Victor Herbert Movies

While Walt Disney's 1961 filmization of Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland pales in comparison to the 1934 movie version starring Laurel & Hardy, the Disney film is an unqualified classic when compared to the ill-starred 1986 TV version. Adapted for television by playwright Paul Zindel, the 1986 film stars Drew Barrymore as Lisa Piper, a contemporary girl whisked off Wizard of Oz fashion to Toyland. Here her friends and family from the "real" world are reincarnated as villainous Barnaby (Richard Mulligan), Old Mother Hubbard (Eileen Brennan), Jack-Be-Nimble (Keanu Reeves) et. al. Only "March of the Toys" and "Toyland" have been retained from the original Victor Herbert score; the rest of the songs were specially written for this adaptation by Leslie Bricusse-and, suffice to say, these were hardly classics. Irreparably damaging this version was its 180-minute length-over twice as long as the Laurel & Hardy version, and not even half as good. Filmed in Munich, Babes in Toyland was first telecast December 19, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This documentary chronicles the changes Ireland has gone through since the political uprising of 1916. Dark shadows are cast on the Emerald Isle as social problems plague the Irish. The upper classes retain the austerity of the British aristocracy despised by all but the Orange Order, who are loyal to the crown. The church is an ever-present factor in the daily lives of the children, most who attend religious schools. Every subject of concern to the Irish is found in the pubs, a traditional meeting and drinking place for all. Informative commentary gives accurate historical reference to the past and present events that affect the people of Ireland. Ironically, the year after this film's release (1969) would see a return to the violence and social chaos that has long been a bloody part of Irish history. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Contrary to popular belief, the Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald Technicolor confection Sweethearts is not based on the 1913 Victor Herbert operetta of the same name (though most of Herbert's songs remain intact), but a Dorothy Parker-Alan Campbell brainstorm about a popular Broadway singing duo, starring in a long-running production of Sweethearts. The early portions of the film take place during a purported presentation of the Herbert piece, with Eddy and MacDonald singing their hearts out and Ray Bolger providing comic relief. We then segue into a long sequence wherein producer Frank Morgan, celebrating Sweethearts's six-year run, insists that Eddy and MacDonald attend a lavish party, where the weary performers are called upon to continue singing throughout the evening. Hoping for a few moments alone after escaping the party, Eddy and MacDonald are besieged at their apartment by friends, co-workers, hangers-on and sponging relatives. Seeking peace and quiet, the couple agrees to leave Sweethearts for the comparative calm of Hollywood. But their entourage, fearing that they'll lose their meal ticket if Eddy and MacDonald leave New York, arrange to inaugurate two profitable road companies of Sweethearts by contriving to split up the loving couple. Cleverly sidestepping the sugary sweet sentimentality that one might expect from an MGM musical of the era, the delightful Sweethearts is hampered only by its overlength. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

March of the Wooden Soldiers is the 1952 reissue title for Hal Roach's 1934 film version of Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star as Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee, bumbling apprentices to the master toymaker of Toyland. This joyous fairy-tale community is populated by all the colorful Mother Goose characters we know and love; the one sour apple in the barrel is mean old Silas Barnaby (portrayed by Henry Kleinbach, aka Henry Brandon). Barnaby holds the mortgage on the outsized shoe where Widow Peep (Florence Roberts) and her daughter Little Bo Peep (Charlotte Henry) reside, and where Stannie and Ollie pay room and board. Bo Peep will be forced to marry the odious Barnaby if the rent isn't paid, so Stannie and Ollie try to raise the money by asking the toymaker for a raise. But the boys are fired when Stannie messes up an order from Santa Claus: instead of making six hundred toy soldiers one foot high, the dumb Mr. Dum makes one hundred toy soldiers six feet high. The wedding between Barnaby and Bo Peep goes on as planned--except that it's Stannie, disguised as the bride, who ends up walking down the altar. Publicly humiliated, Barnaby vows revenge. He steals one of the Three Little Pigs and places the blame on Bo Peep's boy friend, Tom-Tom the Piper's Son (Felix Knight). The penalty for pignapping is banishment to Bogeyland, a fearsome subterranean world populated by hideous bogeymen (look closely and you'll see the zippers on their costumes!) Stannie and Ollie expose Barnaby's perfidy and rescue Tom-Tom from Bogeyland, whereupon Barnaby rallies the bogeymen and leads an all-out attack on Toyland. Taking refuge in the toy warehouse, Stannie and Ollie activate the 100 6-foot wooden soldiers (a neat bit of stop-motion