Category: Children - Comedies - Family - Feature Film Family - Movie
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DVD Pollyanna (Vault Disney Collection)
Optimism shines in this classic 1960 Disney film starring Hayley Mills. When the newly orphaned Pollyanna comes to live with her wealthy aunt in Harrington Town, life looks promising. Despite her aunt's insistence on propriety and modesty, Pollyanna's cheerful, optimistic ways spread throughout the town--converting even a cantankerous recluse and a whining hypochondriac. Only Aunt Polly has trouble welcoming her young niece into her heart. In a clash between the townspeople and Aunt Polly over local politics, it's Pollyanna's influence that helps individual townspeople find the inner strength to stand up for their own beliefs. When Pollyanna is involved in a serious accident, Aunt Polly finally realizes how much she loves her niece. Can Aunt Polly and the entire town somehow restore Polly's optimism and ensure a full recovery? Pollyanna is wholesome entertainment that will leave the entire family eager to play the "glad game." --Tami Horiuchi
Review(s): DVD Pollyanna (Vault Disney Collection)
Entertaining
This was requested by our great granddaughter and will receive it as a gift for Christmas. I'm sure she will enjoy it tremendously.
I'm Glad I Saw It, But I Won't See It Again Soon
Pollyanna Whittier (Hayley Mills) has had a hard life. Her parents have recently died, so the little girl is sent to live with her aunt Polly (Jane Wyman).
Polly is the only surviving adult heir of the Harrington family. As such, she is extremely rich. But she also has the responsibility of running the town, named Harrington after her family. With so many people depending on her, Polly has developed a pessimistic view on life. She does things out of duty, not because she wants to do them.
Into this world comes Pollyanna. She is an optimist. In fact, her family invented the "Glad Game." When Pollyanna starts to be overwhelmed by bad things, she looks for something to be glad about no matter the circumstances.
While Pollyanna's attitude has no effect on her aunt, it slowly begins to work on the town of Harrington. But can Pollyanna's attitude change the one person in town who needs it most?
I've been interested to see this movie for years. It was filmed in my hometown, and I've driven by Aunt Polly's house I don't know how many times. I finally got a chance to see it, and I'm glad.
The movie is entertaining. Maybe because I'm an adult, I got drawn into the politics in the town. I was actually more interested in that then in watching Pollyanna work her charm on the grumps in town.
The biggest problem with the movie is the pacing. There are several repetitive scenes and scenes that would be cut for today's short attention span audiences. Maybe if I had seen this as a kid I wouldn't mind, but as an adult, I found myself watching the clock at times to see how much longer the movie would run.
Add to that the climax. Instead of being properly developed, the movie ends abruptly. I want to know what happened next. Still, I had come to care for the characters, so I was emotionally affected by the ending.
This movie is well worth watching once. However, Disney has released better films over the years.
A Sweet-Natured, Family Film With a Fine Performance by Hayley Mills
I'll admit it...I like the movie. A lot. The story line -- the little orphan who unselfconsciously endears herself to others through her optimism and uncomplicated view of things -- could, in less expert hands, make a pig gag. Instead, and thanks in large part to Hayley Mills' performance, we have a sweet-natured family film which any number of adults may enjoy, especially if they watch it with their children. What I like about the movie:
1. Hayley Mills. She was a child actor who had talent and an un-pushy, natural personality. She wasn't a little tricked-up beauty queen who looked like a cheap doll. She just seemed like a nice, shrewder-than-you'd-expect kid. I doubt if the movie would have worked anywhere near as well as it does without Mills. For a look at just how versatile and good she was as a child, look at the movies Tiger Bay made the year before Pollyanna and Whistle Down the Wind made the year after. These are complex, serious stories about children and adults. Mills does much to make them as good as they are.
2. The by-play between Mills and Kevin Corcoran as Jimmy Bean. The two work well together without being icky. Corcoran was just about as unself-conscious a young actor as was Mills. The scene the two of them share with Adolphe Menjou when they first meet this mysterious old crank and then are taken into his home is fine ensemble acting before ensemble acting had a name.
3. Adolphe Menjou. As the ironic, smart curmudgeon who finds he has a heart after all, Menjou gives an expert performance. Watch him as the manipulating lawyer in Roxie Hart; he's uproarious. Or the political general in Paths of Glory; he's reprehensible. He brings a lot of welcome skeptical relief to the movie.
