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Darby O'Gill and the Little People
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Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
Find all by Walt Disney Video
Directed By: Robert Stevenson
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Theatrical Release: June 26, 1959
Average Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
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Retail Price: $14.99
Online Sale Price: $10.99
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Starring: Albert Sharpe, Janet Munro, Sean Connery, Jimmy O'Dea, Kieron Moore
Take a wee bit of ancient folklore, mix in some spectacular special effects and a magical cast (including Sean Connery) -- and you've got one of the most enchanting fantasies of all time! A frisky old storyteller named Darby O'Gill is desperately seeking the proverbial pot of gold. There's just one tiny thing standing in his way: a 21-inch leprechaun named King Brian. In order to get the gold, Darby must match his wits against the shrewd little trickster -- which proves no small task, indeed! Fall under the spell of DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE for a fun-filled evening of magic, mirth, and nonstop shenanigans!
User Submitted Darby O'Gill and the Little People Reviews
November 29, 2008
Great kids movie and good for adults too!
The movie was excellent. It was entertaining, had a good story and brought a bit of the Irish folklore to the screen. I and my children loved it.
October 2, 2008
Disappointed
I was delighted when the DVD arrived but, very disappointed when I realised that I would not be able to view it on my Aussie TV because it was not the correct format for Australia :(
Regards,
Miss Terry O'Connor
August 29, 2008
back to my childhood
First seen when Sean Conery and I were both a lot younger. A great fantasy of celtic culture and music - a movie all the family can watch.
August 22, 2008
Darby....
Cute classic from Disney. It is very entertaining for those of us raised on these movies. I doubt it would be interesting to teens of today though. It is good and clean. I can recommend it for the whole family.
Darby is full of his stories of the little people. After he catches one, all stuff breaks loose. He just has to prove that he hasn't lost his mind and get the right husband for his daughter.
August 18, 2008
Not Up To Snuff
"Darby O'Gill and the Little People" is given some highly rated reviews here at Amazon.com (which is why I bought it) but it misses the mark, I think, when it comes to being the type of movie we want to watch again and again.
Darby O'Gill is the name of an old Irish man who is a poor caretaker for a rich man's estate in a small Irish village around the year 1900. Darby and his daughter Katie have lived in the gate house (on the estate) for more than 20 years, but old Darby would rather spend his time at the local pub ... drinking stout (a strong dark beer) and telling his leprechaun stories ... instead of doing his caretaker work ... which is why the estate owner decides to bring in a new man (Michael) to replace him ... forcing Darby and his daughter to move out.
But Darby lives a charmed life in that he is the only person in the village who has seen real live leprechauns. Some of the people in the village believe Darby's stories ... some don't ... but Darby himself never wavers in his respect and honor for "the little people". Darby also tries to out-fox the leprechauns ... matching wits with the king leprechaun himself ... to get the three wishes that are given to anyone who captures a leprechaun. It is during these encounters that the movie is at its most fun. Darby's daughter Katie and the new caretaker Michael hit it off, and this gives the movie some moments of romance too. But there are also some ... unsavory story lines in "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" and it is at these moments that we want to use the "fast forward" button to get to the fun parts.
Albert Sharpe was hand-picked by Walt Disney to play Darby, and he delivers his lines convincingly ... with flair and humor ... but he is, well, hard to look at, and it is hard to want to be on his side. Janet Munro was chosen to play Katie, and she is pretty and all that, but she doesn't have the depth of goodness ... the honesty and humbleness of spirit ... that makes a girl pretty on the inside ... something I think it is fair to expect from a poor Irish girl like Katie. Sean Connery plays Michael, and he mugs it up for the camers pretty much, but he doesn't really look or act like a caretaker. Jimmy O'Dea plays the leprechaun king, and he is wonderful ... the heart of the movie's appeal and fun.
The DVD comes with an "extra" that explains how the special effects were done ... mostly how the actors portraying the leprechauns were made to look small ... and it is truly amazing to see the effort and ingenuity that went into them. Peter Ellenshaw, the man who supervised the special effects, is the real star of this movie.
But "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" misses the mark for high quality entertainment, which is too bad because it had the makings of a classic. It is the writing of the story ... the first, and by far the least expensive, stage of the movie making process, but it's the area where movie makers invariably do their worst work ... and in "Darby" too many unpleasant story lines were allowed to creep in to what should have been a thoroughly charming movie.
July 24, 2008
When You Wish Upon A Star
Disney has released some good movies the last few years but nothing can beat the movies they released 20 to 30 years ago. I love the older movies and really enjoyed this one as a child as well as after I became an adult. The special effects are pretty good too considering the era in which the movie was made.
