Rating: 
Summary: The Enchanted World of Hans Christian Andersen
Review: "The Daydreamer" has some really cool animagic sequences. Boris Karloff's song and dance bit with the Rat and the Mole is one of the best things I have seen from Rankin/Bass. The underwater sequence is great, with Burl Ives, Hayley Mills and Tallulah Bankhead playing the leads of The Little Mermaid, Father Neptune and the Sea Witch.However, overall "The Daydreamer" is a mediocre film. The live action bits are pretty bad, with nothing really passing for acting or a storyline on display. The producer went the wrong direction, buy banking on the large cast of stars who are mostly unknown today. Given that this is a mediocre film, I would have wished for a better DVD to make up the difference. "The Daydreamer" just doesn't have the punch necessary to pull of a DVD without accompaniment. Paired with "The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye: The Emperor's New Clothes" and you would have had a must-buy. The addition of any other Rankin/Bass animagic special would have been appreciated.
Rating:
Summary: The Enchanted World of Hans Christian Andersen
Review: "The Daydreamer" has some really cool animagic sequences. Boris Karloff's song and dance bit with the Rat and the Mole is one of the best things I have seen from Rankin/Bass. The underwater sequence is great, with Burl Ives, Hayley Mills and Tallulah Bankhead playing the leads of The Little Mermaid, Father Neptune and the Sea Witch. However, overall "The Daydreamer" is a mediocre film. The live action bits are pretty bad, with nothing really passing for acting or a storyline on display. The producer went the wrong direction, buy banking on the large cast of stars who are mostly unknown today. Given that this is a mediocre film, I would have wished for a better DVD to make up the difference. "The Daydreamer" just doesn't have the punch necessary to pull of a DVD without accompaniment. Paired with "The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye: The Emperor's New Clothes" and you would have had a must-buy. The addition of any other Rankin/Bass animagic special would have been appreciated.
Rating:
Summary: Charming but uneven
Review: As has been previously written, this film is by Rankin and Bass the team responsible for the holiday classics Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. This fillm is more ambitious and more uneven than either of those two favorites. They simply expanded on holiday legends/songs in a bright highly satisfying way. This film is a partial live action drama which features Chris (Paul O'Keefe) a young Hans Christian Anderson, whose father (Jack Gilford) is a penniless cobbler, escaping his desperate life to search for the Garden of Paradise and dropping into three Hans Christian Anderson stories (The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes and Thumbelina all in the company's signature puppet inspired Animagic) on the way. This material has a lot of potential and the film does have some lovely sequences particularly during the Little Mermaid and Thumbelina sections. Maury Laws' songs don't reach the heights of Santa Claus or his wonderful work on The Little Drummer Boy but are tuneful and create a mood of wistful wonder. The character of Chris is fascinating too in that he initially seems simply a good hearted boy but often unintentionally betrays and abandons the characters around him and the animated sections have a darker tone than most children's programming. The religous tones (which are true to the Hans Christian Anderson original tales) in several of the stories also make this darker than the usual Rankin and Bass holiday fare. There are problems. Often the film resorts to silly musical comedy routines to pull the audience out of the darker edges of the animated material. Jack Gilford performs in an almost vaudevillian broad comedy style and seems so powerless and impotent as Chris' father that one hopes that Chris is never forced to return home. Ray Bolger's charm is utterly wasted in his performance as the pieman and Paul O'Keefe's pleasant voice is undermined by the improbability of the situation (he's been captured for poaching and being led by rope down the middle of the town's square as the townsfolk cavort in the clearly underfunded big production number) that he's found himself stranded in. And the questions about Chris' character and his family's desperate financial straits are never resolved. Still despite these qualms the film has undeniable charm and a certain magic pull in places. I still felt a magic shiver when Chris, caught in a seemingly inescapable situation, spies a flower magically opening up to reveal Thumbelina and a way to escape. I would certainly recommend this film to families to view together--just don't expect a seamless masterpiece or a film even as satisfying the Rankin and Bass Christmas specials. I remember seeing this film as a child on television. I remember, even then, the print being muddy and the colors being washed out and skips cutting out moments of dialogue. What a pleasure it is to see this new DVD version of this film. The colors are full and bright and there is no bleeding and the sound is free of any pops and scratches. Not quite the labor of love their Mad Monster Party disc was but does include a brief history of the film in the insert.
