Despite a terrific "Emperor's New Clothes" episode, I'm hard-pressed to recall anything in "The Daydreamer" which really works, and that's a shame because the team of Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass are obviously working with love and sincerity. Plot concerns a young Hans Christian Andersen who runs away from home and meets up with all the fairy tale characters he'll someday write about. Live-action prologue and epilogue are cringingly awkward, animated middle not nearly as bad but certainly not magical. Top vocal talents abound, however they're weakly used (Hayley Mills voices the Little Mermaid, yet when it's Hayley's turn to sing, we are instead treated to some kiddie variation on Marni Nixon). "New Clothes" segment is funny and better paced than the rest of the film, and is certainly helped by Ed Wynn as the delightfully egomaniacal Emperor. ** from ****
Review of The Daydreamer
