- published: 03 Jul 2015
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Babes in Toyland is a Laurel and Hardy musical film released on November 30, 1934. The film is also known by its alternate titles Laurel and Hardy in Toyland, Revenge Is Sweet (the 1948 European reissue title), March of the Wooden Soldiers and Wooden Soldiers (in the United States).
Based on Victor Herbert's popular 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland, the film was produced by Hal Roach, directed by Charles Rogers and Gus Meins, and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Originally filmed in black-and-white, the film is also shown in two computer colorized versions.
Although the 1934 film makes use of many of the characters in the original play, as well as several of the songs, the plot is almost completely unlike that of the original stage production. In contrast to the stage version, the film's story takes place entirely in Toyland, which is inhabited by Mother Goose (Virginia Karns) and other well known fairy tale characters.
Stannie Dum (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. Stannie and Ollie set out to get the money for the mortgage from their boss, The Toymaker (William Burress). But after the Toymaker finds that 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 wrecks the toy shop, Stannie and Ollie are fired without getting the money.
It's 2 days before Christmas, and the Toyland Toy Factory has just received its biggest order ever. But the evil Barnaby, who doesn't believe in toys, has plans to shut the factory down and spoil the holiday for everyone. Now it's up to Toyland's most recent arrivals, young Jack & his sister Jill, to help their newfound friends Tom Piper, Mary Lamb, Humpty Dumpty, and the rest of Toyland stop Barnaby's plot and save Christmas!
Keywords: attic, black-cat, boy, cave, chase, child-in-peril, christmas, clock-tower, critically-bashed, demon