Special photographic effects: Tom Howard. Camera operator: Denys Coop. Set continuity: Angela Martelli. Music director: Muir Mathieson. Choreographer: Alex Romero. Animators: Gene Warren, Wah Chang, Don Sahlin, Herb Johnson. Sound recording supervisor: A.W. Watkins. Mr. Pal's assistant: Gae Griffith. Executive producer: Matthew Raymond. Producer: George Pal. Associate producer: Dora Wright. Photographed in a hard matte 1.85:1 aspect ratio.Songs: "Tom Thumb's Tune" and "Are You a Dream?" by Peggy Lee; "The Talented Shoes" and "After All These Years" by Fred Spielman and Janice Torre; "The Yawning Song" by Fred Spielman and Kermit Goell. Available on an excellent Warner Home Video DVD. Copyright 1958 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture, filmed at M-G-M British Studios, Boreham Wood, Herts., England. A George Pal Production for Galaxy Pictures. U.S. release: 23 December 1958. New York opening at neighborhood theaters as the top half of a double bill with Andy Hardy Comes Home: 23 December 1958. U.K. release: 21 December 1958. Australian release: Not recorded. 8,300 feet. 92 minutes.NOTES: Negative cost: $900,000.COMMENT: This is one of those films that believe in the principle that if you're making a kiddies' film, you have to talk down to your tiny tot audience. The acting is all grossly exaggerated and hammy in the extreme, the worst offenders being Bernard Miles, — who has about as much charm and presence and suitability for the role as a church warden at a boxing match, — Terry Thomas and Peter Sellers. June Thorburn is not much better. Admittedly, all these players are hampered by the corny script. Jessie Matthews is probably just as bad but the pleasure of seeing her again after all these years makes up for a lot. Russ Tamblyn, however, acts and dances with plenty of bounce, though he is not well served by some very obvious and crudely matted special effects. Alan Young gives a pointer as to how the script should be played with a charming approach, not so much tongue-in-cheek as not taking himself or the story too seriously. When he loses Tom at the fair, he is not seriously alarmed and doesn't make out with a whole lot of synthetic, phony theatrics. He acts naturally. However, the real joys of "Tom Thumb" are the songs and the musical and dance numbers and all the business with the animated toys — business which manages to get by on its novelty appeal rather than the skill of the animators.Aside from the fuzziness in the special effect sequences, the film is attractively colored and photographed. The sets are nice and production values first class. Pal's first directorial effort shows a bit of skill and imagination though a great deal of the dialogue spots are directed in a straightforwardly routine style. Still the film certainly has its moments — for example, the camera panning to the opening under the door as Tom knocks — despite its crudely matted effects and even the use of an obvious doll for Tom in some scenes.

George Pal made some great special effects (live-action) movies but this is his best, in my opinion. Yes, I like all his sci-fi and fantasy films. Of course, I own many of them. Relatively unknown, judging by the small number of IMDb reviews. Music by the talented Peggy Lee, who also wrote the songs of "Lady and the Tramp". An outstanding color print. A true fairy tale, with no objectionable real violence. Like the Brothers Grimm story, "tom thumb" is an enchanted little boy about 5-1/2 inches tall, given to a poor-but-honest wood-chopper and his wife Anna, by the Good Fairy of the Forest. He has many "small" adventures, dances in "talented" magic shoes, unwittingly steals gold for the villains, takes a balloon ride, and rides in a horses ear! A great cast, it's almost a musical! Alan Young as "Woody" the clarinetist. June Thorburn as the Mary Poppins-like Fairy Queen. A rather fat Peter Sellers and Terry-Thomas as the two bumbling villains. The story borrows a little from here-and there. There is a haunted "Black Swamp" instead of a "Haunted Forest" from the "Wizard of Oz". The villains will remind you a lot of the cunning fox and cat from Disney's "Pinocchio". Their counting and slapstick routines are "borrowed" from both the 3 Stooges and Abbott and Costello. The "Puppetoon" figure animation in "tom's nursery" is amazing, especially the "Yawning Man". Clever and convincing use of "trick" photography and over-sized props. Gymnast-dancer Russ Tamblyn (7 Brides for 7 Brothers) is the perfect "tom thumb". It didn't win enough Academy Awards! For children of all ages and especially adults that love the "Wizard of Oz". In Warner Archive DVD-R format. (Why not a regular DVD?) It will play back on most current players, including new Blu-Ray models.

I just watched this tonight. The last time I saw this movie was about thirty years ago. If anyone enjoys Dismey movies and/or anything light-hearted and musical...this is a must-see!The main character, of course appeared later in "West Side Story". He is a fabulous dancer. I'd be afraid to do some of the stunts he did in this film.Also, this film was critically acclaimed for the special effects of this time period.If your children(or you, for that matter) enjoy fairy tales, movies taken from fairy tales. Or, maybe just a little family fun...give this one a try

Unfortunately for the career of Russ Tamblyn he came along just as musicals were being phased out along with the big studio system. But MGM did have Russ under long term contract and there was the fact he had to be used. Tamblyn went to the United Kingdom in 1958 to film tom thumb, one of the Brothers Grimm more interesting fairy tales. As desired by Jessie Matthews after she and husband Bernard Miles waste three wishes granted by the forest fairy June Thorburn, she would love any child sent though the child be a wee one.Of course Tamblyn becomes the joy of their lives and his best scenes are dancing with those animated George Pal Puppetoons. Twenty years earlier, Russ Tamblyn would have been a great musical star, he didn't do half bad coming along when he did. The Puppetoon scenes won for tom thumb an Oscar for Special Effects in 1958.I remember accompanying my younger siblings to see the film when it opened. Believe it or not the thing I remember best is that scene where Miles races home to tell Matthews about the three wishes. He casually remarks he'd like a sausage and then it appears. And then she just as casually wishes it would grow on his nose and poof there it is. Seeing it today on TCM brought that memory back of the sausage growing on Bernard Miles's nose. Fortunately the kind fairy gave her a heartfelt fourth wish.Alan Young is an earnest if diffident hero who performs a heroic deed and wins mortality and the heart for and of June Thorburn. And Peter Sellers and Terry-Thomas make a wonderful pair of villains who trick Tamblyn into using his small size to rob the king's treasury.And in the Grimm Brothers world of happily ever after, young tom gets a bride of his size. They might have been the ancestors of the gnomes from the Gnomemobile