Musicals on TV - Jack and the Beanstalk

Hanna-Barbera, 1967
Starring Gene Kelly, Bobby Riha, Janet Waldo, and Ted Cassidy
Directed by Gene Kelly
Music by Jimmy Van Heusen; Lyrics by Sammy Cahn

This charming live action-animated hybrid used to show up a lot of cable when I was barely older than Jack. It was possibly my first exposure to Gene Kelly, long before I saw Singin' In the Rain or On the Town. How does this musical retelling of the famous English fairy tale look nowadays? Let's join Jack (Riha) and his cow on a dusty yellow road to town and find out...

The Story: Young Jack is ordered by his mother (Marion McKnight) to sell his beloved cow. Jeremy Keen (Kelly), a peddler on the road, can tell how reluctant he is to part with her and offers to trade her for some magic beans. It turns out that the beans are more magical than Jeremy thought. When the little boy accidentally plants them, they grow into a beanstalk that reaches the sky!

Climbing the beanstalk brings them to a beautiful land of huge plants and a towering castle. It's the home of a giant ogre who eats little boys and peddlers and has a cat who terrorizes the local mice. Among the treasures the giant has stolen from the local kingdoms is a goose who lays golden eggs and a beautiful princess (Waldo) who was turned into a harp. While Jeremy tries to break the spell and rescue the princess, Jack befriends the mice and encourages them to fight the cat.

The Animation: Only slightly removed from Hey There, It's Yogi Bear. It's the same sketchy style used in most Hanna-Barbera productions of this time period, with super-cute mice and a slightly more realistic-looking cat than usual for them. The effects on Kelly and Marni Nixon's duet reprise of "One Starry Evening" do look pretty good, though, especially as Kelly dances with a cartoon princess.

The Song and Dance: I've always loved fairy tales, and this one is a lot of fun. Kelly and Riha work and dance quite nicely together; Riha has a great scene where he's trying to remind the mice that the cat may be big, but they have safety in numbers. Waldo makes a sweet princess, and Ted Cassidy is an appropriately booming giant.

Favorite Number: "A Tiny Bit of Faith," the song Jeremy sings to Jack several times, is very catch and is probably the best song in the movie. Jack's chorus number with the mice, "Stiffen That Upper Lip," is also a lot of fun. The lone ballad "One Starry Night" turns up twice, first as a song of longing for the Princess trapped in the harp, then as a duet for her and Jeremy after she's freed.

What I Don't Like: The combination of animation and live-action may have looked good on the small screen in 1967, but it now occasionally looks fake or awkward. Several sequences seem to be there more as padding than anything, especially Kelly's number with a pair of "Woggle Birds" who do a routine explaining what they do and disappear, never to be mentioned again.

The Big Finale: A fun retelling if you can find it; great for younger kids or fans of Kelly or Hanna-Barbera.

Home Media: I really wish the Warner Archive release of this one that I have wasn't out of print! Check used venues like Goodwill and eBay.

DVD