A Disney High Hope For 1959


Darby O' Gill and The Little People Out To Top Magic Effects Gone Before

Darby O'Gill Star Janet Munro Views Multiplane Magic
Back during 70's bounty of treasures from Tom Osteen's theatre catacomb, we made 2 AM find of trailers in 35mm from varied good ones, happiest of which was a five minute deluxe for Darby O' Gill and The Little People, Disney answer to movie magic aimed at a burgeoning boomer audience. Walt was fondly behind this one, did a TV special wherein he appeared throughout rather than mere introducing, and let marketers put his face on ads in support of Never-Seen-Before Disney-Magic. So what was this other than special effects to challenge Dynamation of Ray Harryhausencreation? Both terms implied a new screen process, Disney's above ad careful to emphasize Darby O' Gill as an "All-Live Screen Miracle" rather than an animated one. For a feature of such ambition (and expense), Darby O' Gillfell before the tiller that was Disney's own Shaggy Dog, done for a fraction as much and looking like the TV episode it was initially planned to be. Walt must have shook his head at plebian taste of his public, though in the end, what matter so long as both pics were his. Note Donald In Mathmagic Land as support, a featurette to find truer berth in schoolrooms of America. Darby O' Gill streams at Amazon and elsewhere in HD, but the ratio is off (full-frame where it should be wide), and what's chance of a proper Blu-Ray where all of first-run audience would be in their sixties or worse now? That's the rub, alas, for much of Disney live action, interest having aged out along with those who remember.

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