Lee Eisenberg No doubt you already understand that "Babes in Toyland" is a Laurel and Hardy movie, so you should have an idea of what to expect. Another thing to note is that it's a musical, and it's sometimes known as a Christmas movie (despite taking place in July). The list of Christmas-themed movies encompasses social commentary (A Christmas Carol), science fiction (Santa Claus Conquers the Martians*), silly comedy (Scrooged), black comedy (Gremlins), and the usual plethora of sappy movies. This one depicts a land populated by characters from nursery rhymes and children's stories. That is, except for the landlord threatening to throw Mother Peep out of her shoe-shaped house unless he can get married to Little Bo Peep. Meanwhile, Stan and Ollie work in the toy factory and constantly make a mess of things.I thought that the musical interludes weakened the movie. The scenes that I really liked were the wedding and the sequence in Bogeyland (which in this case refers to the bogeyman, not Humphrey Bogart). But above all, Little Bo Peep is a REAL looker. Seriously, Charlotte Henry must've had to beat boys off with a stick in school.So, while it's very unlike anything else that Stan and Ollie did, it's enjoyable enough for the 77 minutes that it runs. It's neat that they filmed it in Culver City, now the location of "Jeopardy!".And remember: peewees.*"Mystery Science Theater 3000" riffed that movie. It was practically made to get riffed.

Christmas-Reviewer I know many people will not watch this for many reasons. The excuses range from "I Hate Black and White Movies", "I Do Not Like Old Movies" ,"I herd this was stupid", "I never Herd of this", and so many others.Well this film is "Dated" but its also part of its charm. This film stars "Laurel and Hardy" and it is a delightful surprise. Think of this film as the inspiration for the "Shrek" films.In this film A woman is about to lose her home. Stannie Dumb (Stan Laurel) and Ollie Dee (Oliver Hardy), live in a shoe (as in the nursery rhyme There Was An Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe), along with Mother Peep (the Old Woman), Bo Peep (Charlotte Henry), a mouse resembling Mickey Mouse (and actually played by a live monkey in a costume), and many other children. The mortgage on the shoe is owned by the villainous Silas Barnaby (Henry Brandon), who is looking to marry Bo Peep. Knowing the Widow Peep is having a difficult time paying the mortgage, Barnaby offers the old woman an ultimatum – unless Bo Peep agrees to marry him he will foreclose on the shoe. Widow Peep refuses, but is worried about where she'll get the money to pay the mortgage. Ollie offers her all the money he has stored away in his savings can, only to learn that Stannie has taken it to buy peewees (a favored toy consisting of a wooden peg with tapered ends that rises in the air when struck with a stick near one end and is then caused to fly through the air by being struck again with the stick). He and Stannie set out to get the money for the mortgage from their boss, the Toymaker (William Burress). But Stannie has mixed up an order from Santa Claus (building 100 wooden soldiers at six feet tall, instead of 600 soldiers at one foot tall) and one of the soldiers, when activated, wrecks the toy shop. Stannie and Ollie are fired without getting the money.I don't want to tell too much more but truest me the film is fast paced and its never boring. Give it a try!

Spuzzlightyear Delightfully surreal fantasy here, which I give thumbs up to on all fronts, even to Laurel and Hardy, which I normally snub my nose at. Here, while they are first billed, they're not on screen all the time, Instead, we get the goings on in Toyland, with Bo Peep, the old woman in the shoe, the three little pigs etc. The story involves some codger named Barnaby trying to get Bo-Peep any way possible. But Ollie and Laurel won't have any of that! Weird cinematography, stranger characters (what was with that Mickey Mouse?) and odd songs... Plus, the whole thing was (my copy at least) in strange computerized color. LOVE LOVE LOVE

Cosmoeticadotcom The scariest dreams are tattered and not seamless. They are not like slick Hollywood special effects laden films, but like those lower budget masterpieces; Carnival Of Souls or the original Night Of The Living Dead. Thus the most scary villains to ever appear on screen in film may well be the semi-simian Bogeymen in the Hal Roach Studio's 1934 filmic adaptation of Glen MacDonough's and Victor Herbert's 1903 operetta Babes In Toyland, starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, in what may not be their best film, in terms of pure screen comedy, but is easily their most memorable one. However, the film is not much like the original operetta, for only a few of the original songs remain. Of course, no one in this movie is killed, mutilated, raped, nor has anything worse than a clonk on the head or a dart in the ass happen to them, but this only reinforces the dream logic of the film. Thus, grown men in bad ape-like suits and phony masks are even creepier than paranormal ghouls, because they should not scare, but amuse. Yet….they scare, especially a child.How many times has a film shown someone knocked out with one punch, or a handy vase cracked over a skull, or some similarly unbelievable thing that occurs, with no logical reasoning behind it? Thus, a dissonance between the inner reality, or diegesis, of the film, and the real reality of the viewer is felt, if not cogitated upon, especially when nothing else fosters the suspension of disbelief within the movie. This does not occur in Babes In Toyland because there is no disbelief to suspend. The film, from its first frame, when Mother Goose (Virginia Karns) sings and flips pages of an over-sized book she's stepped out of, to the last frame, is wholly make believe. Thus, the Bogeymen, who come off as fifth rate Morlocks (see the 1960 version of H.G. Wells The Time Machine), are even scarier, especially to a four of five year old child- which was the age I first saw this film in its usual Thanksgiving showing, in between King Kong and Godzilla marathons….Babes In Toyland does everything a film or any work of art should do- it entertains, moves, and affects you in deeper ways than are immediately understood, even if none of this was intended. Art is not about intention, for if that were the case I guarantee you that this film would be a long forgotten period confection, not the holiday classic it is. There are Laurel and Hardy snobs (yes, they do exist!) that loathe this film, and with good reason, compared to some of their more classic Vaudevillian classics. Yet, they too are skewed, not unlike all the characters in Toyland, for they refuse to merely accept what is presented, and instead judge this terrific little film against what they feel a Laurel and Hardy film should be. Therefore it always falls short. But, if one merely sits back and lets the movie run free of presentiment or expectation it will not fail to entertain- on a first or hundred and first viewing, at the age of four, forty, nor eighty-four. Go ahead, prove me wrong!