Monday, November 04, 2024
Monday Trouble Trio
Today’s post has three new (to me) publicity stills from the 1962 movie, “40 Pounds of Trouble” which had a sequence filmed at Disneyland. The first shot shows Suzanne Pleshette, Claire Wilcox, and Tony Curtis drinking milk (Disney sponsor Carnation, of course!) behind the Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship. They are wearing Halloween masks as disguises; Pleshette as Kruschev, Wilcox as Castro, and Curtis as JFK. The ship’s parrot (Paco) can be seen caged in the background:
This vintage slide from December 1962 (same time as the release of the movie) shows the Pirate Ship in full color:
Zooming in you can see the area where the three sat, including the parrot cage:
From July 1962:
The same seating area from the reverse angle, with a better shot of the Paco, the talking parrot:
Why were they wearing masks? In the movie, Tom Reese’s character was attempting to catch them, chasing them throughout the Park. Here he is in the Skull Rock cove area, with the Skyway pylons in the background:
How Skull Rock looked in color, circa September 1962:
The area where Reese was standing (note the matching light fixtures):
Here, the three leads are being pursued through Tom Sawyer Island over the pontoon bridge:
…and a color view from 1960:
While this remake of “Little Miss Marker” is not a very good film (critic Bosley Crowther called it “too hackneyed and dull”), the fifteen minute Disneyland sequence is a great record of vintage Disneyland.
See more “40 Pounds of Trouble” photos at my main website.
Thanks to your mention of this movie, I saw it a couple of years ago. Not going to lie, it's a tough watch. I thought I'd at least enjoy the bits filmed in Disneyland but I didn't. Everything was so out of order, and the disrespect for Disney property is only paralleled by today's entitled customer, stepping over barriers, etc. I'll appreciate the novelty of seeing Tony Curtis run through places a guest simply cannot walk, and the vintage footage too, but beyond that this movie had no redeeming value. They do make for some great stills, though.
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