Movies - Babes in Toyland

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	Movies - Babes in Toyland

Babes in Toyland (re-released in 1948 as March of the Wooden Soldiers, alternative titles Laurel and Hardy in Toyland, Revenge Is Sweet, Wooden Soldiers) is a 1934 musical comedy film starring Laurel and Hardy. Based on Victor Herbert's popular 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland, the film was produced by Hal Roach, directed by Charley Rogers and Gus Meins, and released to theatres on November 12, 1934 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was later remade into a Technicolor version in 1961 by Walt Disney.

Two decades after its original 1934 release, the 83-minute Babes in Toyland was edited down for television into a 77-minute version entitled March of the Wooden Soldiers.

Plot

Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee (played by Laurel and Hardy, respectively), almost got themselves banished to Bogeyland on a burglary charge, but the "victim" of the crime, the villanous Silas Barnaby, agreed to drop the charges if Little Bo Peep would marry him. She reluctantly assented, but not before Ollie had suffered the humiliation of the ducking stool (Stannie was to undergo this too, then both were going to be banished to Bogeyland, before Bo Peep agreed to the nuptials).

But the wedding never took place, because Stannie foiled it by engaging in act of cross-dressing, impersonating Bo Peep by wearing her wedding gown to the ceremony. Enraged, Mr. Barnaby plotted his revenge, eventually hitting on the idea of framing Bo Peep's true love, Tom-Tom The Piper's Son, on a trumped-up charge of "pignapping" and getting him banished to Bogeyland. A lackey in Barnaby's employ proceeded to abduct one of the Three Little Pigs, then planted items including what appeared to be some sausage links, in Tom-Tom's house to incriminate him; Tom-Tom was put on trial, convicted, and banished to Bogeyland. A distraught Bo Peep then voluntarily followed him there herself.

Tom-Tom and Bo Peep desperately sought a way out of Bogeyland — and actually found one, in the form of a secret passageway that led to the bottom of a wishing well in Toyland. Meanwhile, Ollie and Stannie found evidence implicating Barnaby in the pignapping, including the fact that the alleged sausage links presented as evidence at Tom-Tom's trial were made of beef instead. They later found the kidnapped pig — Little Elmer — alive, in Barnaby's cellar.

A manhunt commenced for Barnaby, who fled to Bogeyland, commanded an army of Bogeymen, and invaded Toyland. Ollie and Stannie then wound up the wooden soldiers (of which there were 100 at six feet tall, instead of 600 at one foot tall as the toymaker had originally ordered - a blunder which caused Ollie and Stanny, who had heretofore worked for the toymaker, to be fired earlier in the movie) and the "march" alluded to in the film's title was on. Barnaby and the Bogeymen were routed, and the kingdom of Toyland was saved.

Trivia

Some television stations in the US show this film every year around Thanksgiving time, as a staple piece of entertainment. In more recent years, it is shown on Christmas Day instead in some markets.

Referenced by name in a deleted scene of Kevin Smith
's Chasing Amy
. When Banky Edwards is referred to paying 50 dollars for a supposed bootleg copy of March of the Wooden Soldiers with a deleted scene of Stan Laurel wearing a french tickler.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Babes in Toyland (1934 film) ]

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