On March 8, 2021, Norton Juster had died, he was academic and architect. He also was the writer of the book "The Phantom Tollbooth"; this blog post was in the planning stages before he died. but we might as well finish it and talk about the film version of the book that was animated by Chuck Jones.
"The Phantom Tollbooth" is a book written by Norton Juster hat came out in 1961. The book is about a boy named Milo, who wasn't interested in learning, or anything, really. And the journey he takes to find things interesting. We are going to be looking at the film adaptation from 1970. (Actually...the movie was completed in 1968 but they delayed it because reasons) It's also another case of the author not liking a movie that was made of his book, this happens. This movie is MGM and was their last animated studio released before they gave up.(Quitters!)
This movie was put together by the legendary Chuck Jones. After his work on the short film based off another Juster book "The Dot and the Line" which won an Academy Award for Animated Short. MGM wanted a "Toolbooth" feature movie. (My Goodness Mollie) This movie wasn't a box office hit. (Oh well) I guess it's time to look at this movie.
Wow! The animation is great for 1960's , I mean wow! This city image looks real, not even CGI can do this in modern days what the heck?! (Uhh) The humans look like actual people this animation is ....(whispering to the dumb person writing this) ohhhh this animated movie starts out with live-action, that makes sense. This movie got Butch Patrick to the main character, Milo, you might know Butch Patrick from "The Munsters" he played Eddie. If you didn't watch "The Munsters" Go watch the munsters! It starts with Milo being moody and walking through a city. (San Francisco) Also this is when credits ran at the start of the movie so.... we get to see those.(Yay!)
This animation is great! It's so life like! Copyright MGM
I do like the late 1960's aeshteic of the live-action, it's just nice in own way, probably boring to those in 1967 or whatever but it's nice to see in our modern times.
Milo gets a phone call from someone named Ralph and talk about everything is a waste of time. (They become nihilists) Then Milo hears a loud thump and sees a giant present in his room he goes to it and wonders what it is. (Don't try this at home) The box says "For Milo, who has plenty of time" He follows the instructions and it turns into a tollbooth. (hey the title) Then he's given a car and has to figure out a destination on he map. He choses the Castle in the air. Then he turns into animation. (There we go , movies is animated now) But first, he has to play around for a bit. The animation is a "Yes you can tell this is Chuck Jones." animation. He's going to Dictionopolis but first meets a robot officer who runs off when he mentions the Castle in the air, which has ominous music playing, so that's good.
This movie has very well used and well known voice actors in it. Mel Banc has few roles stating with Officer Short Shift, In the land of Expectations, Milo meets The Whether Man who is voiced by Daws Butler who also has a few roles in this movie as well. This movie is word play the movie , it's like the Whether man instead of the weather man.. Milo gets sleepy while driving the car(uhhh) he's seeming too much to enjoy this and goes the a bad way, called Doldrums. (Like I said, word play the movie)
melting/ Copyright MGM
Thurl Ravenscroft plays the role of Lethargians. The Lethargians tell him he ended up there because he wasn't thinking. Oh there's a song, nice. A dog shows up who scares the Lethargians but tries to wake up Milo. The dog wants him to get to before things go bad and makes him literally think his way out. The dog decides to join him, his name is Tock (get it WATCH dog) who is voiced by Larry Thor. He has a song about time being gift.
Wow Max. you grew up under the grinch/ Copyright MGM
There's two kingdoms : Dictionopolis which believes that words are better than numbers and Digitopolis which believes the reverse. There's also the mountains of ignorance.. which leads to the Caste in the Air. (Loud thunder noises). Now Milo and Tock meet Dr. Kakofonous A. Dischord (what?) who called the Doctor of Dissonance. The doctor being the doctor of dissonance says that Milo's problem has a problem of not having noise. (That's a thing?)
Help/ Copyright MGM
Another song , time about noise. This sequence uses all the art they want as well. They leave the noisy doctor. Meanwhile, letters are growing on trees, this world is interesting. I mean that the aesthetic is really interesting and inventive. Milo and Tock have made it to Dictionopolis. This town is very much much focused on words, the little jokes are fun to see. There's The Spelling Bee who likes to spell out things. This movie would be fun for anyone learning words, though it might be too much at once, might work better in the book or something. The Spelling Bee has a competition with The Humbug, I'm glad we whatever this feud is going on. Officer Short Shrift returns and decides to arrest Milo because it's somehow his fault the dumb bee and humbug caused chaos. Milo and Tock have been through in the dungeon for six million years.
Look at nature!/ Copyright MGM
June Foray lends her voice to this movie, the first character she voices in this one is The Not-so-Wicked Which (Get it) she says why she's in the dungeon that rhyme and reason were gone. Rhyme and Reason were princesses who decided that to tell king of numbers and words, that both are important, equally, and those two didn't like that so they banished the princesses and threw the which in the dungeon.
She gets nice kitchen in the dungeon/ Copyright MGM
We can't have Milo in jail this whole movie, so the plot gets him out of there. King Azaz (get it?) is having a banquet. Milo tells the king he's been sentenced and mentions the numbers which are illegal.(Arrest the officer then?) Now it's banquet eating time. Milo tries to convince the king to bring back Rhyme and Reason. The Humbug is stung by the Spelling bee and ends up going with Milo and Tock to get the princesses. Now they go to Digitopolis first.
I have an important pose/ Copyright MGM
They meet The Dodecahedron because it's time for math terms. He tells Milo how to get into the city by remembering math. (That's the power of math!) Now the The Mathemagician now has a song about numbers. He's the Azaz's brother and the king of the math world. He would like to bring back Rhyme and Reason and Milo uses mind power to get things done, and he agrees. (yay!)
I have a big pencil/ Copyright MGM
This journey continues with madness. A figure wants wants them to move stuff that's large and makes them try to move sand with tweezers. He's also easily defeated. Later they meet a giant who doesn't like ideas and melts.(hmm I see) Then the other demons come to get them. So, Milo uses the power of numbers and letters to defeat these beings. But one goes too far, the watch dog is hurt, because they are mean. Milo has Humbug watch him while he finds the princesses.
These princess are glowing/ Copyright MGM
Apparently, the princesses planned for this to happen, he was the chosen one. They tell him that he was perfect for the role, and also mention that doing mistakes is good thing. The Wether Man shows up to help the plot along and get Milo and the Princess from being no longer trapped. Tock will live! Rhyme and Reason fix everything.
Milo makes it back to his world and live-action and finds out that he's been gone only five minutes. It ends with him talking to Ralph and Ralph finding his own tollbooth. (Were they sequel baiting?)
Huh? Copyright mgm
I'm measuring this movie based off the movie ,not the book, to measure the merits of the adaptation by itself, a standard protocol on this blog. There's a few messages that this movie is trying to place upon it's viewers. Like, there is value to education, as the plot has Milo using information he learned to get through problems he had. It also says time is valuable use it well, it's a mixture of saying that you should do value things with your time but you can also use your time to be creative (I mean that's how the book exists) just don't be doing nothing.
Maybe it's the movie being a movie versus a book and it feels like it's trying to rush a lot to the viewers in the 90 minutes it has to it. That it does have a lot to take in. I do love the word play, it's top notch. It might be fun for a kid to learn some new words in a movie too. The movie is visually fun, you get to see Chuck Jones' and the MGM team have fun with this movie. It's well done and charming, even the Live-action section also has nice feel to it. I do say check it out for a fun little movie based off a good book.
That's our lookback, tune in next time when we get back on our ride to find out what letters taste like.
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