Walt Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the
Little People is must-see St. Patrick’s Day fare for a lot of folks. Disney fanatic I may be, but Darby has never a particular favorite of
mine (I’m more of a Gnome Mobile
person, if given a choice between little people-themed live action 60s Disney movies). So rather than write about Darby itself, I instead elected to watch and review this episode of Walt Disney Presents (a show also known over its long run as Disneyland, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, The Wonderful World of Disney and so on and so on). Turner Classic Movies recently
re-aired this special about the making of the Darby film as part of their “Treasures From the Disney Vault” series. It stars Walt Disney himself
and is essentially an hour-long commercial for the Darby film framed as Walt’s trip to Ireland in search of
leprechauns for his movie because he’s told “only a leprechaun can play a
leprechaun.”
Let's head back to 1959, when this special aired, a time when people still threw around the word "midgets" and smoked a lot onscreen. The episode begins with Walt getting a pep talk from Irish-American
actor Pat O’Brien. Pat struts around a very late 50s-looking living
room, smoking a pipe and extolling the virtues of Irish men (“and a few women,
too” he says rather begrudgingly).
It’s Pat that urges Walt to fly to Ireland in search of real
leprechauns. Once in Ireland (he arrives via stock footage of an airplane), Walt
consults with an Irish librarian who shows him a suit of miniature clothes and gives
him a dose of Irish mythology.
Then Walt is off to a local village, where he next teams up with actor Albert
Sharpe, in character as Darby O’Gill himself.
Walt and Darby hang out in some fog-shrouded ruins where they eventually
encounter some leprechauns and demand to meet the leprechaun king. They hang out in the king’s throne
room, do some fiddling, and King Brian agrees to lend Walt all the leprechauns
he needs for his movie. Walt then
heads back to the states for another confab with Pat O’Brien, who this time smokes a
giant cigar instead of a pipe (I can only assume Pat O’Brien died of
lung cancer). We’re then treated
to a series of clips and scenes introducing the characters from Darby O’Gill,
including a neat sequence with a ghostly banshee and a spectral horse and
carriage.
I have to admit all of the above was a bit less than compelling. It was
neat to see Walt Disney playing a version of himself. As Leonard Maltin said in
his introduction, it’s interesting to see a living, breathing Walt here who’s not
just a brand, which is more the version I grew up with. Certainly this was chockfull of vintage 60s goodness (the
living room décor was especially delightful). But since everything revolves around Darby, which again is
not a particular favorite of mine, I wasn’t exactly enthralled by the
proceedings. Add in Pat O’Brien’s
long stretches of pontificating and smoking and the fact that this hour-long
special is almost as long as the movie Darby O’Gill
and the Little People itself, and you’ve got a curious relic of TV days
gone by.
This special may have
been a bit of a snoozer (and, since it was in black and white, lacking the
vibrant green hues one hopes for in a St. Patrick’s Day special), but it’s a
fitting tribute to Walt Disney’s seemingly boundless imagination as well as his
incredible marketing savvy—only Uncle Walt could so cleverly disguise a
commercial for family entertainment as family
entertainment, and manage to promote so many things at once: his movies,
Disneyland, and even himself.
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