The Phantom Tollbooth (1970)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Sorry, this movie sucks

Just perfect...

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Now this feature length animated film is a real blast down memory lane, in fact I'm confident many won't have even heard of this. The film is an adaptation of another classic children's book of the same name by Norton Juster and very much along the same lines as 'Alice in Wonderland' or 'The Wizard of Oz'. In fact you could say all three stories are a trilogy of uber classic fantasy tales but like I said I don't think many folk have heard of this one.This cutesy little tale follows Milo, a young schoolboy, with a drab boring life...or so he thinks. One day after school he starts chatting on the phone to his friend about how dull life is when a strange box appears in his room. This box speaks to Milo and eventually reveals itself to be a tollbooth, a tollbooth that apparently leads into another world. Reluctantly Milo decides to venture through the booth and winds up in a surreal yet colourful world inhabited by odd creatures and wacky people. Milo is soon lead on an adventure to save a couple Princesses from a strange castle in the sky along with a few companions he meets along the way.Produced by the legendary Chuck Jones who was at the peak of his greatness coming off a string of massively successful Looney Tune cartoon shorts and 'Tom & Jerry' (amongst other things). Watching the movie you can clearly see Jones influence on the overall visuals with many backgrounds and structural designs being highly reminiscent of his Looney Tunes work. Not only that but a few of the characters look a bit familiar too, almost a little too familiar, even going so far as to throw in the same ideas from his back catalog. For example the character of Chroma the conductor not only looks like a chubby conductor from the Bugs Bunny cartoon 'Long-Haired Hare', but at times their facial expressions are identical also (I think it was that Looney Tunes toon).Speaking of Bugs Bunny its no great shock to find that the awesome Mel Blanc was also utilised here too. He provides voices for three characters in the film and its pretty easy to work out who they are because they all kinda sound like Bugs Bunny. Most of the other characters are voiced by people I don't know admittedly (very different era), but the lead character of Milo is portrayed by Butch 'Eddie Munster' Patrick in the live action sequences and voiced by him in the animated sequences. The film is bookended by live action sequences in the real world, the present day (1970's San Francisco). At the start we see Milo moping around until the tollbooth pops up. This is a very brief yet highly enjoyable sequence as we see Milo leaving school and travelling home through urban Frisco. The scenery is really lovely and just shows how pleasant Frisco would have been to live in at that time...at least for me being a Brit. The sequence where Milo meets the tollbooth is also really great fun and always got me excited as a child. Its so very charming and adorable plus it really captures the moment perfectly with some really neat effects and those wholesome vivid 60's visuals which always look so good. There is another great little moment where Milo discovers he appears in cartoon form once crossing the tollbooth barrier which is typically Chuck Jones, again its simple but effective. From there on as Milo goes through the tollbooth the film crosses over into full animation and doesn't go back to live action until Milo comes back across the barrier.This isn't just any old silly fantasy filled with monsters and heroes oh no, like the source material its actually very smart. The reason being because everything within the 'Kingdom of Wisdom' is a play on words...puns, idioms and metaphors galore. Most of the characters and evil creatures are named by simple word plays or puns such as The Spelling Bee which is a bee that has a large extended vocabulary, Dr. Kakofonous A. Discord who likes to make loud noises and unpleasant sounds or The Terrible Trivium, a demon that lives in the mountains of ignorance and wastes your time with trivial meaningless tasks. The same goes for various locations like the Doldrums where all the slimy lifeless creatures live in a constant state of inactivity, tiredness and depression and their surroundings are swamp-like, murky and colourless.Some characters are more normal looking but all appear to be for educational purposes I guess, yet they all still have there clever amusing quirks. King Azaz the Unabridged who rules Dictionopolis (words) for instance...you get it? Or his brother The Mathemagician and ruler of Digitopolis (numbers). Together they both battle and argue over what is more important in life...words or numbers. I especially liked King Azaz's advisors...the Duke of Definition, Minister of Meaning, Count of Connotation, Earl of Essence and the Undersecretary of Understanding...all of whom looked exactly the same. Its not just the characters and locations either, the dialog is top heavy with the same kind of wit also. Such as Milo enjoying a feast with King Azaz where they all tuck in and eat their own words.The visuals are passable by today's standards but a little sketchy admittedly, its nice to see hand drawn animation and its all very Chuck Jones. The similarity to the classic Warner Bros. Looney Tunes visual style assists for sure but its still not the same quality and way behind the likes of Disney. I must also add that the film can be a little scary in places I think...for younger kids. The monsters towards the end are quite horrendous looking considering its aimed at kids, plus the animation style used for them adds to the scare factor. The Terrible Trivium always did give me goosebumps when I was young with his emotionless faceless mannequin-like head.Whilst the plot is rather mundane (saving two Princesses from some generic evil) its the witty dialog and visuals that make things interesting. Whilst the story holds all the magic and wonder that will enthrall kids of various ages it will also teach them a bit about Maths and English...maybe. At the same time its also a solid watch for adults too with its word trickery, it would take many viewings for kids to grasp everything they see, if they can look beyond the colourful creations on display. I tend to think of this as a poor man's 'The Sword in the Stone' (Disney)...a touch of music, a dabble of fear and a wheelbarrow full of imagination.6.5/10

