watch and talk about Disney's 1967 feature film THE GNOME MOBILE (and other live action Disney features)

Never seen it? Watch starting here, and you'll get squeaky clean 1967: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYRuzOairdE

It winds up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ZHyxAkvCI&feature=related

"The Mary Poppins Children" are horrified at an impromptu live action gnome wedding! Don't miss the overlaid (?) cartoon bubbles and screaming vixens in negligees at 2:25 or so.

I rented this movie from the library one dull afternoon roughly ten years ago and it still amuses me.
Surely someone here has seen it?

*hands up*

Perhaps you will enjoy listening to "Me Jauntin' Car" (??), a lovely song from The Gnome Mobile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p6JOYPKSBg&feature=related

Top notch entertainment

This movie is like a cinematic version of House on the Rock in Wisconsin.

Well, not quite as good, actually. If there's a more bonkers house in the USA, I'd like to see it.

I have seen this movie in a theater, when it was re-released by Disney at some point in the 70s. Don't really remember much about it, though, except for the title song. But my favorite bit from the Wikipedia entry: "It was based on a 1936 book by Upton Sinclair entitled The Gnomobile."

Wow, didn't know that. A quick google reveals that a mass market paperback can be acquired for a mere $3 or so. Guess everyone's gotta make a buck.

Plot summary via wikipedia

The story opens with the children's grandfather, D.J. Mulrooney (Walter Brennan), a well-known executive officer of a vast timber-trading company. D.J., an eccentric and passionate man with a distinctive snore, as well as vast dedication and determination, has bought up a preserve of ancient virgin forest to show his descendants the majesty of the Redwood trees. In order to meet with business clients in Seattle, D.J. takes his personal, customized Rolls-Royce Phantom II on a trip, picking up his grandchildren Elizabeth (Karen Dotrice) and Rodney (Matthew Garber). Mulrooney takes them to a part of his forest en route. In a brief conversation with his Company Head of Security, Ralph Yarby (Richard Deacon), we learn that the car was purchased after D.J. earned his first $1 million.

In the forest, Elizabeth encounters a gnome called Jasper (Tom Lowell), who is desperately seeking a bride for himself, but cannot find any functional gnome communities remaining. Elizabeth, touched by the trusting gnome, agrees to help him find one. She brings her unbelieving grandfather and brother to the same spot, and Jasper makes a reluctant reappearance. The three are introduced to Jasper's 943-year old grandfather Knobby (also played by Brennan) who, like D.J., is passionate and short-tempered. Knobby is temporarily suffering from a sickness called "fading", he is becoming semi-transparent periodically because he's losing the will to live. The reason for this is that he fears that he and Jasper are the last two of their kind; and he too wants Jasper to find a bride before he (Knobby) dies. Knobby harbors immense hatred for humans because of their damage to the forests and the livelihood of gnomes, but agrees to go along and seek other gnomes because of Jasper's insistence. As they leave together, the Rolls-Royce is affectionately named by the children "the Gnome-Mobile."

Trouble begins, however, when Knobby discovers that D.J. is responsible for logging. The two elders quarrel until D.J., infuriated, vows to take the two gnomes back to the forest. Jasper and his grandfather are kidnapped by Horatio Quaxton (Sean McClory), a freak show owner, while D.J. is committed to an asylum by Yarby, who has heard about the gnomes and deems his boss insane. Rodney and Elizabeth rescue D.J. (using the "Gnome-Mobile"). D.J. tumbles out of his window at the asylum and narrowly escapes. The children and D.J. find Quaxton's cabin, rescue Jasper from Quaxton, and then set out to find Knobby, (who managed to escape earlier at Jasper's insistence).

Yarby, on finding that D.J. has escaped, mounts a personal pursuit. His company-owned 1958 Cadillac is literally broken to pieces by the rough going, while the durable Rolls-Royce with D.J.'s skillful and daring driving manages to get away undamaged.

They arrive in the woods to find Knobby delighted with the presence of a thriving community of gnomes. Jasper is disappointed that they are all old men, but is then recognized by Rufus the Gnome King (Ed Wynn) as "the eligible gnome", to a large number of young females of his race, who then compete in a contest to determine which one will marry him. The bachelor is covered in soap, then set upon by the girls, who try to chase after him, and catch and hold onto him for seven seconds. Jasper didn't know that this was how he would find a mate; to be the "prey" in a wild chase. He is smitten with one lovely, timid girl-gnome named Shy Violet (Cami Sebring). However, after a very wild chase by some very aggressive other girl gnomes, Jasper and Violet manage to end the race the way they want it.

D.J., for his part, gives as a wedding-present the rights to several acres of forest, which become a haven in perpetuity for the gnomes.

Many of the same type of special effects used for this movie, were also used in Disney's earlier 1959 film Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

D.J., an eccentric and passionate man with a distinctive snore, as well as vast dedication and determination

Knobby is temporarily suffering from a sickness called "fading", he is becoming semi-transparent periodically because he's losing the will to live.

Knobby also passionately hates humans.

I need to see this, if I can figure out a way not to hate that little redheaded boy.

