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Tuesday, January 9, 2024

IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS (1962)

Disney had such a success adapting Jules Verne’s 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA/’54 as their first big-budget Live-Action feature, it must have seemed just the thing to try a lesser-known Verne title when Walt’s bet on young Hayley Mills paid off with the Baby Boomer Zeitgeist hit THE PARENT TRAP/’61.*  It was . . . and it wasn’t.  A sure thing financially, if grossing only half what TRAP had, the film actually portended ever-worsening Mills vehicles that wound up nullifying the very potential that initially excited Disney upon seeing Mills' TIGER BAY/’59 debut, far and away her best work.*  This one, though filmed in Britain, looks like a typically stingy Disney ‘house’ production of the period, pushing Verne’s story toward something more like Robert L. Stevenson.  And why not as it’s directed by (non-related) Robert Stevenson?  Following Mills and her kid brother, along with guardian Maurice Chevalier, as they connive to convince wealthy ship captain Wilfred Hyde-White, along with his son, romance-ready Michael Anderson Jr, to search the globe to find their missing Dad.  George Sanders eventually shows up as a dastardly villain, as do a pair of tepid songs from the Sherman Brothers, used mainly to cover a few process traveling sequences . . . and for something to put on the record album tie-in.  (see poster)  As Chevalier would put it, naturellement!  At least there’s a few elegant Peter Ellenshaw painted background landscapes matted into the frame for something to look at.  Or is if you can see them behind acting as broad as a British Holiday ‘Panto.’

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Commercially, Disney had an amazing 1961: 2nd, 3rd & 4th top-grossing pics in ABSENT MINDED PROFESSOR; PARENT TRAP and SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON which, perhaps not coincidentally, starred Hayley’s pop, John Mills.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  *All three films mentioned above an improvement on this one.  Even better, from much underrated director J. Lee Thompson, is TIGER BAY, with father & daughter Mills.

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