from a cannon).  It’s a terrific performance and Brandon nearly steals the movie with it. 

Babes in Toyland (next to Way Out West) is probably the most tightly scripted out of all Laurel and Hardy’s full length feature.  Their other full length features tended to be more episodic in nature; they were essentially three two reel comedies stitched together to make up a full length feature (A Chump at Oxford is great example of this).  There is also a time element at work: Barnaby owns the mortgage on Widow Bo Peep’s house (a giant shoe) and if she can’t pay it off by morning he will have her (and her entire family) thrown out on the street.  Barnaby is willing to forget the mortgage if her daughter, Little Bo Peep, will agree to his wife, but she will have none of that.  The boys, Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee, are tenants in Widow Bo Peep’s shoe and will do anything in their power to help her out. It also does a nice job of setting up events that happen later in the movie:  the six foot tall wooden soldiers that drive out the boogeyman at the end don’t just appear out of thin air, there is a scene early on that establishes their existence.  Stan and Ollie are toymakers and Stan manages to botch an order that was placed by Santa; instead of making six hundred solider at one foot high, Stan misreads it as hundred soldiers at six feet high.  This scene effectively establishes two things:  that Stan is absent minded and the army of six foot wooden soldiers.   There is a button on the back of the soldiers that activates them and once they are started up they are near impossible to stop. 

I need to point out just how efficiently paced the movie’s climax is:  between the siege of Toyland by the Boogeymen and their being driven out by the wooden soldiers, only ten minutes of screen time has passed.  The movie cross cuts between the Boogeymen terrorizing the citizens of Toyland and the boys (as well as not-Mickey Mouse and the Three Little Pigs) fighting back. It’s an incredibly suspenseful sequence and it’s not until Stan and Ollie activate the wooden soldiers that we are allowed to breathe. Imagine if this same sequence where done today: It would be half an hour long with lots of CGI thrown at our faces, rapid editing, and a few explosions thrown in for good measure. It would also be incredibly boring.  There’s also something wonderful about Toyland being saved by two lowly toy workers as opposed to your typical muscle bound badass.   

It also surprised me while re-watching Babes in Toyland how Tom Tom completely disappears from the movie in the last ten minutes. You would think the romantic lead would play a part in bringing down Barnaby, but nope he spends the entire battle in hiding.  This is either a brilliant deconstruction of the pointless juvenile lead, or it’s just sloppy writing. It’s probably the latter, but I’m going to keep convincing myself that it is the former.

Credits
Cast: Stan Laurel (Stannie Dum), Oliver Hardy (Ollie Dee), Charlotte Henry (Little Bo Peep), Henry Brandon – billed as Henry Kleinbach (Silas Barnaby),  Felix Knight (Tom Tom), Florence Roberts (Widow Bo Peep), Virginia Karns (Mother Goose), Kewpie Morgan (Old King Cole), Marie Wilson (Mary Quite Contrary).

Directors: Gus Meins, Charley Rogers
Screenplay: Frank Butler, Nick Grande
Running Time: 78 min.