Monster of the Day #3326

Christmas week! Another year about gone.

March of the Wooden Soliders (aka Babes in Toyland) was a great favorite of mine when I was a kid watching all the old Christmas movies on TV. First, Laurel and Hardy are, bar none, my favorite film comedians. (Followed by the Marx Brothers.) Second, general weirdness. Third, actual (goofy but threatening) monsters in the Boogey Men. It’s on Amazon Prime in color, or you can rent it for a few bucks in the original black and white. I, surprise, own it on DVD so I’m covered. Or you could watch the color version and turn the color off, although they generally alter the film when they add the color, so I’m not sure how well that will work.

I always liked the highly Krazy Kat & Ignatz cat and mouse duo in the film. The cat is clearly a person in a suit (although a pretty great suit). The mouse is a monkey in a suit, and although even as kids you figured it out, watching the oversized mouse caper around was really strange in a satisfying way. What I’m saying is, I like this movie.

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Beckoning Chasm

That doesn’t look like Mickey at all.
Gamera977

Actually the cat looks better than the ones in the movie version of ‘Cats’ that came out a few years ago.

I’ve never seen this so I’ll have to give it a shot. Over the weekend I watched ‘The Christmas Candle’ a pretty friggin’ good Christmas movie with Sylvester McCoy on Amazon Prime. I’d recommend it as something a little different from your usual Christmas fare.
🐻 bgbear_rnh

Do you have a license for your Mickey?
KeithB

That is because they wanted the cats in Cats to look sexy, not catty.
Gamera977

Thanks, just just hit the uncanny valley of creepy to me instead of sexy.
🐻 bgbear_rnh

The cats were not even furry.
Beckoning Chasm

I watched “A Christmas Horror Story” based on (I think) Gamera’s recommendation. And it was much better than I thought it would be. I think they let William Shatner just improvise throughout, because it sure sounded like that. He was a hoot.
KeithB

Of course, this:
“The film’s original release contained numerous CGI errors and glitches,
such as one scene in which Judi Dench’s human hand, complete with her
wedding ring, appears instead of Old Deuteronomy’s cat paw*”
never would happen with a man-in-a-suit.

*From wikipedia
Gamera977

Yeah, I’m constantly recommending stuff but it wasn’t I this time. Sounds awesome though, I love The Shat, I’m going to have to check this out!
Gamera977

Watched this last night, it was friggin’ awesome! Great overall movie but I loved the mouse/monkey! I think my favorite part was him stealing the toy dirigible and flying around tossing bombs out on the bad guys!
Rodford Smith

It’s actually quite watchable. Before a fannish old movie aficionado showed it at a RiverCon, too many years ago, I was only familiar with the Disney version. They aficionado (since deceased, unfortunately) knew a lot of trivia about the move. Such as that the actor playing Barnaby (main villain) was actually in his Twenties. (IIRC)
Eric Hinkle

My favorite part has always been how they showed the Toy Soldiers cleaning house on the boogiemen. Man they beat the crap out of those guys! They could have handled riot control in any city on Earth.
Galaxy Jane

Glad there’s another Christmas Candle fan out there. I was surprised how much I enjoyed that.
Ken_Begg

Aw, man, it makes me very happy to introduce this film to another person. I’ve loved it since I was a kid. I think the mouse is a rare example of the uncanny valley working in the film’s favor. The mouse is so weird in how it moves (again, once you think about it it’s clearly a monkey in a suit) that it adds to the bizarre fairy tale ambiance of the film.

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