JACK AND THE BEANSTALK (1952)

This is the ur-text, so to speak, of my obsession with Thanksgiving fantasy films, that is, films that were run on local TV stations during Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas break. This one I think I saw on both holidays back in the 60s and early 70s. I hadn't seen it since sometime in the 80s when I had a bargain basement VHS tape of it. A re-viewing of something like this is always a dicey proposition as the magic that made me love it when I was young is usually hard to capture again—see my review of THE 5000 FINGERS OF DR. T. It’s an odd duck of a movie as it stars Abbott and Costello in a fairy tale retelling. One online critic put it well—it's basically a kiddie movie with A & C shoehorned in for an uncomfortable fit. The two were coming to the end of their long run as a comic team (Bud Abbott was in his 50s and Lou Costello was in his 40s and both had lost some of the energy of their earlier films) though they would make seven more movies in the next four years before calling it quits. It opens with Lou playing an out-of-work fellow who happens to walk into an employment office as a request for a babysitter comes in. Lou and Bud, who calls himself Lou's agent, have a brief run-in with a big beefy cop before they arrive at the home of a precocious 8-year-old named Donald as his adult sister Eloise (Shaye Cogan) and her boyfriend Arthur (James Alexander) leave to attend a play rehearsal. Lou reads to Donald from a storybook of Jack and the Beanstalk, but when words like "terrorize" and "ferocious" prove too much for Lou, the kid takes over. Lou falls asleep and dreams the story with himself as Jack, Bud as a butcher named Dinkelpuss, the tall cop as the giant, Eloise as a princess, and Arthur as a prince. From there, the story is familiar. Jack sells a cow to Dinkelpuss for magic beans which sprout gigantic stalks. Jack climbs them in order to save the prince and princess who have been kidnapped by the giant. Dinkelpuss follows, greedily after a hen that lays golden eggs. The giant has a talking harp named Patrick and a tall housekeeper named Polly (the receptionist from the employment agency) and after some action scenes and a couple of songs, Jack slays the giant (he falls from the beanstalk and plummets through the earth all the way to China), the prince and princess decide to marry, and Lou wakes up when Donald beans him with a vase. The beginning and end are in sepia tone and the middle in color, but because this film is in the public domain, there are many murky prints of this out there. I saw a nicely restored Blu-ray print on YouTube which is certainly better looking than this movie was on TV back in the 1960s. The songs are unmemorable, and the only fun musical bit is a dance in which the very tall Polly (Dorothy Ford) keeps smacking Jack around with her extended arms. You can see the germ of a fun idea here, but the direction is bland, and even Lou Costello seems like he’s running at 75%. Strictly a novelty view. Pictured are Jack and his beloved cow with rouge and lipstick on. [YouTube]