THE DAYDREAMER Dreams Again

THE DAYDREAMER (1966) is a recently re-discovered obscure feature by *Animagic* inventors Rankin-Bass (of RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER fame). The film opens with a likable title song by recently deceased Las Vegas crooner Robert Goulet and some great Al Hirschfeld caricatures of the all-star cast.

After the song (in a live action segment), we discover it's 1801 Denmark and we meet pathetic Papa Andersen the shoemaker (commie "witch hunt" victim Jack Gilford) and his young son Chris (15 year old Paul O'Keefe of THE PATTY DUKE SHOW) - who we soon discover ALWAYS wears the same snug red polyester tights and suspenders, even underneath his nightshirt! Papa is visited by Elmira Gulch herself when Margaret Hamilton comes a knockin' looking for her shoes, only Papa's such a rotten shoemaker that they are not fixed yet. We also suspect that Chris' mom left Papa cause he's such a loser. Gilford, usually very charming, seems as though he's reading from cue cards here.

After Papa tells him of the legendary Garden of Paradise, narcoleptic Chris is visited by an animated version of the Sandman (voiced by Cyril Ritchard)- who tells him that in order to be happy and successful he MUST find the Garden of Paradise. So Chris falls asleep on a boat - and is transformed into an living, breathing Animagic character! Only it doesn't last too long because his boat crashes and he drowns. The End.

So Chris is dead, and The Little Mermaid (voiced by Disney sweetheart Hayley Mills) discovers his lifeless body. After her father (Burl Ives, phoning it in as Father Neptune) tells her that there's no hope for Chris, she makes a deal with the fabulously goth Sea Witch (Talullah Bankhead, giving Pat Caroll's Ursula a run for her money) who brings Chris back to life. They then swim around and the "Ariel" falls in love with the formerly dead boy. He tells her to fuck off cause he's just not into her, besides he's got a garden to find. So he breaks her heart and wakes up all wet in a boat.

Back in the real world, Chris next befriends an ugly duckling. But then he falls asleep again, this time falling in with two conniving tailors (voiced by Terry Thomas and Victor Borge) who are busy designing the Emperor's New Clothes. Chris and the tailors pull a fast one on the narcissistic king (Ed Wynn), but get exposed themselves when a little kid alerts the townsfolk to their scheme. Chris then awakens (in the real world) and gets arrested for poaching a duck!!!

In the most bizarre live action sequence in the film - Chris is tied up bondage style and dragged through town while singing a show tune about being unlucky while back-up dancers perform an elaborate Fosse-like routine around him. The scene MUST be seen to be believed!

So Chris falls asleep again, this time he meets up with Thumbelina (voiced by Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara). Thumby shrinks him down to her size and the two meet up with a Rat (Boris Karloff) who pimps her out to a Mole, who plans on marrying Thumby. Meanwhile, they find a dead sparrow and Thumby touches it and covers it with her sweater. Didn't she ever hear that children shouldn't play with dead things??? Disturbing. Following a musical number by bats - the dead sparrow comes back to life because of Thumby's sweater. Huh? Somehow the wedding doesn't happen and Chris learns the valuable lesson that "your size has nothing to do with your true happiness." Hmmm...that's not what all those emails in my in-box say...

So eventually Chris gets to his Garden of Paradise - where there are cotton candy trees, monotone peacocks, butterflies, blue marshmallows and the Tree of Knowledge!!! He is told (by an off-screen voice) that he must not eat EVER the blossoms from the tree. This story is starting to sound awfully familiar.

After pledging that he won't eat the blossoms, Chris does a little dance - and is visited by a horny and devilish version of himself. Of course Horny Chris convinces our hero to eat the thing. So he eats it and after a fiery apocalyptic finale - he's banished to The Land of Nothingness!!! Wakes then up in reality, where Papa is arrested and shackled to Chris. Papa saves them both by bribing the warden with his wife's wedding ring. Guess Mama Anderson's not coming back after all. We then learn that Chris grows up to become Hans Christian Andersen!!! Wow...I did not see that coming!

(Not sure if the above photo of Danny Kaye has anything to do with this production, but I'm including it anyways).
I was really hoping to love this film. After recently watching MAD MONSTER PARTY? for Halloween and looking forward to my annual viewings of their Christmas TV classics, Rankin-Bass usually can do no wrong. But I think the uneven performances and choppy storytelling really make parts of this unwatchable. They probably thought they were making the next WIZARD OF OZ or MARY POPPINS - but ended up making something that would alternately bore and frighten little kids, their target audience. I'll give this one 6 outta 10 on my scale mostly for the awesome bondage musical number.

