Gene Kelly pioneered dancing with cartoon characters when he teamed with Jerry the Mouse in Anchors Aweigh (1945). Years later, when directing Invitation to the Dance (1952, released 1956), Kelly put himself into an entire animated segment. Both examples were handled seamlessly by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera of MGM’s animation department.
In 1967, Kelly worked with them again when he produced, directed, and starred in the one-hour TV special Jack and the Beanstalk. It won an Emmy for Best Children’s Program, beating out ABC’s Discovery series and two Peanuts specials. Now that it’s available on demand from Warner Archive, we can perceive that this is the least impressive of Kelly’s three animated experiments, and there’s no way it should have trumped It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
A rather loud and affected Jack (Bobby Riha) gets swindled out of his cow for “magic beans”, thanks to a “Yankee peddler” named Jeremy (Kelly). Since Kelly is inserting himself into the story and intends to go with Jack up the beanstalk, he can’t be a real swindler, but rather seems to be steering Jack in a magical direction, as though he already knows what will happen. This is part of the show’s strategy of avoiding all the sadness and trauma that’s normally a part of fairy tales. Jack doesn’t even get into trouble with his mom for the beans, and sagely puts himself to bed without supper. Then the animated stalk springs up, its vines gesturing coyly to Jack, and the rest is follows the familiar story structure.
The beanstalk land is animated, while the real world down below is live action. The tone is pitched at very young kids who might get bored and restless with all the pointless dancing with birds and mice, while dance fans will find the antiseptic, protracted adventures grating. It’s carefully explained that the giant is an evil tyrant who stole everything and kidnapped everyone, so it’s okay when he presumably falls to his death off-screen in the film’s only passing nod to violence. The peddler even takes primary responsibility for the gianticide.
Kelly assembled a lot of talent, beginning with the song team of Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn. Although they’re no slouches, these songs settle for relentless “inspirational” cheer that’s only partly salvaged by glibly clever lyrics. Legendary cartoonist Alex Toth not only worked on layout but designed the costumes. The live sequences are shot by innovative, Oscar-winning photographer Hal Mohr, and the production designer is Theobold Holsapple, best known for distinctive sci-fi like Rocketship X-M and The Fly. Kelly’s choreography is classic Kelly.
The biggest technical let-down is the main attraction: the layering of live action onto animation, whose seams betray a TV budget despite what must have been technological advances since the first two projects.
Ted Cassidy, best known as Lurch on The Addams Family, growls the giant’s voice. Marni Nixon, famous for dubbing the singing of others like Natalie Wood in West Side Story and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, gets a prominent credit as the singing voice of the harp. We still don’t get to see her in person, for when she turns out to be the double of Jack’s mother in the real world, Mom is played by Marian McKnight, and when the harp speaks, it’s with Janet Waldo’s voice — Judy of The Jetsons. Jack doesn’t do his own singing either; it’s Dick Beals, known as Gumby, Alka-Seltzer’s Speedy, and Davey of Davey and Goliath.
So what we have is a lot of good people converging in a mediocre entertainment, Emmy or no Emmy. We shouldn’t be surprised that this never became a TV perennial, although it might offer nostalgia for those who caught it way back when. The disc offers no extras.