There’s something more light-hearted next as I travel forward into the ‘30s with 1934’s delightful Babes in Toyland starring the inimitable Laurel and Hardy. This one features some amazing production design on vast studio sets, looking every inch the Hollywood Golden Age prestige production it was. It’s similar in vein to The Wizard of Oz, but with more riotous humour and silly pratfalls which is fine by me.
In the mystical Toyland, a place where fairy tale characters really exist, bumbling toy factory workers Ollie Dee (Oliver Hardy) and Stanley Dum (Stan Laurel) try their best to help Bo Peep (Charlotte Henry) and her mother resist the advances of the evil Silas Barnaby (Henry Brandon). This is really just an excuse for daft slapstick fun involving weird and wonderful characters and Laurel and Hardy in their prime.
The plot is paper-thin, but the film packs in a wealth of famous characters like Red Riding Hood, the Three Little Pigs and Miss Muffet, brought to life with creative costumes and makeup and some smart visual gags. I find some of the costumes a bit creepy though, with the Cat with the Fiddle being a particularly nightmarish- looking creature, while the mouse he chases looks like a monkey wearing a freakish rubber Mickey Mouse costume. It’s unsettling.
To make this a bona fide Christmas movie, Santa of course plays an important part, popping in to check on his order of toy/robot soldiers who play an important part later on.
It's also interesting to see a family film that features so much sexual harassment – Barnaby is a right wrong ‘un who will only let Bo Peep’s mother off with the rent if she essentially whores out her daughter. It’s anarchic too, with Stan and Ollie’s strategy to save the day involving a bit of burglary, before just falling on Stanley’s skills whacking things with a big stick.
The film has a surreal, dream-like quality to it, but is also unafraid to dish out the darker, scarier moments oft found in the best children’s tales. Barnaby is a nasty, pantomime-esque villain, but the ‘Bogeymen’ he unleashes are seriously frightening, snatching children from their beds in the night. It all culminates in an anarchic, rowdy battle between monsters and toys, with characters getting impaled with sharp darts or shot with cannons. I enjoy that, rather than closing with a happy ending, the whole thing sort of implodes on itself in the middle of this crazy fight. It just builds and builds then abruptly ends with a massive exclamation point. It’s ridiculous, enjoyable and like nothing made nowadays.
So far, I’m thoroughly enjoying this look back at the yuletide films of yesteryear. It’s been a lot more entertaining than I could have imagined and a really refreshing change in my watching habits. Before starting this barmy quest, I certainly don’t think I would normally be spending my spare hours watching black and white comic farces from the 1930s, never mind a bunch of Christmas movies, so consider my horizons suitably broadened.
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