Thumbelina is Over-the-Top, But Liking it is No Impossible Thing

For Valentine’s Day, I gave my parents the new Barry Manilow album featuring songs from the fifties. It’s a good album, and his voice is well suited to those standards. Barry’s from the era of most of my favorite singers, but I must admit to only a passing familiarity with him, mostly from appearances on Good Morning America (and one on American Idol). Truth be told, when I hear his name, the first thing I see is not his face but that of a black and white bird in a floppy hat; the first thing I hear is not his voice but someone with a phony French accent rhapsodizing on the glory of love. The first thing I think of is not Copacabana but a fairly overlooked little animated feature by the name of Thumbelina, a Don Bluth effort that takes on the Hans Christian Anderson tale with mixed results.

The reason I think of Barry, of course, is that he wrote all of the songs for this film, and they’re pretty good. We’re introduced to Thumbelina in a song of the same name, and it’s the first time we get to hear her sing. I can’t help but be reminded of The Little Mermaid, another classic Andersen adaptation, as Jodi Benson plays the title character, again a teenager with a gorgeous singing voice who dreams of falling in love with a handsome prince. Having lived a quiet life on a farm with her adoptive mother after being born in a flower, she has never met anyone close to her own size. Well, except baby chickens. But those don’t exactly count.

Anyway, most of the songs in the movie offer Thumbelina a chance to sing at some point. She moons over her book of fairy tales, dreaming of the day when a handsome prince will come and sweep her off her feet, and I’m reminded of Snow White’s wishing well song. Cornelius, the prince of the fairies, doesn’t join in her singing, but he does make a dramatic entrance at this point, much to Thumbelina’s astonishment. Then it’s off for a romantic ride atop a bumblebee in Let Me Be Your Wings, a song strongly reminiscent of Aladdin’s A Whole New World. I wonder if that scene drew any inspiration from the Disney classic that preceded it or if it was just a coincidence.

The next song doesn’t remind me of a Disney song, though. It’s a salsa-flavored number performed by a troop of singing toads (of which Charo plays the leading member). The toads are seasoned performers, and Thumbelina gets caught up in the fun of their song for a while, until it becomes clear that these toads who kidnapped her want her to become a permanent part of their act - and marry into the family. I can’t think of too many self-respecting gals who would want to marry a toad, but Thumbelina has an even more forceful reason not to agree to the marriage. She’s in love with Cornelius - and not with the toad. But now she’s stuck with this new wacko family and can’t figure out how to get away.

This is where the bird finally comes in. We see him before, at the very beginning, but Thumbelina does not meet the romance-obsessed swallow until this point. His name is Jacquimo, if that is indeed the correct spelling. I was going to say Giacamo or something like that, but I’ll trust imdb on this one. At any rate, whatever the spelling of his name, he is perhaps the movie’s most important character, serving as narrator, inspiration, facilitator. This bird makes things happen because he believes so deeply in love. He’s a Bohemian deep down. He lifts Thumbelina out of her helpless despair by singing, “You’re sure to do impossible things if you follow your heart!” Okay, I just got a flash of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. I can’t escape it. All these fairy tales sort of start to sound the same after a while.

But I am rather amused by all this talk of love, both by Thumbelina and her faithful flying friend. She just met Cornelius the night before. Granted, that was quite a whirlwind ride he took her on, but nonetheless their association lasted maybe 20 minutes. Usually I can accept this in this sort of movie, but they keep going on and on about how Thumbelina loves the prince, and after a while it gets to me. It was love at first sight because they’re the same size. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s handsome. And has wings. Anyway, they hammer the notion into our heads far too much. She should be thinking about her mother right now - and to her credit she does, but every other minute it’s “Oh, I love Cornelius so much and now I’ll never see him again.” This girl is also seriously pessimistic. It doesn’t take much to discourage her. “Oh, I’m stuck on a lily pad! How will I ever escape these evil toads?” Never mind that they’ve left her all alone. Silly girl.

As Thumbelina continues to try to find her way home, the fairies, who are handily in charge of the weather, can’t hold off winter any longer, which means plenty more problems for the little lady. First, though, she must contend with the sleazy Mr. Beetle, played by the ever-obnoxious Gilbert Gottfried. He hires her to entertain for the six-legged crowd at a sort of bug nightclub, but she must wear an elaborate costume lest the guests suspect she is not actually an insect. This is almost certainly the most annoying song in the movie. Thanks a bunch, Gilbert.

When that gig ends badly, leaving Thumbelina to doubt herself once more, she is caught in a snowstorm and rescued by Ms Field mouse (Carol Channing), an overbearing motherly type who decides that in gratitude for saving her life, Thumbelina should agree to marry Ms Fieldmouse’s friend, Mr. Mole (John Hurt), a stuffy, wealthy, middle-aged fellow who hates the sun, about which Thumbelina sings wistfully, but loves this newcomer’s singing voice. The mouse entreats Thumbelina with a song of her own, a clever and cynical little ditty about how love is less important than money when it comes to marriage.

That’s it for the original songs, though there are reprises when the happy ending inevitably comes. Ultimately I think I prefer Danny Kaye singing about Thumbelina for five minutes to an hour and a half of her over-the-top adventures; it seems a small heroine should have a small story to accompany her. But with Benson’s beautiful voice, Barry’s songs and Bluth’s style, it’s not a bad flick. Nowhere near American Tale, Land Before Time or Anastasia in my book, but a fun movie nonetheless and likely the sort that little girls will ask to watch again and again.