Another publicity shot from the 1962 movie "40 Pounds of Trouble" starring Tony Curtis & Suzanne Pleshette. Here's the accompanying vintage publicity blurb:
WORKING ON BOATS
A closeup of scene filmed from a second boat during a movie chase in Disneyland. The camera was focused on Tony Curtis, Suzanne Pleshette, and Claire Wilcox, as a six-year-old girl who is the "trouble" of the film title to Curtis.
—WIDE WORLD PHOTO, 5/1/62
See more "40 Pounds of Trouble" photos on my main website.
Thanks to a previous post of yours, I bought that movie and LOVED IT!
ReplyDeleteI've never seen it. Does a lot of it happen in Disneyland or only a small part? If its a lot, I might have to track it down :-)
ReplyDeleteNow I'm interested. I think I have seen this before since I recall a movie with scenes from SBL, but can't be sure.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
JG
I believe there's about 15-20 minutes worth of color footage in Disneyland...it's pretty amazing.
ReplyDeleteI have the DVD of 40 Pounds of Trouble. The Disneyland sequence is exactly 20 minutes. It does give a good long look at much of the park as it was in 1962, but it also drives any true Disneyland afficiandao nuts, since the geography is all screwed up. (At one point they get off the monorail, and they are overlooking Main Street, the monorail having apparently dropped them off at the Main Street Train Station, an impossibility.)
ReplyDeleteThey show stuff you would never see there, like a 1962 phone booth in the walkway leading up to the Tomorrowland entry, and a guy sellng souvenirs there on a folding card table. Yes, that would happen --- ON MARS MAYBE!
While on the phone in the non-existent phone booth, the person Tony Curtis is on the phone with hears the train whistle in Main Street, the Mark Twain whistle in Frontierland and the firebell clanging at the Fire Station, and is able to deduce Tony is at Disneyland. (He's a fugitive at this point) It's just that NONE of those sounds would be audible where Tony is.
Once the bad guy starts chasing Tony, he runs all over the place, leaping barriers, running into exits and tunnels (At one point he runs into one tunnel, and then emerges FROM A DIFFERENT TUNNEL ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK!!!!), all as though there was no such thing as Disneyland security, and running about the park on a path that anyone familiar with Disneyland georgraphy knows is nuts and impossible. He even steals an outboard moterboat that is docked on Tom Sawyer's Island for no known reason. He sees the guy chasing him in the Tom Sawyer Treehouse, and runs off, but wherever he goes, the guy chasing him is always ahead of him, although unless he could fly, that would be impossible. (Tony also steals a Fantasia dancing mushroom costume, which he wears for just long enough to take it off in front of the guy chasing him, making his wearing it pointless in the first place. WHERE DID HE GET IT FROM??)
So as a documentation of how the park looked in 1962, it's fine and fun, but it requires a suspension of disbelief that is gigantic.
When the film was first released, the Disneyland sequence was ballyhooed in all the ads and posters, with Disneyland getting billed like a guest star, all the more bizarre since this was not a Disney film, but a cheesy romantic comedy loosely based on Damon Runyon's Little Miss Marker, previously filmed with Shirley Temple.
I should add for fans of the old parking lot that the sequence ends with a good-sized dialogue scene between about six characters, shot out in the parking lot. You also get to see a lot of the then-brand new Nature's Wonderland.
One mustn't forget that Tony Curtis was also at Disneyland Opening Day, and was seen briefly on Dateline Disneyland, the live Opening Day TV telecast.
ReplyDeleteThat's the magic of movie making. :)
ReplyDeleteDave, there are a bunch of great screen caps from 40 Pounds of Trouble on MiceAge:
ReplyDeletehttp://miceage.micechat.com/allutz/al021610a.htm
Personally, I think the amount of vintage DL footage in the movie is worth the price of the DVD. And the rest of the movie isn't too bad either!
ReplyDelete"TokyoMagic! said...
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think the amount of vintage DL footage in the movie is worth the price of the DVD. And the rest of the movie isn't too bad either!"
I agree about the Disneyland footage. It's certainly why I bought the DVD, but as to the rest of the movie, it's a merely average mid-60s rom-com, with waaaaay too much of the supposed-to-be-cute-but-actually-highly-annoying little girl. There are worse rom-coms from the era, and it does have an excellent cast, but as 60s rom-coms go, it's no Some Like It Hot. If you thought Doris Day movies were hilarious (Someone must have. They made a lot of them), you might find 40 Pounds of Trouble mildly amusing. For me, without the Disneyland sequence, the film is a well-cast bore. Nicely photographed.