ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

edwagreen A nice children's picture where the story of Tom Thumb is brought to the screen and Russ Tamblyn, who was Oscar nominated the year before for the blockbuster "Peyton Place," and who also appeared in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," that same year was perfect for the part of small Tom.Granted as a wish by his childless parents, Tom immediately sings and dances his way into the hearts of the viewers.Peggy Lee must be given credit for writing the songs for this film and Terry Thomas and Peter Sellers steal the film with their villain roles.A little tedious at times, especially near the film's end, the picture brings joy to our youngsters.

TheLittleSongbird I saw this long ago with my grandparents and absolutely loved it. I saw it again recently, and all those memories came back. This is a wonderfully charming and very underrated musical fantasy. For me, along with Hans Christian Andersen(1952) this has to be the most underrated musical I have seen. It is so endearing you can't help like it. Russ Tamblyn, previously seen in 1954's Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, is perfectly cast in the lead, a performance that is completely likable and very acrobatic. Bernard Miles and Jessie Matthews give fine support as Tom's adopted parents, and June Thorburn is lovely as the Forest Queen. Alan Young is good as Woody too, however it is Terry Thomas and Peter Sellers who steal the acting honours as the villains. They both managed to be sinister and hilarious at the same time. The cinematography, sets and costumes are perfect.The choreography is energetic, and the script well written. But the real joy come from the superb special effects that thoroughly deserved the Oscar and the splendid musical numbers that stick in your head for a while. The Yawning Song for me was the most memorable, because when I first saw it me and my grandparents used to have a right-old giggle every time the Yawning Man opened his mouth. All in all, a really well done underrated film. 10/10 Bethany Cox

preppy-3 Story about Tom Thumb (Russ Tamblyn) who is no bigger than someone's thumb. He gets involved with two bumbling crooks (Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers) and such.Kids might like it but this is pretty hard going. Basically this is more of a musical than anything else. The songs are (to be nice) unmemorable and annoying. It got to the point that I was dreading each song--and there are LOTS of them! The story (what there is of it) is very slight and the lapses in logic were puzzling even for a fairy tale movie. Terry-Thomas (chewing the scenery) and Peter Sellers were stupid and unfunny and Alan Young and June Thorburn were unbelievably bland as young lovers. On the plus side Tamblyn was good in the title role, the dances are colorful and there's some really cool stop motion animation with Tom's toys. So kids will probably like this (although they might howl at the stop motion animation which looks clumsy next to CGI) but I was bored silly and couldn't wait for this to be over. I give it a 6.

bkoganbing Unfortunately for the career of Russ Tamblyn he came along just as musicals were being phased out along with the big studio system. But MGM did have Russ under long term contract and there was the fact he had to be used. Tamblyn went to the United Kingdom in 1958 to film tom thumb, one of the Brothers Grimm more interesting fairy tales. As desired by Jessie Matthews after she and husband Bernard Miles waste three wishes granted by the forest fairy June Thorburn, she would love any child sent though the child be a wee one.Of course Tamblyn becomes the joy of their lives and his best scenes are dancing with those animated George Pal Puppetoons. Twenty years earlier, Russ Tamblyn would have been a great musical star, he didn't do half bad coming along when he did. The Puppetoon scenes won for tom thumb an Oscar for Special Effects in 1958.I remember accompanying my younger siblings to see the film when it opened. Believe it or not the thing I remember best is that scene where Miles races home to tell Matthews about the three wishes. He casually remarks he'd like a sausage and then it appears. And then she just as casually wishes it would grow on his nose and poof there it is. Seeing it today on TCM brought that memory back of the sausage growing on Bernard Miles's nose. Fortunately the kind fairy gave her a heartfelt fourth wish.Alan Young is an earnest if diffident hero who performs a heroic deed and wins mortality and the heart for and of June Thorburn. And Peter Sellers and Terry-Thomas make a wonderful pair of villains who trick Tamblyn into using his small size to rob the king's treasury.And in the Grimm Brothers world of happily ever after, young tom gets a bride of his size. They might have been the ancestors of the gnomes from the Gnomemobile