4. Jane Wyman. She had a tough role. We had to start out seeing her as rigid, judgmental, controlling and unsympathetic...then Wyman had to let us see a little vulnerability that would make us question our first impression...then Wyman had to let us see that Polly actually was a woman we might like and who could love a man. Not easy. I thought Wyman did a good job.
5. The scene when Karl Malden as the churchman finally stands up to Polly during his sermon. This is a setting that's as old as the hills (the mouse stands up to the squire, to the mayor, to the general, to the...) and it still works. We love seeing the self-righteous get theirs, and this is an emotionally satisfying scene.
Pollyanna is an optimistic, sweet movie but with a little vinegar sprinkled here and there.
The Disney touch is all over this grand, colorful version of the Johann Wyss adventure of a European family set off for the new world of New Guinea. The film opens on a ship jostled and torn by a raging storm while a family struggles to make it through alive. Tossed into a reef near a deserted tropical island, father John Mills takes charge and the family soon turns their island prison into a veritable paradise. Their multilevel tree house, built in record time, is complete with running water and a working pipe organ scavenged from the ship, while their grand yard is abloom in English roses. As a tale of hardship and pioneer pluck, the tale is pure fantasy, but as entertainment it's energetic and appealing. The island is impossibly populated by ostriches, zebras, lions, and elephants, a... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Ken Annakin - Jack Hannah DVD Release Date: Released the 07 May 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This classic 1963 Disney film features child icon Hayley Mills as Nancy Carey, a teenage girl whose family moves from Boston to the New England countryside as a result of their father's untimely passing. Nancy writes to the kindly Mr. Poppem (Burl Ives) and single-handedly convinces him to rent the family a charming, if run-down, house for a mere $60 a year. Ever the optimist, Nancy brims with excitement at the family's new life, but this "perfect world" has its problems--notably an absentee landlord who knows nothing about the Carey family's rental agreement. Through hard work and Mr. Poppem's continuing generosity, the Careys fix up the house and find life in the rural Maine town quite satisfactory. Things become tense when their cousin Julia arrives for an... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Hayley Mills - Dorothy McGuire Director(s): James Neilson DVD Release Date: Released the 03 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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I am 35 years old and got tired of watching this movie on the Hallmark Channel with all the commercials. I finally broke down and purchased the version with the sequel so it would appeal to my eight year old niece. Just as I thought she liked the older version best. We watch it everytime I babysit. I must have seen it at least 50 times and its always fresh and new as the very first time. More Info about this DVD Director(s): David Swift (II) - Ronald F. Maxwell DVD Release Date: Released the 27 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Hayley Mills was well on her way to adulthood when she found intrigue and chaste romance on the island of Crete in this 1964 Disney attempt at Hitchcock in one of his lighter moods. That means the principals do wind up in a hearse trapped on a narrow street by celebratory but ominous masked paraders. And that seemingly good guys can and do turn out to be bad guys and vice versa. But it's Disney and Mills, so there are no deaths in this mystery, although gunplay and some scariness do earn it a PG rating. Based on the Mary Stewart novel of the same name, this 118-minute film finds Mills and her aunt visiting a Cretan village on holiday. In the face of hostility from their innkeeper's brother (Eli Wallach), the pair befriend a fellow Brit. The young man's escapades with jewel thief... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Hayley Mills - Eli Wallach - Pola Negri Director(s): James Neilson DVD Release Date: Released the 14 January 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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In Search of the Castaways was Hayley Mills's third feature for Disney, an agreeable adventure--loosely based on a Jules Verne story--with enough derring-do to make kids happy and with the right touch of self-conscious silliness to keep adults smiling. Mills plays Mary Grant, a missing freighter captain's daughter convinced her father is still alive somewhere in Earth's southern hemisphere. With the help of her brother (Keith Hamshire) and a veteran seaman (an extremely unlikely if charming Maurice Chevalier), Mary convinces a shipping magnate, Lord Glenarvan (Wilfrid Hyde-White), to set sail and find the missing Captain Grant. The team survives freezing weather, avalanches, a menacing condor, an active volcano, Maori captors, and a plot by a slick George Sanders to steal a ship.... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Maurice Chevalier - Hayley Mills - George Sanders Director(s): Robert Stevenson DVD Release Date: Released the 03 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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