Darby O'Gill and the Little People

Everyone has movies that they watch during the holidays. Maybe you watch Hocus Pocus for Halloween, or It's a Wonderful Life for Christmas. But what do you watch for a holiday like St. Patrick's Day? For my family we grew up watching Darby O'Gill and the Little People. To me it is still the quintessential St. Patrick's Day film. You have leprechauns, banshees, and a singing Sean Connery! Oh my! About the only other film we watched quite a bit during this season was Waking Ned Devine, but while I love that film, it doesn't hold the same special place in my heart the way Darby does. What I didn't know growing up was that this movie was based off of a novel called Darby O'Gill and the Good People by H.T. Kavanaugh. Walt had discovered the book during a trip to Ireland in 1956. Before that, he had taken an earlier trip to Ireland in 1947 and had wanted to do a movie called Three Wishes, about a man battling a leprechaun. He had tasked writer Lawrence Edward Watkin, who was basically Disney's go-to for treatments in the 50's, to tackle this idea. It never came to fruition, but Disney clearly wanted to still do a movie based on the Emerald Isle. This can be chalked up to the fact that Disney was half Irish himself. 

Once discovering Kavanaugh's book, Disney had Watkins write a script called The Three Wishes of Darby O'Gill. This would eventually morph into the name we know now, Darby O'Gill and the Little People. Disney went out of his way for months to study Irish folklore to get a feel for what he wanted the film to be about, as it wasn't going to be a completely faithful adaption of Darby O'Gill and the Good People. In the end, the writing credit went to both Kavanaugh and Watkins. Robert Stevenson, another Disney mainstay, directed the film. 

The movie is mostly about Darby O'Gill, who is the caretaker for Lord Fitzpatrick's estate. Darby lives with his daughter Katie in the small town of Rathcullen. Darby is obsessed with capturing leprechauns, and that, along with his age, causes him to be retired by Lord Fitzpatrick. He is replaced by the younger Michael McBride, but Darby is able to convince him not to let Katie know that he's been let go. Darby is eventually captured by Brian Connors, the king of the leprechauns, and his clan, to help keep Katie from discovering that he has been retired. Unfortunately, the leprechaun's mountain lair, Knocknasheega, doesn't let humans leave once they have entered, so he is trapped there. He is able to escape by tricking the leprechauns into opening up the mountain entrance by playing "The Fox Chase" on Brian's violin. Concerned that Brian will follow him, Darby starts to drink with the leprechaun king until sunrise hits and the leprechaun's power is gone. Darby captures Brian, which allows him three wishes. Brian is determined to trick Darby into wishing for four things, as that takes away all the wishes that have been asked for. Darby first wishes for Brian to stay with him for two weeks, or until he uses all his wishes. Brian tricks him into wishing his second wish that involves Katie and Michael to become closer. In the mean time, the town bully, Pony Sugrue, decides that he wants Michael's job and Katie for himself. Pony's mother ruins everything by telling Katie about Darby being retired, which causes her to get angry with Darby and Michael. Lord Fitzpatrick's horse, Cleopatra, which is actually a pooka, a mythological beast that can appear as animals and can be either good or evil, escapes and leads Katie to Knocknasheega, the same way it led Darby there earlier in the film. Darby later finds her, but she has been stricken with a deadly fever. She is taken back home to recover but a banshee appears and summons the Dullahan on a death coach to take Katie's soul away. Darby uses his last wish to take her place on the coach, and Brian rides joins to comfort him. Brian has one last trick up his sleeve, however, and tricks Darby into making a fourth wish, that Brian would keep him company in the afterlife. This voids all the other wishes and he is returned back to home. Katie makes a full recovery and everything is as it should be. Well, almost, as Pony (seriously...who names their kid Pony?) is still being a jerk. Michael confronts him in the pub and humiliates him, thus keeping Pony from stealing Katie and his job? Oh, who cares. It's Sean Connery punching someone. Michael and Katie fall in love of course and all is as it should be. 

I really like the cast of this movie, and not just because it's a young singing Sean Connery playing Michael. That does help a lot, though. This was before Connery had been James Bond, so he wasn't a household name at this point. Funny enough, this role is one of the big reasons that Connery landed the role. Producer Albert Broccoli's wife saw this film and went to Broccoli and told him "Well, that is James Bond." Besides Connery, who is by far the most well known actor for current audiences, there aren't a lot of big names. Janet Munro, in her first Disney movie, plays the spunky Katie. Albert Sharpe, who was more well known in Ireland as a stage performer, played Darby O'Gill. Walt had seen Sharpe play the main role in Finian's Rainbow in the late 40's when he was on his first journey to Ireland. By the time Walt was ready to make Darby O'Gill and the Little People, Sharpe had retired from the stage and he had to be tracked down for the role. Jimmy O'Dea played King Brian, who was also known more as a stage performer, but also a comedian. Rounding out the main cast is Kieron Moore as Pony, who was a film and TV actor mainly in the 50's and 60's whose biggest role came in the 1948 adaptation of Anna Karenina opposite Vivien Leigh. I'm glad that they got actors from the U.K. and Ireland to be in this so we didn't have to suffer through any terrible accents, though I'm pretty sure you can still detect a bit of the Scottish brogue with Connery. Connery, who admitted that he wasn't a good singer, has duet with Janet Munro, "Pretty Irish Girl." The song would go on to be released as a single, and did fairly well as Connery recollects. There is a rumor that the dubbed version is what we hear now, and is instead sung by Irish singers Brendan O'Dowda and Ruby Murray. It certainly sounds like Connery to me, so not sure if that's true or not. 

Part of what makes this movie so fascinating is the practical effects they used to make it seem as if Darby O'Gill was conversing with Leprechauns in the same space. Without the benefits of special effects, Disney had to get creative. Forced perspective was used to create the illusion seen in the movie. Forced perspective is pulled off by having some of the actors and sets in the foreground, and some of the actors and sets in the background. This took a lot of planning to make all the shots work and this is one of the cases where I would highly recommend watching the making of special feature for the film, as it really breaks down how they pulled off these complex shots. Sometimes Sharpe would have to stand on a high platform just to get the illusion to work. Often times the shots had to be carefully and heavily lit just to keep shadows from one perspective from casting onto the other. The other trick was to get their eye lines to work. The actors would be fifteen feet apart, and yet it would have to look convincing enough so you'd think they were sitting right in front of them. Both Sharpe and O'Dea had to work on their "eye contact" to keep things looking normal. This is something you'll also notice in movies where you have live actors interacting with animated characters. When the eye lines don't work, it ruins the illusion. One of the more famous anecdotes about Who Framed Roger Rabbit is that Bob Hoskins was looking too far above Roger's head in a scene, so they had to animate Roger backing up against a wall on his tip toes to make the shot work. If you want an example of forced perspective in more modern times, just look at

The Lord of the Rings trilogy. They used forced perspective and body doubles to make it appear that Frodo and the other hobbits were that much smaller than Gandalf and the rest of the Fellowship. The Banshee and Dullahan were both created through the process known as Chroma Key, where in post-production they layer two different shots together. This is what gives them that eerie glow. All I know is that this part of the movie freaked me the hell out as a kid.

Interestingly enough, Disney did not film in Ireland as you might have expected, given that he had done filming in England several times over the last decade. Due to budget constraints and the need for a controlled environment for the practical effects, they shot the film in two giant sound stages, while the outdoor sections were filmed on the lot or at the nearby Albertson Ranch. That being said, there was some footage of Ireland shot by the second unit to make it look more like 19th century Ireland, heavily assisted by matte paintings made by Peter Ellenshaw. Walt's faith in Ellenshaw's skill was one of the main reasons that he decided that they didn't need to film in Ireland. The matte paintings are very beautiful and help establish the scenes as opposed to distracting from them. 

Disney did a lot of promotion of the movie beforehand, most notably with the Disneyland episode, "I Captured the King of the Leprechauns" which aired in late May of 1959. In the episode, Irish actor Pat O'Brien tells Walt of the leprechauns, causing Walt to take a journey to Ireland. Walt meets Darby O'Gill, and finally the king of the leprechauns himself, King Brian. This was all portrayed as if it was a true story, so I imagine many kids started looking in their back yards for evidence of leprechauns. Disney went as far as to not credit any of the leprechaun actors in the film, as to help the illusion that leprechauns were real. The film had its worldwide debut in Dublin on June 24th, 1959, with the U.S. premiere taking place two days later in Los Angeles. While in Dublin, Walt and his wife Lillian met with the president of Ireland, who joined them, along with a large group of underprivileged youths, in watching an early screening of Darby O'Gill and the Little People. The movie was not without its controversy. People in Ireland considered it to be full of stereotypes and the likes of actor Cyril Cusack and Chief Justice (and future President of Ireland) Cearbhall O'Dalaigh picketed the film's debut in Dublin, though they were admittedly excited about having a Disney premiere taking place there and liked Walt Disney himself. 

The film was given mixed reviews when it was first released with people targeting Sharpe's strong performance and some complaining about Connery's more wooden performance. Even if reviewers weren't blown away by the overall plot or performances, they couldn't help but give credit to Disney for the visual effects. Current reviews on the film are very positive, as it enjoys a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Leonard Maltin praised the film calling it "not only one of Disney's best films, but is certainly one of the best fantasies ever put on film." Janet Munro would win a Golden Globe in 1960 for New Star of the Year. Walt was not satisfied with the film's earnings (only 2.6 million) and blamed the lack of star power (he had wanted Barry Fitzgerald who was much more well known than Sharpe, but Fitzgerald was getting old and turned the role down) and American audiences not being able to understand the accents. He would have the film dubbed over to help with this perceived problem. 

Is this a movie you grew up on during March, or is this the first time you're hearing about it? If it's the latter, check it out this year and get lost in this hidden gem!