I just watched it again -- first time I've seen the whole thing unedited for time constraints, uninterrupted by commercials. I wanted to see it for Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. I should have gone right to this one song and skipped the rest of the film. I found it terribly artificial and dated, with some awful lines and old fashioned sensibilities, and rife with bad acting and a lot of music I didn't care for at all.
That said, the film has some real beauties and charms, including faces, costumes, brilliant colors and settings. It simply doesn't come together as a pleasing whole.
I had remembered Tootie in particular with fondness -- and she is truly adorable at times -- only to find Margaret O'Brien's performance unnatural in the extreme. I'll never bother to watch this film again.
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Phillip Marlowe
7 years ago
I had remembered Tootie in particular with fondness -- and she is truly adorable at times -- only to find Margaret O'Brien's performance unnatural in the extreme. I'll never bother to watch this film again.
To quote Rhett Butler, "That's your misfortune." This is a great film. As for your specific complaint, sure, the movie, including O'Brien's performance, is dated in a lot of ways. That's unavoidable; just think how contemporary movies will look to viewers 70 years from now. But O'Brien is great (she's still alive BTW), and the Halloween segment is a truly remarkable piece of film-making. The cinematography is striking and it's still one of the best glimpses of the world through the eyes of children that I have seen.
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