I am a big fan of Chuck Jones, and I had heard of "The Phantom Tollbooth" in various contexts as an animated feature, so when I saw it on the cable schedule, I made sure to reserve the time to watch it.
Hmmmm. I decided that this wasn't bad for an first foray into feature length territory, and that if Jones had a chance to learn from his mistakes and try a couple more times, he would have probably come up with a real classic. But "Phantom Tollbooth" wasn't it, and deserves its place in semi-obscurity.
Problem: Too much heavy handed moralizing. I was surprised that people as sneakily funny and subversive as Jones and his crew would be satisfied with the "tone" of the dialog and the exposition here. No matter that the target audience was young; Even Disney in the early years was never this blunt and cheesy in their subtexts and allegories. (From what I've read, the original text wasn't this unsubtle either. Or else what works in a 20 word blurb on the page doesn't always work at length in a live medium).
More problems: About half of the songs are, um, pretty lame, at least to my sensibilities. The ones that yammer away about the virtues of earnestness, duty, hard work, etc. And Butch Patrick was a pretty good kid actor, but he was no singer - all he ever does is pipe along with the lyrics as if they were the musical version of The Pledge Of Allegiance.
Worse yet, some of the animation is 2nd rate. Oh, sure, the main characters - the Watch Dog, the Humbug, Milo, the Mathemagician - are done as well as you expect from a Jones flick, and some of the backgrounds are suitably trippy, but most of the monsters and supporting cast (including Rhyme and Reason) are slapdash and badly conceived and look like another crew of 2nd unit apprentices did them.
Still, the movie has its moments. The scene in the Doldrums had a nice sinister edge to it. It was nice to hear Blanc and Foray and Tremayne and the rest do what they do so well, even if they had trouble selling some of the dialog. And I am sure that the kid I was back in 1970 would have enjoyed more than I do now - although not as much as One Hundred and One Dalmations, or "The Sword In The Stone".
I really wanted to like this movie as much as I do those two (which sport a similar style of character animation) and I want to overlook its faults, because it has a good heart. But as I said, it is undercooked enough that it really doesn't match up to the classics from that era.
Hmmmm. I decided that this wasn't bad for an first foray into feature length territory, and that if Jones had a chance to learn from his mistakes and try a couple more times, he would have probably come up with a real classic. But "Phantom Tollbooth" wasn't it, and deserves its place in semi-obscurity.
Problem: Too much heavy handed moralizing. I was surprised that people as sneakily funny and subversive as Jones and his crew would be satisfied with the "tone" of the dialog and the exposition here. No matter that the target audience was young; Even Disney in the early years was never this blunt and cheesy in their subtexts and allegories. (From what I've read, the original text wasn't this unsubtle either. Or else what works in a 20 word blurb on the page doesn't always work at length in a live medium).
More problems: About half of the songs are, um, pretty lame, at least to my sensibilities. The ones that yammer away about the virtues of earnestness, duty, hard work, etc. And Butch Patrick was a pretty good kid actor, but he was no singer - all he ever does is pipe along with the lyrics as if they were the musical version of The Pledge Of Allegiance.
Worse yet, some of the animation is 2nd rate. Oh, sure, the main characters - the Watch Dog, the Humbug, Milo, the Mathemagician - are done as well as you expect from a Jones flick, and some of the backgrounds are suitably trippy, but most of the monsters and supporting cast (including Rhyme and Reason) are slapdash and badly conceived and look like another crew of 2nd unit apprentices did them.
Still, the movie has its moments. The scene in the Doldrums had a nice sinister edge to it. It was nice to hear Blanc and Foray and Tremayne and the rest do what they do so well, even if they had trouble selling some of the dialog. And I am sure that the kid I was back in 1970 would have enjoyed more than I do now - although not as much as One Hundred and One Dalmations, or "The Sword In The Stone".
I really wanted to like this movie as much as I do those two (which sport a similar style of character animation) and I want to overlook its faults, because it has a good heart. But as I said, it is undercooked enough that it really doesn't match up to the classics from that era.