Approved | 1h 46min | Comedy, Family, Fantasy | 14 December 1961 | Color, ws
Director: Jack Donohue
Stars: Ray Bolger, Tommy Sands, Annette Funicello, Ed Wynn, Ann Jillian.
Tom Mahoney ... choreographer
Watched online, mediocre print, cropped to fs.
1st of 4 films for AJ.
2nd of 16 films for AF. IMDb lists her on only 13 episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club; I wonder how incomplete that is.
~15 songs by Victor Herbert in the Soundtracks. He's also on the writing credits, since the source is his operetta.
The best dancing is by the ensemble as townspeople. RB (b. '04) also has at least 1 dance number, but it's not dazzling.
This is just Disney kiddie fare, but live action (with some stop-motion puppetry). Big plot leaps, shallow emotional reactions to big events, and a pair of actors imitating Laurel & Hardy round out the annoyances. The music is ok.
Disney, dir. Donohue; 6-