Rating:
Summary: Charming but uneven
Review: As has been previously written, this film is by Rankin and Bass the team responsible for the holiday classics Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. This fillm is more ambitious and more uneven than either of those two favorites. They simply expanded on holiday legends/songs in a bright highly satisfying way. This film is a partial live action drama which features Chris (Paul O'Keefe) a young Hans Christian Anderson, whose father (Jack Gilford) is a penniless cobbler, escaping his desperate life to search for the Garden of Paradise and dropping into three Hans Christian Anderson stories (The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes and Thumbelina all in the company's signature puppet inspired Animagic) on the way. This material has a lot of potential and the film does have some lovely sequences particularly during the Little Mermaid and Thumbelina sections. Maury Laws' songs don't reach the heights of Santa Claus or his wonderful work on The Little Drummer Boy but are tuneful and create a mood of wistful wonder. The character of Chris is fascinating too in that he initially seems simply a good hearted boy but often unintentionally betrays and abandons the characters around him and the animated sections have a darker tone than most children's programming. The religous tones (which are true to the Hans Christian Anderson original tales) in several of the stories also make this darker than the usual Rankin and Bass holiday fare. There are problems. Often the film resorts to silly musical comedy routines to pull the audience out of the darker edges of the animated material. Jack Gilford performs in an almost vaudevillian broad comedy style and seems so powerless and impotent as Chris' father that one hopes that Chris is never forced to return home. Ray Bolger's charm is utterly wasted in his performance as the pieman and Paul O'Keefe's pleasant voice is undermined by the improbability of the situation (he's been captured for poaching and being led by rope down the middle of the town's square as the townsfolk cavort in the clearly underfunded big production number) that he's found himself stranded in. And the questions about Chris' character and his family's desperate financial straits are never resolved. Still despite these qualms the film has undeniable charm and a certain magic pull in places. I still felt a magic shiver when Chris, caught in a seemingly inescapable situation, spies a flower magically opening up to reveal Thumbelina and a way to escape. I would certainly recommend this film to families to view together--just don't expect a seamless masterpiece or a film even as satisfying the Rankin and Bass Christmas specials. I remember seeing this film as a child on television. I remember, even then, the print being muddy and the colors being washed out and skips cutting out moments of dialogue. What a pleasure it is to see this new DVD version of this film. The colors are full and bright and there is no bleeding and the sound is free of any pops and scratches. Not quite the labor of love their Mad Monster Party disc was but does include a brief history of the film in the insert.
Rating: 
Summary: A little-known gem from the makers of Rudolph and Frosty!
Review: Award-winning animation producers Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass, fresh from the success of the now-classic TV special RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, aimed extremely high for this ambitious live-action/animated musical fantasy. The story is a fictionalized account of the young life of Hans Christian Andersen, with Paul O'Keefe (Patty Lane's brother on the PATTY DUKE SHOW) as "Chris" and Jack Gilford (COCOON) as his Papa. Chris enters the animated stories of THE LITTLE MERMAID, THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES and THUMBELINA. There are also references to other Andersen tales like "The Garden of Paradise," "Big Claus" and "The Ugly Duckling." Even though some of the production values betray the fact that Executive Producer Joe Levine expected Mary Poppins but only provided a Tom Terrific budget, there is a lot to like in THE DAYDREAMER: a star-studded, perfectly selected voice cast, impressive AniMagic stop-motion art direction, and a knockout score by Maury Laws (check out "The Cartoon Music Book" on amazon.com) and Jules Bass. Fans of the late AL HIRSCHFELD will want to see the caricatured opening sequence; fans of THE WIZARD OF OZ will enjoy Margaret Hamilton's feisty cameo, fans of THE LORD OF THE RINGS will have fun comparing this to the Rankin/Bass production of THE HOBBIT released 11 years later and how far they had come since. Even Oleg Cassini designed the Emperor's New Clothes! The live-action sequences were directed by Ezra Stone, who starred as Henry Aldrich on radio and by that time was directing THE MUNSTERS. If you visited the 1964 World's Fair, look for the Denmark pavilion doubling for the streets of Odense.
Rating:
Summary: Another lost RANKIN/BASS gem!
