The Phantom Tollbooth (1970)

Like Chuck Jones' earlier "Gay Purr-ee," this is a good film for those who are looking for something good, if decidedly different, in family entertainment. Mel Blanc, June Foray, Shepard Menken, etc., contribute their usual outstanding voice work (The scenes with Blanc as "Officer Short Shrift," especially, are a howl!), and the visuals, as one would expect from Jones, are consistently outstanding and imaginative.

Not that the film is without its' faults, by any means. The songs, by veterans Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss, range from the clever ("Don't Say There's Nothing to Do in the Doldrums," "Time Is a Gift") to the treacly ("Henceforth and Forthwith"). The moralizing, more pronounced here than it was in the original Norton Juster book, gets to be a bit heavy-handed at times. And, finally, Butch Patrick (Best known as "Eddie Munster" on "The Munsters") plays Milo, the central character, as such a whiney little jerk, at least in the beginning, that it's hard to work up much sympathy for him as the story goes on. Plus, even though he was still short for his age, there was no disguising the fact that he was, in every other way, a fast-maturing fifteen year old, and, thus, just a bit too old for the procedngs.

But, and I have to emphasize this again, don't let you stop you from seeing this movie. The result is more than the sum of its parts, and good, alternative family entertainment is what you get.