Family Fun Saturday - March of the Wooden Soldiers (Babes In Toyland)

Hal Roach/MGM, 1934
Starring Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charlotte Henry, and Felix Knight
Directed by Gus Meins and Charles Rogers
Music by Victor Herbert; Lyrics by Glenn MacDonough

This is the first Babes In Toyland to reach the big screen, and for many, it's still the definitive movie version. It's one of Stan and Ollie's most popular vehicles, and the fact that it's in the public domain has made it a favorite of independent TV stations and online playlists looking for inexpensive family programming to run for the holidays. Does it still hold up as well as those sturdy toy soldiers, or should it be banished to Bogey Land? Let's return to Toyland to find out...

The Story: A much older Silas Barnaby (Henry Kleinbach) is once again trying to force a lovely nursery rhyme lass to marry him. Here, the object of his affections is pretty Little Bo Peep (Henry). Her sweetheart is Tom Tom, the Piper's Son (Knight), who helps her find her sheep when she's lost them.

Bo Peep's mother, the Old Woman Who Lived In the Shoe (Florence Roberts), owes Barnaby the mortgage on her footwear home. She thinks her renters Stannie Dee (Laurel) and Ollie Dum (Hardy) will bring the money from their jobs working for the Toymaker (William Burress). They're unable to bring much of anything after they're fired when Stan mistakes an order for 600 toy soldiers at 1 foot high for 100 toy soldiers at 6 feet high. The boys try to get the mortgage, but they're caught. Barnaby orders them punished. Bo Peep agrees to marry him to save them, but they manage to trick the crooked old man and get the mortgage anyway.

Barnaby's not finished with his villainy yet. He has one of the Three Little Pigs kidnapped and accuses Tom of the crime. Tom is banished to Bogey Land. Heartbroken, Little Bo Peep goes after him. When Stan and Ollie figures out what's really going on, they too hurry off to find the lovers. But Barnaby has  his own plans...and intends to round up the terrifying Bogeymen to help him take over all of Toyland!

The Song and Dance: Laurel and Hardy have some classic material here. I love the sequences with Stan delivering Ollie in a package to Barnaby in order to steal the mortgage, Ollie being dunked, and them leaning over the well going into Bogey Land. There's some cute details here that you don't see in other retellings of this story, including the monkey Mickey Mouse and the funny Cat and the Fiddle who just can't seem to catch him. Santa may not have been able to give those giant toy soldiers to the kids, but they are a pretty cool effect, especially when they're all marching out to attack the Bogeymen.

Kleinbach is a wonderful Barnaby, a crooked and creepy old man who oozes menace. The Bogey Land set, with it's massive cyprus trees and dripping moss, is appropriately creepy and cool. The Bogeymen themselves are genuinely scary, with their furry heads and ape-like faces. I imagine they gave kids in the 30's quite a few nightmares.

Favorite Number: On one hand, we get a few songs here that were downplayed in the 1961 remake. The largest ensemble number is "Never Mind, Bo Peep," bringing almost every resident of Toyland on camera while they look for Bo Peep's perpetually missing sheep. Mother Goose (Virginia Karns) sings "Toyland" in the opening credits as she introduces most of the residents of Toyland, including a snoozing Stan and Ollie. (And while the lyrics aren't heard, we do get the music for "I Can't Do the Sum" as the theme for Laurel and Hardy.)

What I Don't Like: Why don't Laurel and Hardy have a song? They're genuinely good singers and dancers who have done numbers in other films and shorts. I would love to have heard their take on "I Can't Do the Sum."

While the toy soldiers mostly still work and the bogeymen are genuinely frightening, some of the other costumes and effects don't come off as well today. I feel sorry for the poor monkey stuck in the awkward Mickey Mouse costume. The Three Little Pigs' outfits are more scary than they are cute, with their wrinkly faces and long snouts.

Stan Laurel later went on to say that he regretted that they couldn't film the movie in color. I agree. While the original black-and-white release is available, if ever a movie was meant for colorization, it was this one. The color adds a lot of punch to the elaborate costumes and scenery, especially in Toyland.

The Big Finale: Dated costumes and effects aside, this is one of Laurel and Hardy's funniest and most charming vehicles. This one still turns up a lot on TV and online during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays; it's great for families with younger kids.

Home Media: My DVD from Legend Films not only includes the full restored movie in black and white and color prints, but comes with a plethora of other vintage public domain holiday shorts of the 30's, 40's, and 50's, including the Max Fleischer Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. From what I can see of the reviews, the Blu-Ray release is apparently even better. For streamers, it's free on Amazon Prime.

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