Review: I agree with everything GREG said in his review! Can't tell you how much I am looking forward to this DVD And.....I worked on it. Just wanted to point out a few things. There are two opening credit sequences on the film at the beginning. One that is live-action with PAUL O'KEEFE in his boat and then one that follows with the HIRSCHFELD art and the ANIMAGIC figures. Joe Levine decided to play on the names and moved the ANIMAGIC credit sequence from the end of the picture to the front. I advised to move the sequence to the end of the film BUT apparently when the transfer was made...it was forgotten about. Oh well, I do love that sequence and I guess it is ok at the beginning... This sequence can also be seen in the trailer (Which is an EASTER EGG on the MAD MONSTER PARTY DVD: You have to click BORIS' beaker on the EXTRAS page). My favorite ANIMAGIC sequences in this film are THE LITTLE MERMAID section (which features some neat HAUNTED scenes: Ghost Ship, SEA WITCH, etc.) and I love the THUMBELINA section with the HUGE FROG and then their trip into snowy weather to meet the RAT (BORIS KARLOFF). BEAUTIFUL 'ANIMAGIC' sequences in this film!
Rating:
Summary: Another lost RANKIN/BASS gem!
Review: I agree with everything GREG said in his review! Can't tell you how much I am looking forward to this DVD And.....I worked on it. Just wanted to point out a few things. There are two opening credit sequences on the film at the beginning. One that is live-action with PAUL O'KEEFE in his boat and then one that follows with the HIRSCHFELD art and the ANIMAGIC figures. Joe Levine decided to play on the names and moved the ANIMAGIC credit sequence from the end of the picture to the front. I advised to move the sequence to the end of the film BUT apparently when the transfer was made...it was forgotten about. Oh well, I do love that sequence and I guess it is ok at the beginning... This sequence can also be seen in the trailer (Which is an EASTER EGG on the MAD MONSTER PARTY DVD: You have to click BORIS' beaker on the EXTRAS page). My favorite ANIMAGIC sequences in this film are THE LITTLE MERMAID section (which features some neat HAUNTED scenes: Ghost Ship, SEA WITCH, etc.) and I love the THUMBELINA section with the HUGE FROG and then their trip into snowy weather to meet the RAT (BORIS KARLOFF). BEAUTIFUL 'ANIMAGIC' sequences in this film!
Rating:
Summary: animation parts are fun, live action puts you to sleep
Review: I know there are a lot of people who love this movie. I personally enjoyed all the talented people who lent their voices to the animated characters. And sure, the DVD image is as flawless as a new release print can be. Yet the combination of several Anderson Fairy Tales and poorly written live action dialogue connecting all the animation left me wishing that about 15 minutes had been trimmed. The story of a real boy who learns about how to become an unselfish person is basically a good one and he meets lots of interesting animated characters along the way, but some actors are wasted (Ray Bolger & Margaret Hamilton). It feels like the producers had access to these people and tried any way they could to fit them into the production, unfortunately at the expense of good pacing. If you are a Rankin/Bass completist, then pick this up, you won't be disappointed. Otherwise for most of us it will make a decent rental.
Rating:
Summary: animation parts are fun, live action puts you to sleep
Review: I know there are a lot of people who love this movie. I personally enjoyed all the talented people who lent their voices to the animated characters. And sure, the DVD image is as flawless as a new release print can be. Yet the combination of several Anderson Fairy Tales and poorly written live action dialogue connecting all the animation left me wishing that about 15 minutes had been trimmed. The story of a real boy who learns about how to become an unselfish person is basically a good one and he meets lots of interesting animated characters along the way, but some actors are wasted (Ray Bolger & Margaret Hamilton). It feels like the producers had access to these people and tried any way they could to fit them into the production, unfortunately at the expense of good pacing. If you are a Rankin/Bass completist, then pick this up, you won't be disappointed. Otherwise for most of us it will make a decent rental.
Rating: 
Summary: The Daydreamer:An Enchanting Family Treasure
Review: This film is a fictional account of Hans Christian Anderson life. It switches between the life action adventures of Anderson as a young man and the stop motion segment of Anderson's stories. This is terrific introduction to the stories of Hans Christian Anderson. Although the stop-motion animation may look outdated in comparsion to computer generated effect of today, it is a refreshing change from today's rough animation that dominates television today. This movie is geared towards children; however the plot is so engaging and the music is so charming that adults will have no promblem sitting through this with their childrens.
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