Two interesting notes: In another WIZARD OF OZ nod, Ray Bolger has a brief cameo as The Pie Man. Parts of THE DAYDREAMER were filmed on location at the Denmark Exhibit at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

DOLLS

Another Holiday weekend treat - bridging the ever-shrinking gap between Halloween and Christmas. Stuart Gordon's DOLLS (1987) opens with two slutty punk rock chicks hitchhiking by the side of the road somewhere in Europe…as a car carrying a family speeds by. The family turns out to be a high-strung dude named David Bower who is on a very ill-concieved vacation with his selfish new wife (and possible transexual) Rosemary (aka Cruela Devil) and his whiny young daughter Judy. They are driving through the country when a sudden freak rainstorm traps their car in the mud. When they have to leave the car, Rosemary, tosses little Judy's teddy bear into the woods so it won't slow them down. Huh? Judy then imagines her teddy bear coming to life and ripping her stepmother's to pieces! If only.



The happy family stumbles upon the only mansion around, and are startled by a kind, but creepy old couple named Gabriel and Hilary Hartwicke who live there with their collection of dolls. Are they Satantists? Are they witches? Or are they just old old and crazy? The elderly duo invite the family to join them for dinner and to spend the night. Precocious little Judy quickly makes friends with the old folks, who turn out to be accomplished (and extremely prolific) toymakers! Just like Santa Claus! Before too long a loveable manboy named Ralph arrives at the house along with the two annoyingly rude punk chicks (named Enid and Isabel) who turn out to be British - so they ARE authentic punks - despite the fact that they look like Madonna and Sheena Easton.

Little Judy takes a liking to Ralph, turns out they both like to play with dolls. Gabriel takes Ralph and Judy on a tour of the mansion, and we begin to notice odd camaraderie between the three. The old man gives Judy a Punch doll to play with because her teddy bear is gone. The punk girls make themselves at home by blasting terrible music and hatching a plan to steal some dolls after Hilary tells them that some of the dolls are antiques.

Cruela is relieved that she doesn't have to share a room with her stepdaughter Judy. We can't figure out what bug has crawled up Cruela's ass, but whatever it was causes her to always wear some sort of turban on her manly head.

Later, we learn Judy seems to think that the dolls or "little people" can come to life and nobody seems to believe her- except for her "friend" Ralph. The Madonna wannabee sets out to explore the house (looking for things to steal) while Sheena hangs out in the room dancing and putting on more makeup. Judy decides she needs a glass of water, and eventually the dolls do decide to come to life!!! As the night progresses, Judy convinces Ralph that something's up in the house and soon they discover blood in the hallway. While exploring the attic we see that the Madonna chick has been murdered. One down, one to go.

Sheena then accuses Ralph of raping and killing Madonna and suddenly Judy's father is aware that his prepubescent daughter has been wandering around the spooky house with a grown man - and accuses Ralph of molesting Judy. Are you following this?

Next, Cruela gets attacked by a bunch of dolls with little mini-weapons, and she looks down to see that one of the dolls is sawing off her arm, while two other dolls are trying to saw off her leg! They even yank off her turban! After showering, David gets into bed with Cruela, unaware that she's been killed. The white sheet she's under starts to have this spreading blood stain on it, and then her doll-mangled corpse is revealed. Ewww...

More chaos ensues as Ralph realizes that Judy's right about the living dolls. At first he starts stomping on them, and they launch a full-scale attack on him, but Judy convinces them that he's really a big kid and after a quick meeting, the dolls decide he's okay by them. Whew - that was a close one!

After discovering Cruela's corpse, David is now on the warpath and we see that many of those dolls had little tiny skulls underneath their porcelin heads, possibly indicating that they began their existence as human beings!!! What exactly is Hartwicke up to???

There's a big, final confrontation between all parties involved, which I will not spoil - but I will say that there is a clever twist ending involving Judy, her dad, Ralph and her real mother (who lives in Boston). The next morning, Gabriel and Hilary have lots of cleaning up to do, especially since another car has broken down outside their house...

I loved this movie. The doll effects were cheesy, but effective. The acting, while not great, was always enjoyable. Even little Judy wasn't as annoying as horror movie kids usually are. At times it felt like all the actors were not taking any of this too seriously, and that helped make the whole affair quite fun. I give this one a 9 outta 10 "Huhs?". See it!

THE DAYDREAMER

THE DAYDREAMER (1966) is a recently re-discovered obscure feature by *Animagic* inventors Rankin-Bass (of RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER fame). The film opens with a likable title song by recently deceased Las Vegas crooner Robert Goulet and some great Al Hirschfeld caricatures of the all-star cast.

