Widow Dorothy McGuire has to grab her three kids and leave their neat home for a dilapidated house in Maine. Cue songs and eight hundred weight of syrup as Hayley Mills, Burl Ives and co work out this Disney adaptation of Kate Douglas Wiggin's novel Mother Carey's Chickens. Yes a family film that is as safe as the house that Dottie and brood do up, yes I understand it's a kids film, and a musical to boot. But the screenplay from Sally Benson is as dull as dishwater and the cast are way too animated. Particularly Disney's safe card, Miss Mills. The songs from Robert and Richard Sherman are barely memorable, except for the Ives warbled Ugly Bug Ball. While the Technicolor looks off and not in keeping with the Disney stamp of quality.
Harmless is fine, most musicals are just that. But there's a ream of far better harmless musicals than this one. Certainly ones that involve the audience all the way thru the running time. Whatever the age and sex of the viewer may be. 3/10
Harmless is fine, most musicals are just that. But there's a ream of far better harmless musicals than this one. Certainly ones that involve the audience all the way thru the running time. Whatever the age and sex of the viewer may be. 3/10