Babes in Toyland

In Toyland, Stan and Ollie work at the toy factory. The owner has an order from Santa Claus for six hundred toy soldiers; the two misunderstand it and produce a hundred soldiers a metre tall. Meanwhile the villain Barnaby wants to marry Bo Peep and holds the mortgage on her mother's house. Stan and Ollie intervene and make everything worse. In the end monsters attack the town and the wrongly made soldiers turn out to be useful. Charley Rogers directs with Gus Meins. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy take the leads. The source is Victor Herbert's operetta. The film was shown on American television at Christmas for many years and became a holiday habit for several generations; it circulated under more than one title. The toy soldier sequence is its known passage and was made with stop motion and large models. The structure is loose; the fairy tale characters arrive in turn and the plot exists to join the pair's routines. The sets and costumes are at large scale; the production was expensive for its time. The monster section is unexpectedly dark for children and is the most discussed thing about it. Who it is for: viewers who like the classic comedy pairs and old holiday films, and anyone watching with children. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, the songs run long, and the humour is of its time.