Ollie Dee and Stannie Dum try to borrow money from their employer, the toymaker, to pay off the mortgage on Mother Peep's shoe and keep it and Little Bo Peep from the clutches of the evil Barnaby. When that fails, they trick Barnaby, enraging him.
Practical Effects
Giant wooden soldiers that probably gave kids actual nightmares.
Acting
Brandon's Barnaby: pure theatrical malice in tights.
Production
Toyland sets so elaborate they feel accidentally psychedelic.
Director
Gus Meins
Stan Laurel
Stannie Dum
Oliver Hardy
Ollie Dee
Charlotte Henry
Little Bo Peep
Henry Brandon
Silas Barnaby
Felix Knight
Tom-Tom Piper
Virginia Karns
Mother Goose
Florence Roberts
The Widow Peep
Richard Alexander
King's Guard (uncredited)
Scotty Beckett
Schoolboy (uncredited)
Billy Bletcher
Chief of Police (uncredited)
Eddie Borden
Demon Bogeyman (uncredited)
Bobby Burns
Townsman (uncredited)
Ellen Corby
Townswoman at Tom-Tom's Trial (uncredited)
Jean Darling
Curly Locks (uncredited)
Charles Dorety
Townsman (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The wooden soldiers were reused in Disney's 'Babes in Toyland' (1961) after Stan Laurel himself suggested the remake to Walt Disney.
This 1934 version is darker than the Victor Herbert operetta it's based on—Barnaby's forced-marriage plot and the Bogeymen sequence pushed family-film boundaries for the era.
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