photography, courtesy of Hal Roach's "fx" wizard Roy Seawright), who vanquish the Bogeymen and save the day. One of the best of all the Laurel and Hardy features, March of the Wooden Soldiers has been a television holiday perennial ever since the cathode tube was invented. Only a handful of Victor Herbert's songs are utilized, but these lilting compositions more than compensate for the omissions (one song, "I Can't Do That Sum", is used as the leitmotif for the clueless Stannie and Ollie). For years available only in the 70-minute reissue version, March of the Wooden Soldiers has recently been fully restored to its full glorious 78 minutes. The parent property Babes in Toyland was remade by Disney in 1961 (with Gene Sheldon and Henry Calvin as Laurel and Hardy wannabes) and for television in 1986, with new songs by Leslie Bricusse. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mademoiselle Modiste is based on the Victor Herbert-Henry Blossom operetta of the same name -- minus the music, of course. The incredibly gorgeous Corinne Griffith stars as Fifi, a personable salesgirl in a fancy Parisian dress shop. Impressed by Fifi's business skills, wealthy American tourist Hiram Bent (Willard Louis) offers to buy the shop and install the girl as the manager. No, he doesn't want to put the moves on our heroine -- he simply wants to set up a moneymaking business that will recoup the cost of his expensive vacation. Fancying himself a hot-shot promoter, Hiram decides to attract potential backers by promoting "Mademoiselle Modiste" (actually Fifi) as a woman of mystery, refusing to introduce her to the backers until the shop is opened. All of this is quite confusing to Fifi's sweetheart Etienne, who is certain that the girl has become a high-priced prostitute -- an assumption seemingly confirmed when Fifi is discovered in a state of undress in Mr. Bent's hotel room. Mademoiselle Modiste was remade in 1931 as Kiss Me Again with Bernice Claire and Walter Pidgeon. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This charming and expensively made historical romance was one of Marion Davies' best films. She spends much of the picture disguised as a boy, something she also did effectively in several other films. A young Irish lad, Patrick O'Day (Stephen Carr), inherits a fortune, providing he travels to New York to claim it within a certain period of time. His father, John (J.M. Kerrigan), manages to scrape together the money to send himself, his son, and daughter, Patricia (Davies), across the Atlantic. But the boy is sick and dies en route to New York. In order to get the money, John convinces Patricia to disguise herself as her brother. They arrive just in time to claim the inheritance, which frustrates cousin Larry Delevan (Harrison Ford), who would have received it had Pat not shown up. Although Delevan is not thrilled with his cousin's arrival, they become fast friends anyhow, and he never suspects that Pat is really a girl. Delevan wants to invest in Robert Fulton's steamship, the Clermont, and Pat loans him the money. But Delevan then wagers on a fight between Bully Boy Brewster (Harry Watson) and the Hoboken Terror (Louis Wolheim). The match is an uneven one and it looks like Delevan will lose all his money, so Pat rings a false alarm to break up the fight. When her deed is discovered, the mob drags her out to be whipped. She takes it for a few lashes before revealing that she's really a girl. Delevan falls in love with her and they marry. Contrary to popular belief, many of Marion Davies' films made money, and Little Old New York was one of them. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Part cautionary "preparedness" fable and part devastating, heavy-handed satire, The Fall of the Nation was the result of an unlikely alliance between Rev. Thomas A. Dixon, author of the book upon which Griffith's The Birth of a Nation was based, and composer Victor Herbert. An attack on muddle-headed pacifists, the film is motivated by the anti-war activities of the Honorable Plato Barker and Reverend A. Cuthbert Pike, thinly disguised caricatures of William Jennings Bryan and Henry Ford. Thanks to the combined efforts of Barker and Pike, America is totally unprepared for the invasion of the "European Confederated Army," headed by the Germans. Attempting to appease the invading army, Barker and Pike are hilariously humiliated, while on a more somber note the invaders begin rounding up and executing such "undesirables" as aged Civil War veterans and innocent children. In one of the more horrific sequences, American women are tortured, and a group of little kiddies have their hands cut off (an atrocity which presumably takes place off-screen). Democracy and the American Way are saved by a courageous pro-war congressman, who in concert with a patriotic suffragette (who'd been a pacifist in the early portions of the film) raises a civilian army to vanquish the usurpers. Decked out with an original Victor Herbert musical score, The Fall of a Nation certainly sounds fascinating, but unfortunately all that remains of the film is a series of tantalizing production stills, many of which were reproduced in the 1957 coffee-table volume The Movies. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi