G is for The Gnome-Mobile (1967), Film #235

The Gnome-Mobile is one of three featuring child actors Matthew Garber and Karen Dotrice. When I point out that the other two are the excellent The Three Lives of Thomasina and Mary Poppins, it should be obvious that this one would be the weakest. But I wasn’t prepared for just how weak it would be.

Starring Walter Brennan in a double role as the children’s grandfather timber mogul D.J. Mulrooney and the elder gnome Knobby (whose people have been displaced by Mulrooney’s business interests), this is a slight film with forgettable songs and a story that barely qualifies as a plot.

The kids befriend Jasper (Tom Lowell), a young adult gnome who wants to marry, but has no women in his forest, where the gnome population is reduced to just him and his grandfather, Knobby. The kids convince their grandfather to drive the gnomes to a new home (re-naming his car, you guessed it, “the Gnome-Mobile” in an embarrassingly vapid song). Danger ensues when a carfty showman steals the little people and when Mulrooney’s second-in-command has him committed for claiming that gnomes exist. (A plot element that is never actually resolved.)

Some decent effects and Disney’s typical 1960s quality production values can’t rescue a film without a decent story or songs or, sadly, performances from a cast that all did much better in similar circumstances elsewhere.

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