A few weeks ago, I finally watched the animated movie version of one of my favourite childhood novels, Russell Hoban's delightful 1967 fantasy, The Mouse and His Child.
Directed by Charles Swenson and Fred Wolf, and released in 1977 by the Japanese company Sanrio, The Mouse and His Child stays fairly faithful throughout to its literary original, perhaps a little too faithful, in fact, as I'll explain shortly.
As in the novel, the movie focuses upon a clockwork toy consisting of a father mouse and his child with hands connected who dance together when wound up. At the movie's beginning, they are housed safely inside a cozy toyshop, waiting to be purchased alongside many other toys there, as Christmas grows very near, but inadvertently they find themselves abandoned upon the snowy street outside.
They are initially rescued by a kindly tramp (voiced by John Carradine) before being seized by an evil rat named Manny (Peter Ustinov), who enslaves clockwork toys to do his every bidding, and callously breaks up any that fail to meet his requirements. Thanks to a prophecy-spouting frog (Andy Devine), however, the mouse and his child succeed in escaping the rat's clutches, but he pursues them unrelentingly as they engage upon a series of exciting adventures, meeting all manner of distinctive creatures in their quest to become self-winding toys. Other famous names in this movie's voice cast include Sally Kellerman as a seal and Cloris Leachman as Euterpe the parrot.
In the original novel, Hoban's characters are given to all manner of philosophizing, often at length, which is why, famously, this book is as popular among adults as it is among children. That same tendency is reiterated in this film version, but unfortunately with far less success.
For whereas a book by its very nature is primarily verbal in format, an animated movie (or any other kind, for that matter) is primarily visual, and in this particular movie the philosophizing comes across as being not so much verbal as verbose, slowing down the action on an all-too-frequent basis. Unlike the novel, moreover, this movie version of it is aimed fair and square at children, so the philosophizing is likely not only to go completely over the heads of much of its intended audience but also to bore them rigid.
To be frank, even I found it tedious and heavy-going at times, despite my having enjoyed it all those years ago when reading the novel. Sometimes the written word simply does not translate well on screen, and this movie, sadly, is definitely a prime example of that. It is nothing if not intriguing, therefore, that Hoban is said to have disliked how, in his opinion, the novel's philosophizing was watered down in the movie! More watering, less wording, is what I say!
The animation is of a very basic nature – Disneyesque, it ain't – but nonetheless is serviceable for a movie that has a quaint, whimsical charm in spite of its prolix proclivity, so if you get the chance to view this film, do so.
Indeed, at the time of writing this review, The Mouse and His Child can be watched in its entirety free of charge on YouTube, so click here if you'd like to do so.
To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
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