Celebrate St. Patrick's Day with "Darby O'Gill and the Little People"

In the picturesque Irish village of Rathcullen, old codger Darby O'Gill (Albert Sharpe) spends more time in the pub talking about leprechauns than tending to the estate of Lord Fitzpatrick. So, it's no surprise when the landowner decides it's time to replace Darby with the younger Michael McBride (Sean Connery). Darby's retirement benefits are generous: half-pay, a house with no rent, and a two-week notice for moving from his current abode. The hardest part for Darby will be breaking the news to his spunky, hard-working daughter Katie (Janet Munro), who has already caught Michael's eye.

As he ponders how to tell Katie, Darby falls down a well on Fairy Mountain and awakes in the home of the leprechauns. It's not his first encounter with King Brian (Jimmy O'Dea), the little people's leader. Several years earlier, the crafty Brian outfoxed Darby by granting a fourth wish that then negated the first three. This time around, Darby turns the tables. He manages to escape from Fairy Mountain, capture King Brian, and earn three wishes. But what to wish for?

A little Disney humor: Walt thanks the
leprechauns in the opening credits.

Made in 1959, this colorful Disney fantasy has aged as well as a 5,000-year-old leprechaun (like King Brian). The film has charm to spare, thanks largely to veteran performers Sharpe and O'Dea. Walt Disney handpicked Sharpe for the lead role after watching the actor in a stage version of Finian's Rainbow a decade earlier. Sharpe only made a handful of films, though his resume included two other engaging fantasies: Brigadoon and You Never Can Tell with Dick Powell. His co-star, Jimmy O'Dea, was an unknown in Hollywood, having spent most of his acting career in the Irish theater where he was known for playing the working-class Mrs. Biddy Mulligan.

Sean Connery as Michael McBride.

The scenes between Sharpe and O'Dea dominate the first hour of Darby O'Gill, with Cleopatra the horse being the only other character to garner significant screen time. As a result, the final half-hour has too much plot: a romance blossoming between Michael and Katie; a lug named Pony causing trouble; and a banshee almost killing Katie. Still, the loose ends are wrapped up nicely; this is a family film after all.

Janet Munro as Katie.

Sean Connery, still three years before his Bond debut, has little to do. He does get to sing a duet with Janet Munro (in a DVD featurette, Connery calls his singing debut "an earth-shattering experience"). Darby O'Gill was the first of three Disney pictures for Munro, the other two being Swiss Family Robinson and Third Man on the Mountain. She oozes sweetness and tones down the sex appeal displayed in her finest film, the first-rate The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961). Munro's film career was sadly short-lived and she died in 1972 at age 38 of a heart attack. Her career highlight was a 1963 BAFTA (the "British Oscar") Best Actress nomination for Walk in the Shadow, co-starring Patrick McGoohan (another Disney veteran).

The buildings and mountain in the distance were painted on a matte.

While Sharpe and the rest of the cast breathe life into the characters, it's Disney special effects wizard Peter Ellenshaw that makes Darby O'Gill and the Little People a magical visual experience. Ellenshaw gained fame as a matte artist working as an assistant on films such as Black Narcissus and A Matter of Life and Death. A matte is a partially-painted piece of glass placed in front of a motion picture camera that inserts new "objects" in the frame. Most of the town of Rathcullen is a painting done by Ellenshaw that blends into the sets built in the backlot of Disney's Hollywood studio (it's so convincing I thought the movie was filmed in Ireland).

To "create" the leprechauns, Ellenshaw used forced perspective, a technique in which two objects--which appear to be adjacent to one another--are actually separated by a significant distance. They are carefully aligned so that when filmed, the near object looks much larger than the far object. The trick is making the different sets, color, and lighting match seamlessly. Special effects master Ray Harryhausen used this same technique in his fantasy The Three Worlds of Gulliver. More recently, forced perspective was used to make the hobbits look smaller in Peter Jackson's films.

Benefiting from a couple of charismatic veteran actors and Peter Ellenshaw's movie magic, Darby O'Gill and the Little People makes for a diverting viewing experience for any occasion. That said, it seems like like a perfect pick for St. Paddy's Day, don't you think?


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