One of the movies my parents taped off the Disney Channel for us kids to watch. I remember it being ugly but the title song was catchy.

I see it has Walter Brennan playing two parts! Can't be that bad!

Abbott you definitely need to see this
The title song was the same song as "Me Jauntin' Car" -- Disney is cheap or songwriter is lazy? Same songwriter as Mary Poppins too.

This lead me to watch Youtube clips of Mary Poppins, which I had not seen in 21 years – that shit scared me so much as a kid. Something is so sinister about that chimney sweep. I told my husband a profound thing as a result: "I realize Dick Van Dyke is the source of my lifelong fear of Dick Van Dyke."

Gnome Mobile seems like the Shock Treatment to MAry Poppins' Rocky Horror.

The songs (song, really) leaves something to be desired, but the gnomes/gnome encampment is maybe a step above the chimbleysweep sequences. You can watch the whole thing on youtube!

I'm watching the Moon-Spinners instead! Hayley Mills is so dreamy in this.

Mary Poppins is all about the life-changing power of psychedelics. Bert embodies the spirit of the 60s drop-out, and Mary's hidden middle name is Jane.

Ain't it a glorious day?
Right as a mornin' in May
I feel like I could fly
'Ave you ever seen
The grass so green?
Or a bluer sky?

Oh, it's a jolly holiday
With Mary
Mary makes your 'eart so light
When the day is gray
And ordinary
Mary makes the sun shine bright!

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/3631/gnome.gif

i withdraw my complaint about the creepiness of fantastic mr fox.

"It was based on a 1936 book by Upton Sinclair entitled The Gnomobile."

Right. He wrote it for one of his nephews.

Wow had totally forgotten this one. Honestly don't remember much about it except that I remember seeing on the Disney Sunday Night Movie (I was a religious viewer of this). Semi-forgotten live action Disney features would probably be a good thread topic.

Right now I can only call to mind the Parent Trap and the Herbie Movies (which are not really forgotten given remakes), and Pete's Dragon. Oh, and I think there was one about switching brains (Freaky Friday?)

some of the forest nymphs, to refresh your memory
http://www.coffeecoffeeandmorecoffee.com/archives/gnome-mobile%203.jpg

Watcher in the Woods scared the hell out of me. I rewatched it recently and it wasn't nearly as scary as I remembered it. Still had Bette Davis in it, though. Hard to believe it was Disney!

http://www.rathcoombe.net/horror/watcher-woods.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_D1ZZyTOG7tQ/SureA53-vvI/AAAAAAAAFwU/5eUKUJ9Tg8s/s400/Watcher+in+the+Woods+Lynn-Holly+Johnson+Bette+Davis+Kyle+Richards.jpg

Semi-forgotten live action Disney features would probably be a good thread topic.

In addition to all the more well-known ones, I have seen all of the following in the theater, either original releases or re-releases: The Apple Dumpling Gang, No Deposit No Return, Unidentified Flying Oddball, Candleshoe, Blackbeard's Ghost, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, Follow Me, Boys!, The Cat From Outer Space, Gus, The Island At The Top Of The World, Hot Lead & Cold Feet.

impressive memory!

My favorite was The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.

Blackbeard's Ghost is just totally bizarre. I enjoy both versions of That Darn Cat! however.

The Cat From Outer Space was one of my favorite movies when I was little.

Anything with Dean Jones!

My husband's family is totally obsessed with "The Ugly Dachshund" and the later "Chips, the War Dog."

There was one about two astronauts who ended up on a medieval planet or in medieval times and one of the astronauts was a robot and there was jousting and fire and the robot may have sacrificed himself for his human counterpart or the princess. Or that was a personal fantasy I have ascribed to a Kraft presents Disney Sunday Night Movie out of shame. Whichever.

The Spaceman and King Arthur? I have a feeling that I might have actually seen that at the cinema as a wee lad.

That's the same one as Unidentified Flying Oddball

Starring Dennis Dugan, who I just mentioned on the "1981 horror movies" thread!

maybe we should have the mods add "and other live action disney features" to the thread title
but then it would be too long :-/

Naw, looks like it fits, eh?

yaaaay
ty

I know we were talking about _Condorman_ on another thread...

The Million Dollar Duck!

i don't know how widely this has been publicized, but I just realized it myself -- the child from watcher in the woods ---> this lady

http://www.usmagazine.com/uploads/assets/celebrities/29109-kyle-richards/1292019479_bio-kyle-richards-290.jpg

And Paris Hilton's Aunt.

This I did not know, in spite of it probably being common knowledge. I just watched WitW like 1000x in gradeschool.

Really I bumped this thread to see if anyone else wanted to talk about the Gnome Mobile.

I remember watching all of these on The Wonderful World of Disney, half starring the appropriately named Dean

http://a.dolimg.com/en-US/disneyfans/media/history/legends/jones-dean-240x240.jpg

and yeah Watcher in the Woods was pretty eerie, Escape to Witch Mountain too, or at least as I remember it.

Mary Poppins I'd put in another class from all of these, in my mind, prob my favorite Disney movie