After the song (in a live action segment), we discover it's 1801 Denmark and we meet pathetic Papa Andersen the shoemaker (commie "witch hunt" victim Jack Gilford) and his young son Chris (15 year old Paul O'Keefe of THE PATTY DUKE SHOW) - who we soon discover ALWAYS wears the same snug red polyester tights and suspenders, even underneath his nightshirt! Papa is visited by Elmira Gulch herself when Margaret Hamilton comes a knockin' looking for her shoes, only Papa's such a rotten shoemaker that they are not fixed yet. We also suspect that Chris' mom left Papa cause he's such a loser. Gilford, usually very charming, seems as though he's reading from cue cards here.

After Papa tells him of the legendary Garden of Paradise, narcoleptic Chris is visited by an animated version of the Sandman (voiced by Cyril Ritchard)- who tells him that in order to be happy and successful he MUST find the Garden of Paradise. So Chris falls asleep on a boat - and is transformed into an living, breathing Animagic character! Only it doesn't last too long because his boat crashes and he drowns. The End.

So Chris is dead, and The Little Mermaid (voiced by Disney sweetheart Hayley Mills) discovers his lifeless body. After her father (Burl Ives, phoning it in as Father Neptune) tells her that there's no hope for Chris, she makes a deal with the fabulously goth Sea Witch (Talullah Bankhead, giving Pat Caroll's Ursula a run for her money) who brings Chris back to life. They then swim around and the "Ariel" falls in love with the formerly dead boy. He tells her to fuck off cause he's just not into her, besides he's got a garden to find. So he breaks her heart and wakes up all wet in a boat.

Back in the real world, Chris next befriends an ugly duckling. But then he falls asleep again, this time falling in with two conniving tailors (voiced by Terry Thomas and Victor Borge) who are busy designing the Emperor's New Clothes. Chris and the tailors pull a fast one on the narcissistic king (Ed Wynn), but get exposed themselves when a little kid alerts the townsfolk to their scheme. Chris then awakens (in the real world) and gets arrested for poaching a duck!!!

In the most bizarre live action sequence in the film - Chris is tied up bondage style and dragged through town while singing a showtune about being unlucky while back-up dancers perform an elaborate Fosse-like routine around him. The scene MUST be seen to be believed!

So Chris falls asleep again, this time he meets up with Thumbelina (voiced by Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara). Thumby shrinks him down to her size and the two meet up with a Rat (Boris Karloff) who pimps her out to a Mole, who plans on marrying Thumby. Meanwhile, they find a dead sparrow and Thumby touches it and covers it with her sweater. Didn't she ever hear that children shouldn't play with dead things??? Disturbing. Following a musical number by bats - the dead sparrow comes back to life because of Thumby's sweater. Huh? Somehow the wedding doesn't happen and Chris learns the valuable lesson that "your size has nothing to do with your true happiness." Hmmm...that's not what all those emails in my inbox say...

So eventually Chris gets to his Garden of Paradise - where there are cotton candy trees, monotone peacocks, butterflies, blue marshmallows and the Tree of Knowledge!!! He is told(by an offscreen voice) that he must not eat EVER the blossoms from the tree. This story is starting to sound awfully familiar.

After pledging that he won't eat the blossoms, Chris does a little dance - and is visited by a horny and devilish version of himself. Of course Horny Chris convinces our hero to eat the thing. So he eats it and after a fiery apocalyptic finale - he's banished to The Land of Nothingness!!! Wakes then up in reality, where Papa is arrested and shackled to Chris. Papa saves them both by bribing the warden with his wife's wedding ring. Guess Mama Anderson's not coming back after all. We then learn that Chris grows up to become Hans Christian Andersen!!! Wow...I did not see that coming!

I was really hoping to love this film. After recently watching MAD MONSTER PARTY? for Halloween and looking forward to my annual viewings of their Christmas TV classics, Rankin-Bass usually can do no wrong. But I think the uneven performances and choppy storytelling really make parts of this unwatchable. They probably thought they were making the next WIZARD OF OZ or MARY POPPINS - but ended up making something that would alternately bore and frighten little kids, their target audience. I'll give this one 6 outta 10 "Huhs?" mostly for the awesome bondage musical number.