July 15, 2008
Great Gift
I bought this a as a gift for my sister in law and she absolutely loved it!
June 15, 2008
Sure to make you glad of your Irish heritage
Long ago, back in old Ireland, there lived a caretaker named Darby O'Gill (played by Albert Sharpe), who had many tales of his encounters with the king of the Leprechauns. But who could have known that they were not made up? And when Darby's replacement shows up (played by a young Sean Connery), it throws everything into an uproar. But never sell Darby O'Gill short, nor King Brian.
This is an excellent Disney movie that dates back to 1959. It's a lot of fun, sure to make you glad of your Irish heritage, even if you don't have one. The story is very good, and the special effects are excellent for the time. But, even more so, it's the excellent actors that make this movie, really bringing their characters to life.
Overall, my family and I really enjoyed this movie, and we highly recommend it to you and your family. Even the extras are great, including a show on Sean Connery and the movie, a show on the making of the movie (those guys were wizards!), and a 50 minute Disney special.
By the way, you might recognize Jack MacGowran playing Phadrig Oge, he also played Feeney, Squire Danaher's lackey in The Quiet Man.
June 9, 2008
Really great movie especially during St. Patricks Day
Fun movie. It's an older Disney movie but still had fun special effects and a really young Sean Connery (007) who I had never seen in this type of role. My kids have watched it at least 50 times since we bought it so it was money well spent. There's little people, singing, scary banshees, and pots of gold. Especially fun durning St. Patty Day.
May 7, 2008
Excellent image quality, charming special effects.
First of all, it must be said that unlike the videotape version, which is blurry and almost unwatchable, the DVD version is crystal clear and is as sharp any contemporary television program.
The story is excellent for kids. There is the contrast between good and evil, namely, a sneaky brute who likes to pick fights, versus Sean Connery, who is honest and charming.
Fantasy scenes abound, for example we see a leprechaun being changed into a rabbit. We see mountainsides spontaneously opening up where inside can be found dancing leprechauns and treasure chests spilling over with gold coins.
DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE is set in a small Irish town. Darby O'Gill is an old widower who likes to pass the time telling stories at the pub, to the delight and disbelief of others. As long as town priest Father Murphy isn't around, Darby spins yarns about the little people who he has encountered at a hilltop known as Knocknasheega. Meanwhile, Katie, his daughter, is content to take care of things at home, and insists she doesn't have time or great desire for a love.
One day Lord Fitzpatrick arrives in town and delivers the news that Darby is to be replaced as caretaker of the Lord's estate. Rather than upset his daughter with the word of his retirement, Darby tells her that the caretaker-to-be is merely helping with some house work. That man is Sean Connery, a polite, young fellow who feels that Darby should let his daughter in on things.
Darby has another task in mind. He's to ride into the next town and bring back the new church bell for Father Murphy. At night, while he's trying to get his horse, he falls down the well atop Knocknasheega and plummets down the well and into the world of leprechauns.
Here, a wonderland sequence depicts Darby amongst countless leprechauns. Darby encounters the legendary King Brian Connors the 5,000-year-old leprechaun monarch (just under two feet tall). King Brian explains that Darby has been brought to their world as a favor, allowing him to escape the disappointing early retirement he faces in the other world. This scene is accompanied by Irish fiddle music, fiddling with lightning speed.
The leprechauns can only work their magic when it is dark out, and while a leprechaun will grant you three wishes, making a fourth wish negates the three before. General merriment ensues as Darby plays the fiddle and the leprechauns do hundreds of heel clicks and assorted clogging steps. The music, supplied by fiddles and pipes, is a wonder to behold.
In another scene, Darby tricks the King into staying with him all night, in an episode where Darby and the King exchange dozens of silly rhymes. The exchange of rhymes occurs in a barn, and a nearby horse engages in many amusing expressions, a feature of the film sure to amuse every kid. Another highlight, is that Darby teases the King by allowing a cat to chase the King about the barn, and the King hides behind the spokes of a wagon wheel to protect himself, the spokes resembling a jail cell. The King and Darby resume their laughing exchange of silly poems, but once the rooster crows at dawn, and the sun comes out, the King has lost his powers (e.g., to jump through doorways) and Darby succeeds in capturing the King and puts him into a bag. Then Darby demands his three wishes. (I don't reveal the ending.)
I saw this movie when it first came out, in a theater in Philadelphia. It was a hot day. I was only eight. Although the movie has scary parts, I was not particularly scared. I found the banshee part about as scary as the plague scene in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, a movie released a year or so before DARBY O'GILL.
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