SPOILER ALERT!!! I haven't watched the movie, but if it is anything like the book, then it is really a waste of your time. Milo hates his life and then he magically gets imported to a magical land of metaphors, not wisdom. And in the end, after his self-changing journey, he goes back to Earth and of course, classically, only one hour has passed. And then he looks at the world differently. He notices small things; he loves school and everything much more. It's definitely different from Modern Movies. I would rate this as a very bad book. Especially because about every one to three chapters, a bunch of characters are jumping from one place to the next ("Jumping to Conclusions") and there are about 50 characters in the whole book, and I lost track after Milo, Tock, Tick, The Mathemagician, King Azaz, Rhyme, Reason, The Humbug and the Which. Also, if you are looking for a realistic read, never read this book. It's very fantasy, except it's not actually a "fantasy", because there is nothing good that happens in it! If you are going to read it, get it from the library. Don't waste your money.

A youngster from San Francisco, bored with school and with time to kill, is offered an educational round-trip from a Phantom Tollbooth; he turns animated and takes a journey to the Castle in the Sky, where Rhyme and Reason have been banished by Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, the feuding worlds of words and numbers who each believe they are most important. Uneven animated feature (with live-action prologue and epilogue featuring Butch Patrick) is an erratic but interesting adaptation of Norton Juster's book, punctuated with musical interludes (and some odd "Wizard of Oz"-isms). Veteran animator Chuck Jones co-wrote the script and co-directed the animated sequences (the first and final cartoon effort from MGM). Jones makes a mistake getting our young hero stuck in the Doldrums in the first act (there's no fascination in lethargy), but he picks up the pace soon after. Digitopolis has a nifty look (and lively Hans Conried as the MathemaGician), and there's a lovely "conducted" sunset and an exciting race to the castle. The animation is alternately crude, clumsy, expressive, colorful, and routine, and the songs are an equally mixed lot (they're pleasant, if not especially catchy). Patrick has a marvelous deep voice for a little kid, but he isn't given anything clever to say; better are Conried, June Foray and Mel Blanc in the voice-over department. Not too popular with child audiences at the time, this may have been a bit high-brow for the matinée crowds. If anything, the film has improved with age, and some of it is quite imaginative. **1/2 from ****

I have loved the Phantom Tollbooth since I was a young boy, when my Father first rented it from our local video shop. After that, my brother and I seldom missed the opportunity to rent it out again if we could, and even today we can probably quote the entire film to each other, or to anyone who would want to listen for that matter.Made by MGM in 1970, The Phantom Tollbooth pretty much remains faithful to Norton Juster's book but gets brought right up to date, (for the time that is), and given a good dose of phsycodelia.Milo, (Butch Patrick), is a bored young boy who lives in San Fransisco, one day a mysterious box appears in his bedroom, which contains a magic tollbooth which, when passed through takes Milo into a cartoon world called the Kingdom Of Wisdom. A Kingdom ruled by two warring brothers. King Azaz of Dictionopolis whose iron rule is that words are more important than numbers, and The Mathemagician of Digitopolis, who holds the view that numbers are far more important than words.In order to restore some sanity back to the land he agrees to rescue the Princesses Rhyme & Reason from the Castle In The Air. But first he has to overcome certain obstacles, such as The Doldrums and their inhabitants, The Lethargians who want to stop Milo for Eating, Sleeping and even Breathing. He has to escape the clutches of Kakofonous A. Dischord a mad scientist that wants to stop Milo from ever hearing pleasant sounds again, which he tries with the aid of his accomplice the Awful Dynne (wonderfully voiced by none other than Candy Candido). Officer Short Shrift is a unicycle cop with a insatiable fondness for arresting people for no good purpose. and the Demons of Ignorance who wait in the mountains guarding the approach to the Castle In The Air.It's not all doom & Gloom though, as Milo does encounter many allies to aid him on his journey. There is Tock The Watchdog, Mr Humbug, The Spelling Bee who, by his own admission, can spell any word that has ever been written in any language, anywhere, The Whetherman and his sister Faintly Macabre, The not so wicked Which, (and no, they are not misspellings).Every Character in the Phantom Tollbooth is in fact a not too disguised Metaphor for something else. be it impatience, sloth and greed, but the film also shows a remedy for these negative traits.The most famous of all the people who lent their vocal talents to the movie, is none other than voice of Bugs Bunny, Mel Blanc. If Lon Chaney was the 'Man of a Thousand faces', then Blanc surely was The Man of a Thousand Voices' Unless you're really sensitive about everything, there is nothing in The Phantom Tollbooth that could offend anyone. It's a film that can be watched whether you're 8 or 80 and still get the same thrill from it. I'm also thrilled that my children are also fans of this film that meant so much to me when I was their age, and I hope it is something that they will pass on to THEIR children too.Enjoy!