Two interesting notes: In another WIZARD OF OZ nod, Ray Bolger has a brief cameo as The Pie Man. Parts of THE DAYDREAMER were filmed on location at the Denmark Exhibit at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

THE DAY TIME ENDED

So this 1979 movie starts out with an at least four-minute shot of outer space with some guy babbling endlessly about something... then suddenly we see a few shooting stars head towards Earth. I imagined the opening notes of ELO's "I'm Alive" and hoped we'd soon see 9 fabulous muses streaking across LA. Unfortunately all we get is a little town (which I dubbed Tatooine) that gets showered with stardust.

Meanwhile, at LAX Jim Davis (aka Jock Ewing from DALLAS) pulls up to the curb and greets his futuristically dressed family, which includes his wife Miss Ellie (played by Dorothy Malone of PEYTON PLACE because Barbara Bel Geddes was busy). We soon meet his annoying granddaughter Jenny (who I will call "Punky Brewster") who is visiting with her mom and dad. Dad's working on some top secret project, so he won't be spending as much time with the family.

The family drives out to the dessert, where we first see grandpa Jock's solar-powered Monsanto House of the Future. Then Jock gives Punky a pony. Punky shows her Holly Hobbie doll to the pony and it runs away. When Punky calls for her pony, it does not respond, instead she is drawn to a green glowing pyramid...which she begins to chat with about her pony! Then she hugs the pyramid and her pony reappears. What the fuck???

Meanwhile, inside the house, Jock, Dorothy, their daughter and teen-age son discover that the house has been ransacked! They suspect some local bikers...but are distracted by little Punky who wants to show them the glowing pyramid. Of course it's gone when Punky brings the family to see it. After they leave she discovers it's shrunk to the size of an Everlasting Gobstopper - so she picks it up and puts it in her pocket! Nice going, Punky!

When Punky goes to wash up for dinner a cracked mirror suddenly repairs itself! Then the lights and bathroom water turn on and off by themselves! This is the house of the future! Or is it haunted by the past? After Miss Ellie eats some corn, her and grandpa Jock stroll along in the night desert and notice a bright light in the distance. Before you know it, 2 donut-shaped UFOs zoom over their heads. They practically ignore it and head inside.

I have decided that this family is not fazed by anything.

After Punky uses the toilet and doesn't wash her hands, she sees smoke in her bedroom - followed by the appearance of a pixie-like Claymation alien. The alien does a little ballet for her and then the two of them disappear. Then the alien visits Grandma. She screams. What the fuck...again???

Then there's a small earthquake - and they realize that Punky is missing. Not to worry, they soon find her outside where she was "playing with her friend".
Doesn't faze anyone. Okay, this family is just plain creepy.

Then the family car won't turn off - until Punky tells it too. Punky's mom wants to leave, but Grandpa assures everyone that he'll protect them with his pistol. Punky is then visited by a robotic flying toaster oven that burns a hole in her bedroom wall. Punky's missing again (I think - she goes missing a few times), but Jock's still got his pistol.

Suddenly there is a battle of Ray Harryhausen dinosaur creatures outside the house. What the what the fuck???

Meanwhile, Punky's dad tries to buy gas and the attendant gives him a hard time. He eventually gives in and charges him 65 cents a gallon - talk about inflation!

Back at Tatooine, Jock and his teenage son let some horses out to distract the monsters - and then the monsters chase the horses. I'm totally NOT making this up. I swear. After that the sky is suddenly ablaze with a bad fireworks display that reminded me of Fantasmic! at Disneyland.

Okay, After the fireworks end, the house is surrounded by a bunch of damaged vehicles - a plane, a train, an automobile, a truck..all sorts of shit. Then I think there are more fireworks and some crazy slow-motion shots of Punky and Jock running towards each other super-imposed over the fireworks. I think Punky goes missing again, this time with her mom. What the friggin' fuck???

Meanwhile, after crashing his car, Punky's dad is strolling through a field of yellow flowers - then he comes across a horse - could it be one of Jock's?

Jock declares that they are stuck in a "time space warp" with "...strange things and strange creatures" - and some vortex may have taken Punky and her mom. Jock and Miss Ellie look up to see two suns in the sky - just like on Tatooine!

The family then naps, but is awakened by a giant sun - which makes a small green pyramid. Don't ask. Punky's mom reappears - and she's suddenly at peace with the universe. She starts spouting something that I swear sounds like Dianetics - and she tells everyone that Punky is safe - in fact she's with her dad.

Then everyone is reunited and they look into the horizon to see...Oz! Yes - a beautiful crystal city awaits them and their "new way of life"!

This one was also known as EARTH'S FINAL FURY - but i'd like to call it EARTH'S FINAL WHAT THE FUCKING FURY. 10 outta 10 "Huhs?"